Tales and Fantasies

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'Thank you,' said Alexander.

Before noon a detective had restored to John his money, and
brought news, sad enough in truth, but perhaps the least sad
possible. Alan had been found in his own house in Regent
Terrace, under care of the terrified butler. He was quite
mad, and instead of going to prison, had gone to Morningside
Asylum. The murdered man, it appeared, was an evicted tenant
who had for nearly a year pursued his late landlord with
threats and insults; and beyond this, the cause and details
of the tragedy were lost.

When Mr. Nicholson returned from dinner they were able to put
a despatch into his hands: 'John V. Nicholson, Randolph
Crescent, Edinburgh. - Kirkham has disappeared; police
looking for him. All understood. Keep mind quite easy. -
Austin.' Having had this explained to him, the old gentleman
took down the cellar key and departed for two bottles of the
1820 port. Uncle Greig dined there that day, and Cousin
Robina, and, by an odd chance, Mr. Macewen; and the presence
of these strangers relieved what might have been otherwise a
somewhat strained relation. Ere they departed, the family
was welded once more into a fair semblance of unity.

In the end of April John led Flora - or, as more descriptive,
Flora led John - to the altar, if altar that may be called
which was indeed the drawing-room mantel-piece in Mr.
Nicholson's house, with the Reverend Dr. Durie posted on the
hearthrug in the guise of Hymen's priest.

The last I saw of them, on a recent visit to the north, was
at a dinner-party in the house of my old friend Gellatly
Macbride; and after we had, in classic phrase, 'rejoined the
ladies,' I had an opportunity to overhear Flora conversing
with another married woman on the much canvassed matter of a
husband's tobacco.

'Oh yes!' said she; 'I only allow Mr. Nicholson four cigars a
day. Three he smokes at fixed times - after a meal, you
know, my dear; and the fourth he can take when he likes with
any friend.'

'Bravo!' thought I to myself; 'this is the wife for my friend
John!'

THE BODY-SNATCHER

EVERY night in the year, four of us sat in the small parlour
of the George at Debenham - the undertaker, and the landlord,
and Fettes, and myself. Sometimes there would be more; but
blow high, blow low, come rain or snow or frost, we four
would be each planted in his own particular arm-chair.
Fettes was an old drunken Scotchman, a man of education
obviously, and a man of some property, since he lived in
idleness. He had come to Debenham years ago, while still
young, and by a mere continuance of living had grown to be an
adopted townsman. His blue camlet cloak was a local
antiquity, like the church-spire. His place in the parlour
at the George, his absence from church, his old, crapulous,
disreputable vices, were all things of course in Debenham.
He had some vague Radical opinions and some fleeting
infidelities, which he would now and again set forth and
emphasise with tottering slaps upon the table. He drank rum
- five glasses regularly every evening; and for the greater
portion of his nightly visit to the George sat, with his
glass in his right hand, in a state of melancholy alcoholic
saturation. We called him the Doctor, for he was supposed to
have some special knowledge of medicine, and had been known,
upon a pinch, to set a fracture or reduce a dislocation; but
beyond these slight particulars, we had no knowledge of his
character and antecedents.

One dark winter night - it had struck nine some time before
the landlord joined us - there was a sick man in the George,
a great neighbouring proprietor suddenly struck down with
apoplexy on his way to Parliament; and the great man's still
greater London doctor had been telegraphed to his bedside.
It was the first time that such a thing had happened in
Debenham, for the railway was but newly open, and we were all
proportionately moved by the occurrence.

'He's come,' said the landlord, after he had filled and
lighted his pipe.

'He?' said I. 'Who? - not the doctor?'

'Himself,' replied our host.

'What is his name?'

'Doctor Macfarlane,' said the landlord.

Fettes was far through his third tumbler, stupidly fuddled,
now nodding over, now staring mazily around him; but at the
last word he seemed to awaken, and repeated the name
'Macfarlane' twice, quietly enough the first time, but with
sudden emotion at the second.

'Yes,' said the landlord, 'that's his name, Doctor Wolfe
Macfarlane.'

Fettes became instantly sober; his eyes awoke, his voice
became clear, loud, and steady, his language forcible and
earnest. We were all startled by the transformation, as if a
man had risen from the dead.

'I beg your pardon,' he said, 'I am afraid I have not been
paying much attention to your talk. Who is this Wolfe
Macfarlane?' And then, when he had heard the landlord out,
'It cannot be, it cannot be,' he added; 'and yet I would like
well to see him face to face.'

'Do you know him, Doctor?' asked the undertaker, with a gasp.

'God forbid!' was the reply. 'And yet the name is a strange
one; it were too much to fancy two. Tell me, landlord, is he
old?'

'Well,' said the host, 'he's not a young man, to be sure, and
his hair is white; but he looks younger than you.'

'He is older, though; years older. But,' with a slap upon
the table, 'it's the rum you see in my face - rum and sin.
This man, perhaps, may have an easy conscience and a good
digestion. Conscience! Hear me speak. You would think I
was some good, old, decent Christian, would you not? But no,
not I; I never canted. Voltaire might have canted if he'd
stood in my shoes; but the brains' - with a rattling fillip
on his bald head - 'the brains were clear and active, and I
saw and made no deductions.'

'If you know this doctor,' I ventured to remark, after a
somewhat awful pause, 'I should gather that you do not share
the landlord's good opinion.'

Fettes paid no regard to me.

'Yes,' he said, with sudden decision, 'I must see him face to
face.'

There was another pause, and then a door was closed rather
sharply on the first floor, and a step was heard upon the
stair.

'That's the doctor,' cried the landlord. 'Look sharp, and
you can catch him.'

It was but two steps from the small parlour to the door of
the old George Inn; the wide oak staircase landed almost in
the street; there was room for a Turkey rug and nothing more
between the threshold and the last round of the descent; but
this little space was every evening brilliantly lit up, not
only by the light upon the stair and the great signal-lamp
below the sign, but by the warm radiance of the bar-room
window. The George thus brightly advertised itself to
passers-by in the cold street. Fettes walked steadily to the
spot, and we, who were hanging behind, beheld the two men
meet, as one of them had phrased it, face to face. Dr.
Macfarlane was alert and vigorous. His white hair set off
his pale and placid, although energetic, countenance. He was
richly dressed in the finest of broadcloth and the whitest of
linen, with a great gold watch-chain, and studs and
spectacles of the same precious material. He wore a broad-
folded tie, white and speckled with lilac, and he carried on
his arm a comfortable driving-coat of fur. There was no
doubt but he became his years, breathing, as he did, of
wealth and consideration; and it was a surprising contrast to
see our parlour sot - bald, dirty, pimpled, and robed in his
old camlet cloak - confront him at the bottom of the stairs.

'Macfarlane!' he said somewhat loudly, more like a herald
than a friend.

The great doctor pulled up short on the fourth step, as
though the familiarity of the address surprised and somewhat
shocked his dignity.

'Toddy Macfarlane!' repeated Fettes.

The London man almost staggered. He stared for the swiftest
of seconds at the man before him, glanced behind him with a
sort of scare, and then in a startled whisper, 'Fettes!' he
said, 'You!'

'Ay,' said the other, 'me! Did you think I was dead too? We
are not so easy shut of our acquaintance.'

'Hush, hush!' exclaimed the doctor. 'Hush, hush! this
meeting is so unexpected - I can see you are unmanned. I
hardly knew you, I confess, at first; but I am overjoyed -
overjoyed to have this opportunity. For the present it must
be how-d'ye-do and good-bye in one, for my fly is waiting,
and I must not fail the train; but you shall - let me see -
yes - you shall give me your address, and you can count on
early news of me. We must do something for you, Fettes. I
fear you are out at elbows; but we must see to that for auld
lang syne, as once we sang at suppers.'

'Money!' cried Fettes; 'money from you! The money that I had
from you is lying where I cast it in the rain.'

Dr. Macfarlane had talked himself into some measure of
superiority and confidence, but the uncommon energy of this
refusal cast him back into his first confusion.

A horrible, ugly look came and went across his almost
venerable countenance. 'My dear fellow,' he said, 'be it as
you please; my last thought is to offend you. I would
intrude on none. I will leave you my address, however - '

'I do not wish it - I do not wish to know the roof that
shelters you,' interrupted the other. 'I heard your name; I
feared it might be you; I wished to know if, after all, there
were a God; I know now that there is none. Begone!'

He still stood in the middle of the rug, between the stair
and doorway; and the great London physician, in order to
escape, would be forced to step to one side. It was plain
that he hesitated before the thought of this humiliation.
White as he was, there was a dangerous glitter in his
spectacles; but while he still paused uncertain, he became
aware that the driver of his fly was peering in from the
street at this unusual scene and caught a glimpse at the same
time of our little body from the parlour, huddled by the
corner of the bar. The presence of so many witnesses decided
him at once to flee. He crouched together, brushing on the
wainscot, and made a dart like a serpent, striking for the
door. But his tribulation was not yet entirely at an end,
for even as he was passing Fettes clutched him by the arm and
these words came in a whisper, and yet painfully distinct,
'Have you seen it again?'

The great rich London doctor cried out aloud with a sharp,
throttling cry; he dashed his questioner across the open
space, and, with his hands over his head, fled out of the
door like a detected thief. Before it had occurred to one of
us to make a movement the fly was already rattling toward the
station. The scene was over like a dream, but the dream had
left proofs and traces of its passage. Next day the servant
found the fine gold spectacles broken on the threshold, and
that very night we were all standing breathless by the bar-
room window, and Fettes at our side, sober, pale, and
resolute in look.

'God protect us, Mr. Fettes!' said the landlord, coming first
into possession of his customary senses. 'What in the
universe is all this? These are strange things you have been
saying.'

Fettes turned toward us; he looked us each in succession in
the face. 'See if you can hold your tongues,' said he.
'That man Macfarlane is not safe to cross; those that have
done so already have repented it too late.'

And then, without so much as finishing his third glass, far
less waiting for the other two, he bade us good-bye and went
forth, under the lamp of the hotel, into the black night.

We three turned to our places in the parlour, with the big
red fire and four clear candles; and as we recapitulated what
had passed, the first chill of our surprise soon changed into
a glow of curiosity. We sat late; it was the latest session
I have known in the old George. Each man, before we parted,
had his theory that he was bound to prove; and none of us had
any nearer business in this world than to track out the past
of our condemned companion, and surprise the secret that he
shared with the great London doctor. It is no great boast,
but I believe I was a better hand at worming out a story than
either of my fellows at the George; and perhaps there is now
no other man alive who could narrate to you the following
foul and unnatural events.

In his young days Fettes studied medicine in the schools of
Edinburgh. He had talent of a kind, the talent that picks up
swiftly what it hears and readily retails it for its own. He
worked little at home; but he was civil, attentive, and
intelligent in the presence of his masters. They soon picked
him out as a lad who listened closely and remembered well;
nay, strange as it seemed to me when I first heard it, he was
in those days well favoured, and pleased by his exterior.
There was, at that period, a certain extramural teacher of
anatomy, whom I shall here designate by the letter K. His
name was subsequently too well known. The man who bore it
skulked through the streets of Edinburgh in disguise, while
the mob that applauded at the execution of Burke called
loudly for the blood of his employer. But Mr. K- was then at
the top of his vogue; he enjoyed a popularity due partly to
his own talent and address, partly to the incapacity of his
rival, the university professor. The students, at least,
swore by his name, and Fettes believed himself, and was
believed by others, to have laid the foundations of success
when he had acquired the favour of this meteorically famous
man. Mr. K- was a BON VIVANT as well as an accomplished
teacher; he liked a sly illusion no less than a careful
preparation. In both capacities Fettes enjoyed and deserved
his notice, and by the second year of his attendance he held
the half-regular position of second demonstrator or sub-
assistant in his class.

In this capacity the charge of the theatre and lecture-room
devolved in particular upon his shoulders. He had to answer
for the cleanliness of the premises and the conduct of the
other students, and it was a part of his duty to supply,
receive, and divide the various subjects. It was with a view
to this last - at that time very delicate - affair that he
was lodged by Mr. K- in the same wynd, and at last in the
same building, with the dissecting-rooms. Here, after a
night of turbulent pleasures, his hand still tottering, his
sight still misty and confused, he would be called out of bed
in the black hours before the winter dawn by the unclean and
desperate interlopers who supplied the table. He would open
the door to these men, since infamous throughout the land.
He would help them with their tragic burden, pay them their
sordid price, and remain alone, when they were gone, with the
unfriendly relics of humanity. From such a scene he would
return to snatch another hour or two of slumber, to repair
the abuses of the night, and refresh himself for the labours
of the day.

Few lads could have been more insensible to the impressions
of a life thus passed among the ensigns of mortality. His
mind was closed against all general considerations. He was
incapable of interest in the fate and fortunes of another,
the slave of his own desires and low ambitions. Cold, light,
and selfish in the last resort, he had that modicum of
prudence, miscalled morality, which keeps a man from
inconvenient drunkenness or punishable theft. He coveted,
besides, a measure of consideration from his masters and his
fellow-pupils, and he had no desire to fail conspicuously in
the external parts of life. Thus he made it his pleasure to
gain some distinction in his studies, and day after day
rendered unimpeachable eye-service to his employer, Mr. K-.
For his day of work he indemnified himself by nights of
roaring, blackguardly enjoyment; and when that balance had
been struck, the organ that he called his conscience declared
itself content.

The supply of subjects was a continual trouble to him as well
as to his master. In that large and busy class, the raw
material of the anatomists kept perpetually running out; and
the business thus rendered necessary was not only unpleasant
in itself, but threatened dangerous consequences to all who
were concerned. It was the policy of Mr. K- to ask no
questions in his dealings with the trade. 'They bring the
body, and we pay the price,' he used to say, dwelling on the
alliteration - 'QUID PRO QUO.' And, again, and somewhat
profanely, 'Ask no questions,' he would tell his assistants,
'for conscience' sake.' There was no understanding that the
subjects were provided by the crime of murder. Had that idea
been broached to him in words, he would have recoiled in
horror; but the lightness of his speech upon so grave a
matter was, in itself, an offence against good manners, and a
temptation to the men with whom he dealt. Fettes, for
instance, had often remarked to himself upon the singular
freshness of the bodies. He had been struck again and again
by the hang-dog, abominable looks of the ruffians who came to
him before the dawn; and putting things together clearly in
his private thoughts, he perhaps attributed a meaning too
immoral and too categorical to the unguarded counsels of his
master. He understood his duty, in short, to have three
branches: to take what was brought, to pay the price, and to
avert the eye from any evidence of crime.

One November morning this policy of silence was put sharply
to the test. He had been awake all night with a racking
toothache - pacing his room like a caged beast or throwing
himself in fury on his bed - and had fallen at last into that
profound, uneasy slumber that so often follows on a night of
pain, when he was awakened by the third or fourth angry
repetition of the concerted signal. There was a thin, bright
moonshine; it was bitter cold, windy, and frosty; the town
had not yet awakened, but an indefinable stir already
preluded the noise and business of the day. The ghouls had
come later than usual, and they seemed more than usually
eager to be gone. Fettes, sick with sleep, lighted them
upstairs. He heard their grumbling Irish voices through a
dream; and as they stripped the sack from their sad
merchandise he leaned dozing, with his shoulder propped
against the wall; he had to shake himself to find the men
their money. As he did so his eyes lighted on the dead face.
He started; he took two steps nearer, with the candle raised.

'God Almighty!' he cried. 'That is Jane Galbraith!'

The men answered nothing, but they shuffled nearer the door.

'I know her, I tell you,' he continued. 'She was alive and
hearty yesterday. It's impossible she can be dead; it's
impossible you should have got this body fairly.'

'Sure, sir, you're mistaken entirely,' said one of the men.

But the other looked Fettes darkly in the eyes, and demanded
the money on the spot.

It was impossible to misconceive the threat or to exaggerate
the danger. The lad's heart failed him. He stammered some
excuses, counted out the sum, and saw his hateful visitors
depart. No sooner were they gone than he hastened to confirm
his doubts. By a dozen unquestionable marks he identified
the girl he had jested with the day before. He saw, with
horror, marks upon her body that might well betoken violence.
A panic seized him, and he took refuge in his room. There he
reflected at length over the discovery that he had made;
considered soberly the bearing of Mr. K-'s instructions and
the danger to himself of interference in so serious a
business, and at last, in sore perplexity, determined to wait
for the advice of his immediate superior, the class
assistant.

This was a young doctor, Wolfe Macfarlane, a high favourite
among all the reckless students, clever, dissipated, and
unscrupulous to the last degree. He had travelled and
studied abroad. His manners were agreeable and a little
forward. He was an authority on the stage, skilful on the
ice or the links with skate or golf-club; he dressed with
nice audacity, and, to put the finishing touch upon his
glory, he kept a gig and a strong trotting-horse. With
Fettes he was on terms of intimacy; indeed, their relative
positions called for some community of life; and when
subjects were scarce the pair would drive far into the
country in Macfarlane's gig, visit and desecrate some lonely
graveyard, and return before dawn with their booty to the
door of the dissecting-room.

On that particular morning Macfarlane arrived somewhat
earlier than his wont. Fettes heard him, and met him on the
stairs, told him his story, and showed him the cause of his
alarm. Macfarlane examined the marks on her body.

'Yes,' he said with a nod, 'it looks fishy.'

'Well, what should I do?' asked Fettes.

'Do?' repeated the other. 'Do you want to do anything?
Least said soonest mended, I should say.'

'Some one else might recognise her,' objected Fettes. 'She
was as well known as the Castle Rock.'

'We'll hope not,' said Macfarlane, 'and if anybody does -
well, you didn't, don't you see, and there's an end. The
fact is, this has been going on too long. Stir up the mud,
and you'll get K- into the most unholy trouble; you'll be in
a shocking box yourself. So will I, if you come to that. I
should like to know how any one of us would look, or what the
devil we should have to say for ourselves, in any Christian
witness-box. For me, you know there's one thing certain -
that, practically speaking, all our subjects have been
murdered.'

'Macfarlane!' cried Fettes.

'Come now!' sneered the other. 'As if you hadn't suspected
it yourself!'

'Suspecting is one thing - '

'And proof another. Yes, I know; and I'm as sorry as you are
this should have come here,' tapping the body with his cane.
'The next best thing for me is not to recognise it; and,' he
added coolly, 'I don't. You may, if you please. I don't
dictate, but I think a man of the world would do as I do; and
I may add, I fancy that is what K- would look for at our
hands. The question is, Why did he choose us two for his
assistants? And I answer, because he didn't want old wives.'

This was the tone of all others to affect the mind of a lad
like Fettes. He agreed to imitate Macfarlane. The body of
the unfortunate girl was duly dissected, and no one remarked
or appeared to recognise her.

One afternoon, when his day's work was over, Fettes dropped
into a popular tavern and found Macfarlane sitting with a
stranger. This was a small man, very pale and dark, with
coal-black eyes. The cut of his features gave a promise of
intellect and refinement which was but feebly realised in his
manners, for he proved, upon a nearer acquaintance, coarse,
vulgar, and stupid. He exercised, however, a very remarkable
control over Macfarlane; issued orders like the Great Bashaw;
became inflamed at the least discussion or delay, and
commented rudely on the servility with which he was obeyed.
This most offensive person took a fancy to Fettes on the
spot, plied him with drinks, and honoured him with unusual
confidences on his past career. If a tenth part of what he
confessed were true, he was a very loathsome rogue; and the
lad's vanity was tickled by the attention of so experienced a
man.

'I'm a pretty bad fellow myself,' the stranger remarked, 'but
Macfarlane is the boy - Toddy Macfarlane I call him. Toddy,
order your friend another glass.' Or it might be, 'Toddy,
you jump up and shut the door.' 'Toddy hates me,' he said
again. 'Oh yes, Toddy, you do!'

'Don't you call me that confounded name,' growled Macfarlane.

'Hear him! Did you ever see the lads play knife? He would
like to do that all over my body,' remarked the stranger.

'We medicals have a better way than that,' said Fettes.
'When we dislike a dead friend of ours, we dissect him.'

Macfarlane looked up sharply, as though this jest were
scarcely to his mind.

The afternoon passed. Gray, for that was the stranger's
name, invited Fettes to join them at dinner, ordered a feast
so sumptuous that the tavern was thrown into commotion, and
when all was done commanded Macfarlane to settle the bill.
It was late before they separated; the man Gray was incapably
drunk. Macfarlane, sobered by his fury, chewed the cud of
the money he had been forced to squander and the slights he
had been obliged to swallow. Fettes, with various liquors
singing in his head, returned home with devious footsteps and
a mind entirely in abeyance. Next day Macfarlane was absent
from the class, and Fettes smiled to himself as he imagined
him still squiring the intolerable Gray from tavern to
tavern. As soon as the hour of liberty had struck he posted
from place to place in quest of his last night's companions.
He could find them, however, nowhere; so returned early to
his rooms, went early to bed, and slept the sleep of the
just.

At four in the morning he was awakened by the well-known
signal. Descending to the door, he was filled with
astonishment to find Macfarlane with his gig, and in the gig
one of those long and ghastly packages with which he was so
well acquainted.

'What?' he cried. 'Have you been out alone? How did you
manage?'

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