Chapter XLIX

CONTAINING THE STORY OF THE BAGMAN'S

UNCLE

y uncle, gentlemen,' said the bagman, 'was one of the

merriest, pleasantest, cleverest fellows, that ever

lived. I wish you had known him, gentlemen. On

second thoughts, gentlemen, I don't wish you had known him, for

if you had, you would have been all, by this time, in the ordinary

course of nature, if not dead, at all events so near it, as to have

taken to stopping at home and giving up company, which would

have deprived me of the inestimable pleasure of addressing you at

this moment. Gentlemen, I wish your fathers and mothers had

known my uncle. They would have been amazingly fond of him,

especially your respectable mothers; I know they would. If any two

of his numerous virtues predominated over the many that adorned

his character, I should say they were his mixed punch and his

after-supper song. Excuse my dwelling on these melancholy

recollections of departed worth; you won't see a man like my uncle

every day in the week.

'I have always considered it a great point in my uncle's

character, gentlemen, that he was the intimate friend and

companion of Tom Smart, of the great house of Bilson and Slum,

Cateaton Street, City. My uncle collected for Tiggin and Welps,

but for a long time he went pretty near the same journey as Tom;

and the very first night they met, my uncle took a fancy for Tom,

and Tom took a fancy for my uncle. They made a bet of a new hat

before they had known each other half an hour, who should brew

the best quart of punch and drink it the quickest. My uncle was

judged to have won the making, but Tom Smart beat him in the

drinking by about half a salt-spoonful. They took another quart

apiece to drink each other's health in, and were staunch friends

ever afterwards. There's a destiny in these things, gentlemen; we

can't help it.

'In personal appearance, my uncle was a trifle shorter than the

middle size; he was a thought stouter too, than the ordinary run of

people, and perhaps his face might be a shade redder. He had the

jolliest face you ever saw, gentleman: something like Punch, with a

handsome nose and chin; his eyes were always twinkling and

sparkling with good-humour; and a smile―not one of your

unmeaning wooden grins, but a real, merry, hearty, good-

tempered smile―was perpetually on his countenance. He was

pitched out of his gig once, and knocked, head first, against a

milestone. There he lay, stunned, and so cut about the face with

some gravel which had been heaped up alongside it, that, to use

my uncle's own strong expression, if his mother could have

revisited the earth, she wouldn't have known him. Indeed, when I

come to think of the matter, gentlemen, I feel pretty sure she

wouldn't. for she died when my uncle was two years and seven

months old, and I think it's very likely that, even without the

gravel, his top-boots would have puzzled the good lady not a little;

to say nothing of his jolly red face. However, there he lay, and I

have heard my uncle say, many a time, that the man said who

picked him up that he was smiling as merrily as if he had tumbled

out for a treat, and that after they had bled him, the first faint

glimmerings of returning animation, were his jumping up in bed,

bursting out into a loud laugh, kissing the young woman who held

the basin, and demanding a mutton chop and a pickled walnut. He

was very fond of pickled walnuts, gentlemen. He said he always

found that, taken without vinegar, they relished the beer.

'My uncle's great journey was in the fall of the leaf, at which

time he collected debts, and took orders, in the north; going from

London to Edinburgh, from Edinburgh to Glasgow, from Glasgow

back to Edinburgh, and thence to London by the smack. You are

to understand that his second visit to Edinburgh was for his own

pleasure. He used to go back for a week, just to look up his old

friends; and what with breakfasting with this one, lunching with

that, dining with the third, and supping with another, a pretty

tight week he used to make of it. I don't know whether any of you,

gentlemen, ever partook of a real substantialhospitable Scotch

breakfast, and then went out to a slight lunch of a bushel of

oysters, a dozen or so of bottled ale, and a noggin or two of

whiskey to close up with. If you ever did, you will agree with me

that it requires a pretty strong head to go out to dinner and supper

afterwards.

'But bless your hearts and eyebrows, all this sort of thing was

nothing to my uncle! He was so well seasoned, that it was mere

child's play. I have heard him say that he could see the Dundee

people out, any day, and walk home afterwards without

staggering; and yet the Dundee people have as strong heads and

as strong punch, gentlemen, as you are likely to meet with,

between the poles. I have heard of a Glasgow man and a Dundee

man drinking against each other for fifteen hours at a sitting. They

were both suffocated, as nearly as could be ascertained, at the

same moment, but with this trifling exception, gentlemen, they

were not a bit the worse for it.

'One night, within four-and-twenty hours of the time when he

had settled to take shipping for London, my uncle supped at the

house of a very old friend of his, a Bailie Mac something and four

syllables after it, who lived in the old town of Edinburgh. There

were the bailie's wife, and the bailie's three daughters, and the

bailie's grown-up son, and three or four stout, bushy eye-browed,

canny, old Scotch fellows, that the bailie had got together to do

honour to my uncle, and help to make merry. It was a glorious

supper. There was kippered salmon, and Finnan haddocks, and a

lamb's head, and a haggis―a celebrated Scotch dish, gentlemen,

which my uncle used to say always looked to him, when it came to

table, very much like a Cupid's stomach―and a great many other

things besides, that I forget the names of, but very good things,

notwithstanding. The lassies were pretty and agreeable; the

bailie's wife was one of the best creatures that ever lived; and my

uncle was in thoroughly good cue. The consequence of which was,

that the young ladies tittered and giggled, and the old lady

laughed out loud, and the bailie and the other old fellows roared

till they were red in the face, the whole mortal time. I don't quite

recollect how many tumblers of whiskey-toddy each man drank

after supper; but this I know, that about one o'clock in the

morning, the bailie's grown-up son became insensible while

attempting the first verse of "Willie brewed a peck o' maut"; and

he having been, for half an hour before, the only other man visible

above the mahogany, it occurred to my uncle that it was almost

time to think about going, especially as drinking had set in at

seven o'clock, in order that he might get home at a decent hour.

But, thinking it might not be quite polite to go just then, my uncle

voted himself into the chair, mixed another glass, rose to propose

his own health, addressed himself in a neat and complimentary

speech, and drank the toast with great enthusiasm. Still nobody

woke; so my uncle took a little drop more―neat this time, to

prevent the toddy from disagreeing with him―and, laying violent

hands on his hat, sallied forth into the street.

'It was a wild, gusty night when my uncle closed the bailie's

door, and settling his hat firmly on his head to prevent the wind

from taking it, thrust his hands into his pockets, and looking

upward, took a short survey of the state of the weather. The clouds

were drifting over the moon at their giddiest speed; at one time

wholly obscuring her; at another, suffering her to burst forth in

full splendour and shed her light on all the objects around; anon,

driving over her again, with increased velocity, and shrouding

everything in darkness. "Really, this won't do," said my uncle,

addressing himself to the weather, as if he felt himself personally

offended. "This is not at all the kind of thing for my voyage. It will

not do at any price," said my uncle, very impressively. Having

repeated this, several times, he recovered his balance with some

difficulty―for he was rather giddy with looking up into the sky so

long―and walked merrily on.

'The bailie's house was in the Canongate, and my uncle was

going to the other end of Leith Walk, rather better than a mile's

journey. On either side of him, there shot up against the dark sky,

tall, gaunt, straggling houses, with time-stained fronts, and

windows that seemed to have shared the lot of eyes in mortals, and

to have grown dim and sunken with age. Six, seven, eight Storey

high, were the houses; storey piled upon storey, as children build

with cards―throwing their dark shadows over the roughly paved

road, and making the dark night darker. A few oil lamps were

scattered at long distances, but they only served to mark the dirty

entrance to some narrow close, or to show where a common stair

communicated, by steep and intricate windings, with the various

flats above. Glancing at all these things with the air of a man who

had seen them too often before, to think them worthy of much

notice now, my uncle walked up the middle of the street, with a

thumb in each waistcoat pocket, indulging from time to time in

various snatches of song, chanted forth with such good-will and

spirit, that the quiet honest folk started from their first sleep and

lay trembling in bed till the sound died away in the distance;

when, satisfying themselves that it was only some drunken ne'er-

do-weel finding his way home, they covered themselves up warm

and fell asleep again.

'I am particular in describing how my uncle walked up the

middle of the street, with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets,

gentlemen, because, as he often used to say (and with great reason

too) there is nothing at all extraordinary in this story, unless you

distinctly understand at the beginning, that he was not by any

means of a marvellous or romantic turn.

'Gentlemen, my uncle walked on with his thumbs in his

waistcoat pockets, taking the middle of the street to himself, and

singing, now a verse of a love song, and then a verse of a drinking

one, and when he was tired of both, whistling melodiously, until he

reached the North Bridge, which, at this point, connects the old

and new towns of Edinburgh. Here he stopped for a minute, to

look at the strange, irregular clusters of lights piled one above the

other, and twinkling afar off so high, that they looked like stars,

gleaming from the castle walls on the one side and the Calton Hill

on the other, as if they illuminated veritable castles in the air;

while the old picturesque town slept heavily on, in gloom and

darkness below: its palace and chapel of Holyrood, guarded day

and night, as a friend of my uncle's used to say, by old Arthur's

Seat, towering, surly and dark, like some gruff genius, over the

ancient city he has watched so long. I say, gentlemen, my uncle

stopped here, for a minute, to look about him; and then, paying a

compliment to the weather, which had a little cleared up, though

the moon was sinking, walked on again, as royally as before;

keeping the middle of the road with great dignity, and looking as if

he would very much like to meet with somebody who would

dispute possession of it with him. There was nobody at all

disposed to contest the point, as it happened; and so, on he went,

with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, like a lamb.

'When my uncle reached the end of Leith Walk, he had to cross

a pretty large piece of waste ground which separated him from a

short street which he had to turn down to go direct to his lodging.

Now, in this piece of waste ground, there was, at that time, an

enclosure belonging to some wheelwright who contracted with the

Post Office for the purchase of old, worn-out mail coaches; and my

uncle, being very fond of coaches, old, young, or middle-aged, all

at once took it into his head to step out of his road for no other

purpose than to peep between the palings at these mails―about a

dozen of which he remembered to have seen, crowded together in

a very forlorn and dismantled state, inside. My uncle was a very

enthusiastic, emphatic sort of person, gentlemen; so, finding that

he could not obtain a good peep between the palings he got over

them, and sitting himself quietly down on an old axle-tree, began

to contemplate the mail coaches with a deal of gravity.

'There might be a dozen of them, or there might be more―my

uncle was never quite certain on this point, and being a man of

very scrupulous veracity about numbers, didn't like to say―but

there they stood, all huddled together in the most desolate

condition imaginable. The doors had been torn from their hinges

and removed; the linings had been stripped off, only a shred

hanging here and there by a rusty nail; the lamps were gone, the

poles had long since vanished, the ironwork was rusty, the paint

was worn away; the wind whistled through the chinks in the bare

woodwork; and the rain, which had collected on the roofs, fell,

drop by drop, into the insides with a hollow and melancholy

sound. They were the decaying skeletons of departed mails, and in

that lonely place, at that time of night, they looked chill and

dismal.

'My uncle rested his head upon his hands, and thought of the

busy, bustling people who had rattled about, years before, in the

old coaches, and were now as silent and changed; he thought of

the numbers of people to whom one of these crazy, mouldering

vehicles had borne, night after night, for many years, and through

all weathers, the anxiously expected intelligence, the eagerly

looked-for remittance, the promised assurance of health and

safety, the sudden announcement of sickness and death. The

merchant, the lover, the wife, the widow, the mother, the school-

boy, the very child who tottered to the door at the postman's

knock―how had they all looked forward to the arrival of the old

coach. And where were they all now?

'Gentlemen, my uncle used to say that he thought all this at the

time, but I rather suspect he learned it out of some book

afterwards, for he distinctly stated that he fell into a kind of doze,

as he sat on the old axle-tree looking at the decayed mail coaches,

and that he was suddenly awakened by some deep church bell

striking two. Now, my uncle was never a fast thinker, and if he had

thought all these things, I am quite certain it would have taken

him till full half-past two o'clock at the very least. I am, therefore,

decidedly of opinion, gentlemen, that my uncle fell into a kind of

doze, without having thought about anything at all.

'Be this as it may, a church bell struck two. My uncle woke,

rubbed his eyes, and jumped up in astonishment.

'In one instant, after the clock struck two, the whole of this

deserted and quiet spot had become a scene of most extraordinary

life and animation. The mail coach doors were on their hinges, the

lining was replaced, the ironwork was as good as new, the paint

was restored, the lamps were alight; cushions and greatcoats were

on every coach-box, porters were thrusting parcels into every

boot, guards were stowing away letter-bags, hostlers were dashing

pails of water against the renovated wheels; numbers of men were

pushing about, fixing poles into every coach; passengers arrived,

portmanteaus were handed up, horses were put to; in short, it was

perfectly clear that every mail there, was to be off directly.

Gentlemen, my uncle opened his eyes so wide at all this, that, to

the very last moment of his life, he used to wonder how it fell out

that he had ever been able to shut 'em again.

'"Now then!" said a voice, as my uncle felt a hand on his

shoulder, "you're booked for one inside. You'd better get in."

'"I booked!" said my uncle, turning round.

'"Yes, certainly."

'My uncle, gentlemen, could say nothing, he was so very much

astonished. The queerest thing of all was that although there was

such a crowd of persons, and although fresh faces were pouring in,

every moment, there was no telling where they came from. They

seemed to start up, in some strange manner, from the ground, or

the air, and disappear in the same way. When a porter had put his

luggage in the coach, and received his fare, he turned round and

was gone; and before my uncle had well begun to wonder what

had become of him, half a dozen fresh ones started up, and

staggered along under the weight of parcels, which seemed big

enough to crush them. The passengers were all dressed so oddly

too! Large, broad-skirted laced coats, with great cuffs and no

collars; and wigs, gentlemen―great formal wigs with a tie behind.

My uncle could make nothing of it.

'"Now, are you going to get in?" said the person who had

addressed my uncle before. He was dressed as a mail guard, with a

wig on his head and most enormous cuffs to his coat, and had a

lantern in one hand, and a huge blunderbuss in the other, which

he was going to stow away in his little arm-chest. "Are you going to

get in, Jack Martin?" said the guard, holding the lantern to my

uncle's face.

'"Hollo!" said my uncle, falling back a step or two. "That's

familiar!"

'"It's so on the way-bill," said the guard.

'"Isn't there a 'Mister' before it?" said my uncle. For he felt,

gentlemen, that for a guard he didn't know, to call him Jack

Martin, was a liberty which the Post Office wouldn't have

sanctioned if they had known it.

'"No, there is not," rejoined the guard coolly.

'"Is the fare paid?" inquired my uncle.

'"Of course it is," rejoined the guard.

'"It is, is it?" said my uncle. "Then here goes! Which coach?"

'"This," said the guard, pointing to an old-fashioned Edinburgh

and London mail, which had the steps down and the door open.

"Stop! Here are the other passengers. Let them get in first."

'As the guard spoke, there all at once appeared, right in front of

my uncle, a young gentleman in a powdered wig, and a sky-blue

coat trimmed with silver, made very full and broad in the skirts,

which were lined with buckram. Tiggin and Welps were in the

printed calico and waistcoat piece line, gentlemen, so my uncle

knew all the materials at once. He wore knee breeches, and a kind

of leggings rolled up over his silk stockings, and shoes with

buckles; he had ruffles at his wrists, a three-cornered hat on his

head, and a long taper sword by his side. The flaps of his waist-

coat came half-way down his thighs, and the ends of his cravat

reached to his waist. He stalked gravely to the coach door, pulled

off his hat, and held it above his head at arm's length, cocking his

little finger in the air at the same time, as some affected people do,

when they take a cup of tea. Then he drew his feet together, and

made a low, grave bow, and then put out his left hand. My uncle

was just going to step forward, and shake it heartily, when he

perceived that these attentions were directed, not towards him,

but to a young lady who just then appeared at the foot of the steps,

attired in an old-fashioned green velvet dress with a long waist

and stomacher. She had no bonnet on her head, gentlemen, which

was muffled in a black silk hood, but she looked round for an

instant as she prepared to get into the coach, and such a beautiful

face as she disclosed, my uncle had never seen―not even in a

picture. She got into the coach, holding up her dress with one

hand; and as my uncle always said with a round oath, when he

told the story, he wouldn't have believed it possible that legs and

feet could have been brought to such a state of perfection unless

he had seen them with his own eyes.

'But, in this one glimpse of the beautiful face, my uncle saw that

the young lady cast an imploring look upon him, and that she

appeared terrified and distressed. He noticed, too, that the young

fellow in the powdered wig, notwithstanding his show of gallantry,

which was all very fine and grand, clasped her tight by the wrist

when she got in, and followed himself immediately afterwards. An

uncommonly ill-looking fellow, in a close brown wig, and a plum-

coloured suit, wearing a very large sword, and boots up to his hips,

belonged to the party; and when he sat himself down next to the

young lady, who shrank into a corner at his approach, my uncle

was confirmed in his original impression that something dark and

mysterious was going forward, or, as he always said himself, that

"there was a screw loose somewhere." It's quite surprising how

quickly he made up his mind to help the lady at any peril, if she

needed any help.

'"Death and lightning!" exclaimed the young gentleman, laying

his hand upon his sword as my uncle entered the coach.

'"Blood and thunder!" roared the other gentleman. With this,

he whipped his sword out, and made a lunge at my uncle without

further ceremony. My uncle had no weapon about him, but with

great dexterity he snatched the ill-looking gentleman's three-

cornered hat from his head, and, receiving the point of his sword

right through the crown, squeezed the sides together, and held it

tight.

'"Pink him behind!" cried the ill-looking gentleman to his

companion, as he struggled to regain his sword.

'"He had better not," cried my uncle, displaying the heel of one

of his shoes, in a threatening manner. "I'll kick his brains out, if he

has any, or fracture his skull if he hasn't." Exerting all his

strength, at this moment, my uncle wrenched the ill-looking man's

sword from his grasp, and flung it clean out of the coach window,

upon which the younger gentleman vociferated, "Death and

lightning!" again, and laid his hand upon the hilt of his sword, in a

very fierce manner, but didn't draw it. Perhaps, gentlemen, as my

uncle used to say with a smile, perhaps he was afraid of alarming

the lady.