The Court of Cacus; Or, The Story of Burke and Hare. Alexander Leighton

my brother Bill,” said the girl, as she ran to open the door; “I fear he has been drinking.”

      The door being opened, the “Ship, ahoy” entered; and what was the horror of Liston and his friend when they saw a round, good-humoured sailor staggering under the weight of that identical bag and its contents which they had placed behind the hedge only a very short time before!

      “There,” cried the blustering lad, who had clearly enough been drinking, as he threw the heavy load on the kitchen-floor with the something between a squash and thump which might have been expected from the nature of the contents—“there, and if it aint something good, rot them chaps there who stole it.”

      “What is it?” said Mary.

      “And why should I know? Ask them. Didn’t they put the hulk behind a hedge when I was lying there trying to wear about upon t’other tack? What ho!” he continued, “where did you heave from? But first let’s see what’s the cargo.”

      And before the petrified students could bring up a sufficient energy to interfere, Bill’s knife had severed the thick cord which bound the neck of the bag. Then mumbling to himself, “What under the hatches?” he exposed, by rolling down the mouth of the bag, the gray head of a man.

      The tar’s speech was choked in a moment, and while the girl uttered a loud scream, and rushed out into the darkness, there stood the brave seaman, whose courage was equal to an indifference in a hurricane of wind or war, with his mouth open, and his eyes fixed in his head, and his arms extended as if waiting for the swing of a rope; all which culminated in a shout of terror as he ran after his sister, and left the field to those who could not by their own arts or exertions have got the command of it. So true is it that man’s extremity is also not only God’s opportunity, but sometimes his own, though against His will and His laws. Not a moment was to be lost. Without binding again the bag, the burden was again upon the back of the now resolute Liston, and without having time to pay for their warm drink, or to remember Mary for her smiles, the adventurers were off on their way to the beach.

      Of all the unfortunate places on the banks of the estuary resorted to for these midnight prowlings, no one was more remarkable than that romantic little death’s croft, Rosyth, near to Limekilns. Close upon the seashore, from which it is divided by a rough dike, and with one or two melancholy-enough-looking trees at the back, it forms a prominent object of interest to the pleasure parties in the Forth; nor is it possible for even a very practical person to visit it, when the waves are dashing and brattling against the shore, to be unimpressed with the solitude and the stillness of the inhabitants, amidst the ceaseless sounds of what he might term nature’s threnody sung over the achievements of the grim king. Often resorted to by strangers who love, because they require the stimulus of the poetry of external things, the more, perhaps, because they want the true well-spring of humanity within the heart, it is a favourite resort of the inhabitants of the village, where bereaved ones, chiefly lovers of course, sit and beguile their griefs by listening to these sounds, which they can easily fancy have been heard for so many generations, even by those who lie there, and who have themselves acted the same part. The few old gray head-stones, occasionally dashed by the surf, have their story, which is connected through centuries with the names of the villagers; and such melancholy musers find themselves more easily associated with a line of humble ancestors than can occur in the pedigrees of populous towns. Surely it is impossible that these holy feelings can have a final cause so indifferent to Him who, out of man’s heart, however hardened, “brings the issues of love,” that it can be overlooked, defeated, and mocked by that pride of science of which man makes an idol. The ludibrium referred to by Lucretius is in this instance, at least, of man’s making; and if it is conceded to be necessary that the bodily system should be known, that necessity, which is so far of man’s thought, must be restricted by that other necessity, which is altogether of God’s.

      It was not to be supposed that this romantic mailing should escape the observation of our anatomist. Nor did it; and we are specially reminded of the fact by an admission made by Liston himself, that, unpoetical and rough as he was, an incident once occurred here which touched him more than any operation he ever performed. On this occasion he and his friends had made use of a boat specially hired for the purpose—a mode of conveyance which subsequently passed into a custom, before the Limekilns people were roused from their apathy, and became next to frantic under circumstances which left it in doubt whether any one of them, husband, wife, father, mother, or lover, could say that their relations had not been stolen away from their cherished Rosyth. The adventurers studied their time so well that their boat would get alongside of the dike under the shade of night, and they could wile away an hour or two while they watched the opportunity of a descent. They were favoured by that inspissated moonlight, which was enough for their keen eyes, and not less keen hands, and yet might suffice to enable them to escape observation. But just as they were about to land they observed the figure of a young woman sitting near one of the head-stones. The stillness all about enabled them to hear deep sobs, as if the heart had been convulsed, and tried by these efforts to throw off the weight of a deep grief. The story was readable enough even by gouls, but so intent were they on their prey that they felt no response to these offerings of the stricken heart to Him who, for His own purposes, had struck it. The scene continued beyond the endurance of their patience, and science, as usual, murmured against Nature’s decrees; but at length she who was thought an intruder rose, and after some movement of the arms, which came afterwards to be understood, slowly left the spot.

      The coast, as the saying goes, was now at last clear, and with a bound the myrmidons overleaped the wall. They were presently on the spot where the female had been seated, and even in their hurry observed that the heart-broken creature had been occupied as her last act by throwing some silly bits of flowers over the grave,—signs which as little physically as morally interfered with their design of spoliation. In a few minutes the object they sought was in their possession, and if there was any care more than ordinary observed in putting all matters to right on the surface, it was the selfish wish to keep so convenient a place free from those suspicions which might bar another visit. Nay, so heartless were they, that one of the party, whether Liston himself we cannot say, though it would not have been unlike him, decorated his jacket by sticking one of the slips of offering into the button-hole. They now hurried with their burden to the boat and pushed off, but they had scarcely got beyond a few yards when they saw the same figure hurrying to the dike. The light of the moon was now brighter, and they could easily observe the figure as it passed hurriedly, as if in great excitement, backwards and forwards, occasionally holding out the arms, and uttering the most melancholy sounds that ever came from the human heart. It might be that as yet she had hope in mere adjuration, but as the boat moved further and further away, there came a shrill wail, so piercing that it might have been heard even at the distance of the village. But heedless of an appeal, which nature responded to faithfully by an echo, they rowed away, still hearing, in spite of the splash of the oars, the same wail as it gradually became faint in their increasing distance. At length they could hear nothing but the sweltering of the waters, and Rosyth with its solitary mourner bade fair to be forgotten under the Lethe of the flask, which on such occasions was never awanting.

      This story was very soon made readable to Liston and the others by the concatenation of certain very simple circumstances. A newspaper report which Liston had seen some days before, had announced the death, by drowning, of a young sailor belonging to Limekilns. The account was sufficiently lugubrious for any readers; but the editor, as usual, had mixed up with it, whether truly or not, the old story of love and impending marriage; the object too being, of course, young, brave, virtuous, and comely. Then came the account of the funeral, also touchingly given. But it seemed that all this poetry had been thrown away upon the ardent anatomist; nor even when afterwards, in the hall, he became satisfied that he had secured the right object, would he in his heart admit that he had in this adventure done anything more than would be justified by the use he could make of his knowledge in ameliorating physical evils in his fellow-men, however dearly that advantage might have been acquired in the agony of that figure he had left wailing at Rosyth. Yet it is but fair to say that Liston himself admitted that the sound of that cry, the sight of those wringing hands, and the rapid goings to and fro of the shade on the shore, never passed from his memory.

      Robert