Part 4

On returning from the Cape, where he had been attached as surgeon to a regiment, he was one day met by his old teacher, Professor Jameson, who, after a kindly recognition in his own simple way, inquired what had been his pursuits when abroad.

"Why," replied Knox, with one of these expressions of an almost unreadable face--something between a leer and overdone sincerity--"why, I was busy in your way,--keen in the study of natural history. No place in the world excels the Cape for curious objects in that department; will you believe it, Professor, I have made an extraordinary discovery?"

"Discovery! ah, you interest me."

"And well I may," he continued, as the light of the one orb expressed the new-born zeal of the naturalist. "I have found a new species of animal. Yes, sir, altogether new, and at a world's-wide distance from any congeners with which you are acquainted--quite an irreproducible phoenix."

"Then we must identify it with your name,--some adjective connected with night, but not darkness."

"And that I have done, too," continued the naturalist.

"Why, then, the description will form an excellent article for our journal. I could wish that you write it out and send it to me. It will be something grand, to shew the Southerners we are en avant."

"I will do it," was the reply; "and you shall have it for the next number."

Nor was Knox worse in this instance than his word, if he could be, for by and by there came to the Professor a spirited, if not elaborate description of the new species, which, having been approved of by the simple Professor, flared brilliantly among the heavy articles of his beloved work. But unhappily for the discoverer, no less than for the editor, the article fell under the eye of Dr Buckland, who soon found out the whole affair to be an excellent hoax. Often afterwards Jameson looked for his contributor to administer a reproof in his gentle way, but this opportunity never awaited him, for Knox, though with one eye, had a long sight when there was danger ahead, and the Professor in the distance sent him down the nearest close with even more than his usual celerity.

Those who knew the man would have no hesitation in placing such an example of his recklessness to the credit of his rampant egotism, certainly not to that of practical joking, a species of devil's humour not always dissociated from a bonhommie to which the earnest mind of the man was a stranger. Even the bitterness of soul towards competitors was not sufficiently gratified by the pouring forth of the toffana-spirit of his sarcasm. He behoved to hold the phial with refined fingers, and rub the liquid into the "raw" with the soft touch of love. The affected attenuation of voice and forced retinu of feeling, sometimes degenerating into a puppy's simper, bore such a contrast to the acerbity of the matter, that the effect, though often ludicrous, was increased tenfold. We may now read such a passage as we subjoin, serving merely as a solitary example of the style; but it would be vain to try to estimate the effect from the mere allocation of vocables disjoined from the acrimony they collected in their passage through the ear and carried to the brain.

The Young Amateurs

It would seem that conspiring circumstances at the time pointed to that kind of denouement which is the issue of an evil too great for society to bear. In Barclay's time, the increased demand for the physical material of the dissecting halls was supplied by a most convenient arrangement of places. There was the Infirmary a little to the west, where deaths were occurring several times a week, and many bodies left unclaimed by their friends. Then, at the back of Barclay's hall was a little "death's mailing" set apart for those who had been relieved of life in that refuge of the wretched, and, strangely enough, the windows looked out upon the tempting field; so that a man or woman, dreaming of no such fate, might die and be buried, and taken and dissected, all within the temporal space of a few days, and the physical of a few yards. No great wonder that there was there a rope-ladder of ominous intention, and a box with such accommodating appurtenances as would permit of the insertion of hooks at the end of lines, whereby it might be let down empty and light, and brought up full and heavy. Nor was it inappropriate that young Cullen, the grandson of Celeberrimus, should be the man who accomplished with greatest spirit these easy appropriations. Some will yet recollect how these young gouls grinned with a satanic pleasure, as they saw the heavy-looking sextons busy with the work which they were so soon to undo, if it was not also more than surmise that these grave men could smile in return, even while they were beating down the green sod, as if it were to remain till the greater resurrection, in place of the smaller.

As connected with the continued spoliation of this unfortunate little Golgotha, a story was current out of which was formed a mock heroic imitation of the 17th book of the "Iliad." It seemed that an old beggar of the name of Sandy M'Nab, who used to be known in Edinburgh as a cripple ballad singer, had died of almost pure old age in the Infirmary, and was, in due time, consigned to that rest of which, as a peripatetic minstrel, he had enjoyed so small a portion in this world. Yet how little one knows of the fate to which he may be destined! Who could have supposed that Sandy M'Nab, about whom nobody cared more than to give him an occasional penny, and who was left to die in an hospital, would become as famous, within a limited space, as Patroclus. It seemed that Cullen and some others had, according to their custom, appropriated the body of the minstrel, so far as to have it safely deposited in the box, and that box carefully placed below the window waiting for the application of the rope, whereby it was to be drawn to the upper regions; but in the meantime, some three or four of Monro's Trojans, jealous of the Greeks, had got over the wall with the same intention that had fired their opponents. Though the night was dark, with only an occasional glimpse of a shy moon, who got herself veiled every now and then, as if ashamed of those deeds of man enacted under her light, the collegians soon ascertained that their envied minstrel had been exhumed, yea, that that body, which once contained a spirit all but cosmopolitan, was cribbed and confined in Cullen's insatiable box. The discovery inflamed an original intention of mere body-snatching into an emprise of stratagetic war against their professional foes; and straightway they commenced to remove the box to the other side of the yard, with a view to getting it hoisted over the wall. But the work had scarcely commenced, when the watchful enemy, who, in fact, all the time were busily undoing the rope in the hall above, observed the stratagem below; and issuing forth, some three or four of them, under the influence of something more like chivalry than the stealing of bodies, they commenced an attack upon the intruders, which was met by a stout resistance. The box had been removed to nearly the middle of the yard, and round the sacred centre where lay the dead Patroclus, the battle raged with a fierceness not unworthy of the old and immortal conflict. At one time Sandy was in possession of the Barclayens, at another in that of the Monroites; so that the old quotation, which was subsequently incorporated in heroics, was perhaps never, in all time, so applicable,--"Danai Trojanique cadaver manus commiserunt." Taken and retaken, and guarded with menaces, the inner contest was, meanwhile, illustrated by hand-to-hand fights over the swelling tumuli, perhaps not less glorious in their small way than many which have involved the fate of a kingdom; and yet the object of the conflict was the body of a wandering beggar. Nor is it known how long this affray might have lasted, if some people in the neighbourhood, having heard the uproar, had not threatened, by getting to the top of the wall, to bring the champions before the authorities. The Monroites fled, and the object of all this contention was left in the hands of those who, by possession, had at least the prior right. The box was hoisted to the rooms amidst the acclamations of the conquerors. "Sic hi alacres cadaver extulerunt e bello."

The want of this fruitful field behoved afterwards, on the advent of Knox, to be supplied by increased exactions over the country; and hence came a more perfect organisation of a staff, composed of men who, without the excuse of a stimulus for science, were attracted to the work by the bribe of high payments. We have already seen to what extent that bribe reached; and whatever otherwise may be thought of those grim minions of the moon, they had more to stir the low passions of human nature than those older minions on the borders, who, for the sake of living steers, often made dead bodies. Science became the Nemesis of the dearest and most sacred affections; and what may appear strange enough, the students themselves engaged in the work with a feeling, as we have hinted, approaching to chivalry. They were sworn knights of the fair damsel Science, though the rites were those of Melpomene, with the grotesque shapes of those of Thalia. The midnight enterprises had charms for them, but they were death to those feelings of a Christian people, which require to be viewed as a natural and necessary part of a social fabric, to be tampered with only to the ruin of virtue. Among these knights at an earlier period stood Robert Liston, whose hardihood and coolness in such midnight adventures could only be equalled by his subsequent surgical handlings; and like all other vigorous and enthusiastic men, he had the power of enlisting associates, warmed by the fire he himself felt.

A favourite theatre for these dark deeds was the banks of the Forth, along which are to be seen many of those small unprotected graveyards which, attached to villages, are as the shadow of the life that is within them. Yes, grave or merry as the hamlet may be, that shadow is never awanting--often within the sound of the marriage-dance, and refusing to be illumined by the light of man's earthly happiness. Sometimes in poetics called the gnome that points to eternity, no man can but for a few brief moments of seducing joy keep his eye from the contemplation of it; and, whether he can or not, he must be content to lie within its dark outline. These are common thoughts, which are sometimes condemned as a species of moralising; yet surprise will not the less pass even into vertigo when we think of individuals of the same species reversing rites which even lower instincts shudder to touch. We are always looking for seriousness in nature, and it is long till we are forced to confess that she is continually mocking us.

"Usque adeo, res humanas vis abdita quædam Obterit et pulchros fasceis sævasque secureis Proculcare ac LUDIBRIO SIBI HABERE videtur."

On one occasion our anatomist, having got a companion up to the point of courage, resolved to pay a night-visit to one of these outlying places, where, from information he had gained, there had been deposited an object which had a charm to him other than that of the mere "thing." The man had died of a disease which the country practitioner had reported to Liston as something which had stimulated his curiosity, but which he could not be permitted by the friends to inquire into in the manner so much desired by doctors. The two knights got themselves arrayed as sailors--with the jacket, the sou'-wester, the unbraced trousers, striped shirt, and all the rest--and getting on board a pinnace, made their way to Cures. They had on arrival some time to pass before the coming of the eery hour when such work as they had on hand could be performed with the least chance of interruption. The night, as the principal performer described it, was as dark as the narrow house whereof they were to deprive the still inhabitant, so that even with the assistance of the doctor's apprentice, who went along with them, they had the greatest difficulty to discover the limited spot of their operations. But Liston had encountered such difficulties before, and then "what mattered if they should take the wrong one?" for with the exception of the pathological curiosity, as in this case, these children of science had no more scruples of choice. In a trice the game was bagged, as they sometimes described the work, and the boy, getting alarmed, flew off with the necessary injunction of secrecy, which only added to his alarm, as they could plainly perceive by the sounds of his rapid receding steps heard in the stillness of the haunted spot.

But the work there was generally the least difficult of such enterprises, for as yet the people had not throughout the rural districts been roused to the necessity of the night-watch, which afterwards became so common. The danger lay in the conveyance, which in this, as in most other instances, was by the means of a pair of strong shoulders. The burden was accordingly hoisted on Liston's broad back, and the two, stumbling over the green tumuli, got to the skirts, and away as far as they could from habitations. The field side of a thick hedge was the selected place of deposit until the morning gave them light for achieving the further migrations of the unconscious charge; and then there was to be sought out a place of rest for the two tars, wearied with travelling all day homewards in the north after so long a cruise in the South Sea. Nor was it long before a welcome light proclaimed to Liston, who knew the country, the small wayside inn, in which they would repose during the night. And there, to be sure, they got that easy entrance, if not jolly welcome, so often accorded to this good-hearted set of men. They were soon in harmony with the household, and especially with a "Mary the maid of the inn," who saw peculiar charms in seamen in general, and in our friend Robert in particular; nor was the admiration all on one side, though Mary's predilection for his kind was, as matters turned out, to be anything but auspicious to the concealed students. Then the coquetting was helped by a little warm drink, if not a song from the companion about a certain "sheer hulk," which lay somewhere else than behind the hedge.

All this, be it observed, had taken place by the kitchen fire--an appropriate place for benighted seamen; and it being now considerably beyond twelve, they were about to be shewn their room, when they were suddenly roused by a loud shout outside, the words, "Ship, ahoy!" being more distinctly heard by our quasi tars than they perhaps relished, for, after all, neither of our students, however they might impose upon Mary, felt very comfortable under the apprehension of being scanned by a true son of Neptune.

"That's 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.