Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/628

 Rh Bury assizes, was convicted of aggravated manslaughter only, and sentenced to penal servitude for the remainder of his days. The ship in which he was to have gone to Botany Bay was one of the last convict transports which left England. It was wrecked in the Channel off Boulogne, and all on board were drowned. Then one of the mysterious murders was explained in the person of my old acquaintance, and expiated.

"Mrs. Brown did not long survive her husband. As she lay on her death-bed she said to the doctor, 'I should like to speak to some one before I go.' The clergyman was sent for, but when he came the old woman raised herself in her bed, and said, 'That's no use in your coming here, that's no good you can do me. It's the magistrate I want.' After this, she relapsed for some time, and with her last energy said, 'I ha' got summut to tell yer afore I die. Stumpy's gone, and so shall I be soon, so that don't matter. You know the officer as was murdered and robbed close by the Martlesome Lion?—I and Stumpy ha' done that, [A pause.] Yer know the cap'ain what was found in a sack?—I and Stumpy put 'im in. We drugged 'im first, and then took his money and sewed 'im up. Fitch saw Stumpy put 'im in the river, but he dursen't tell, 'cause Stumpy said he'd do the same for him if he did. When yon sent for the clargyman when Fitch was a-dying, Stumpy says to me, says he, "He's a going to blab, you best stop 'im." I knowed what he meant, and so I stuck the pillow on his face, after you were gone. He went off quite easy and naterel-like, and he hadn't long to live anyways. That's all about Fitch. [Another pause.] Stumpy killed owld Aighton 'cause he prosecuted 'im, and that war'n't likely he would stand that. Stumpy's drownded, so yer can't git him, and I ain't fur off dying. I can die more quiet-like, now I have loosed my mind. That's getting that cold now, I feel as if that were a kind o' smothering me. Oh! Lord!' And thus the old woman died. No great publicity was given to Mrs. Brown's confession, and to many the Woodbridge murders are still a mystery."

At a time when the English language was being touched into an almost metallic brilliancy under the skilful manipulation of that prince of polishers, Mr. Alexander Pope, there dwelt in the High Street of Edinburgh an obscure bookseller who had just completed and published, in his own quiet way and in his own homely Doric, one of the most perfect pastoral poems ever written: a little dark-faced man, with much quiet humour in his brown eyes, and with a considerable fund of ready wit, which was bestowed alike upon customer and visitor—a man who was beginning to find his way into the most distinguished circles of Edinburgh society, though himself merely the occupant of a dirty and picturesque little bookshop in that dirty, picturesque, and glorious old city—a man who had the most exalted notions of his own consequence as a poet, and of course quite failed to perceive wherein lay his true claims to be considered a poet at all. Such was Allan Ramsay, author of "The Gentle Shepherd." This poem of his has been named the first and finest pastoral in existence; but those who have a wholesome dread of pledging themselves to any too definite opinion may say that, if not the most perfect, it is one of the most pleasing.

Allan Ramsay was born in 1686, at the village of Leadhills, in the south of Lanark shire. In that high and bleak region, where the river Clyde rises under shadow of Tinto hill, are several lead-mines; and the father of the future poet was then manager of such of those mines as belonged to the Earl of Hopetoun. Here young Ramsay spent fifteen years of his life, educating himself in a quite unconscious manner for his coming mission; at the end of which time he was apprenticed by his step-father—for his own father had died several years before—to a periwig-maker in Edinburgh. Here he faithfully fulfilled his apprenticeship; for as yet no visions of literary fame ever disturbed his duties by day or his dreams by night. Certainly, during this time, he must have amassed a considerable fund of information, for the trade of a barber is the most literary of all non-professional pursuits; and it is probable that Allan acquired more knowledge when assisting to rid men of their beards than he would have done had the finest library in the kingdom been thrown open to him. In due time his apprenticeship ceased. Not despising his calling, as a less sensible man might have done, he began business on his own account, and so far succeeded that in the year 1712 he was enabled to marry one Christian Ross, by all accounts a most pious and worthy woman.

Not even his courtship, it seems, had stirred up the latent powers of this literary laggard towards any approach to verse-writing. But now, married and comfortable, with a steady-going business daily bringing him sufficient bread and "yill," he began to indite small humorous rhymes, partly for his own gratification, chiefly for the amusement of one or two societies of good fellows with whom he now pretty much associated. On the strength of