A born marauder,he devoted his life to his trade;and,despite his travels in France and Spain,he enjoyed few intervals of merriment.Even the humour,which proved his redemption,was as dour and grim as Scotland can furnish at her grimmes:and dourest.Here is a specimen will serve as well as another:three of Gilderoy's gang had been hanged according to the sentence of a certain Lord of Session,and the Chieftain,for his own vengeance and the intimidation of justice,resolved upon an exemplary punishment.He waylaid the Lord of Session,emptied his pockets,killed his horses,broke his coach in pieces,and having bound his lackeys,drowned them in a pond.This was but the prelude of revenge,for presently (and here is the touch of humour)he made the Lord of Session ride at dead of night to the gallows,whereon the three malefactors were hanging.One arm of the crossbeams was still untenanted.`By my soul,mon,'cried Gilderoy to the Lord of Session,`as this gibbet is built to break people's craigs,and is not uniform without another,I must e'en hang you upon the vacant beam.'And straightway the Lord of Session swung in the moonlight,and Gilderoy had cracked his black and solemn joke.
This sense of fun is the single trait which relieves the colossal turpitude of Gilderoy.And,though even his turpitude was melodramatic in its lack of balance,it is a unity of character which is the foundation of his greatness.He was no fumbler,led away from his purpose by the first diversion;his ambition was clear before him,and he never fell below it.He defied Scotland for fifteen years,was hanged so high that he passed into a proverb,and though his handsome,sinister face might have made women his slaves,he was never betrayed by passion (or by virtue)to an amiability.
II
SIXTEENSTRING JACK
THE `Green Pig'stood in the solitude of the North Road.Its simple front,its neatly balanced windows,curtained with white,gave it an air of comfort and tranquillity.The smoke which curled from its hospitable chimney spoke of warmth and good fare.
To pass it was to spurn the last chance of a bottle for many a weary mile,and the prudent traveller would always rest an hour by its ample fireside,or gossip with its fantastic hostess.
Now,the hostess of the little inn was Ellen Roach,friend and accomplice of SixteenString Jack,once the most famous woman in England,and still after a weary stretch at Botany Bay the strangest of companions,the most buxom of spinsters.Her beauty was elusive even in her triumphant youth,and middleage had neither softened her traits nor refined her expression.Her auburn hair,once the glory of Covent Garden,was fading to a withered grey;she was never tall enough to endure an encroaching stoutness with equanimity;her dumpy figure made you marvel at her past success;and hardship had furrowed her candid brow into wrinkles.But when she opened her lips she became instantly animated.With a glass before her on the table,she would prattle frankly and engagingly of the past.Strange cities had she seen;she had faced the dangers of an adventurous life with calmness and good temper.And yet Botany Bay,with its attendant horrors,was already fading from her memory.In imagination she was still with her incomparable hero,and it was her solace,after fifteen years,to sing the praise and echo the perfections of SixteenString Jack.
`How well I remember,'she would murmur,as though unconscious of her audience,`the unhappy day when Jack Rann was first arrested.
It was May,and he came back travelstained and weary in the brilliant dawn.He had stopped a onehorse shay near the ninemile stone on the Hounslow Roadevery word of his confession is burnt into my brainand had taken a watch and a handful of guineas.I was glad enough of the money,for there was no penny in the house,and presently I sent the maidservant to make the best bargain she could with the watch.But the silly jade,by the saddest of mishaps,took the trinket straight to the very man who made it,and he,suspecting a theft,had us both arrested.
Even then Jack might have been safe,had not the devil prompted me to speak the truth.Dismayed by the magistrate,I owned,wretched woman that I was,that I had received the watch from Rann,and in two hours Jack also was under lock and key.
Yet,when we were sent for trial I made what amends I could.Ideclared on oath that I had never seen SixteenString Jack in my life;his name came to my lips by accident;and,hector as they would,the lawyers could not frighten me to an acknowledgment.
