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SAMBO.
No one was so sorry for the death of Sir George, or had so many kind
words to say in memory of him, as Mistress Croale. Neither was her
sorrow only because she had lost so good a customer, or even because
she had liked the man: I believe it was much enhanced by a vague
doubt that after all she was to blame for his death. In vain she
said to herself, and said truly, that it would have been far worse
for him, and Gibbie too, had he gone elsewhere for his drink; she
could not get the account settled with her conscience. She tried to
relieve herself by being kinder than before to the boy; but she was
greatly hindered in this by the fact that, after his father's death,
she could not get him inside her door. That his father was not
there -- would not be there at night, made the place dreadful to him.
This addition to the trouble of mind she already had on account of
the nature of her business, was the cause, I believe, why, after Sir
George's death, she went down the hill with accelerated speed. She
sipped more frequently from her own bottle, soon came to "tasting
with" her customers, and after that her descent was rapid. She no
longer refused drink to women, though for a time she always gave it
under protest; she winked at card-playing; she grew generally more
lax in her administration; and by degrees a mist of evil fame began
to gather about her house. Thereupon her enemy, as she considered
him, the Rev. Clement Sclater, felt himself justified in moving more
energetically for the withdrawal of her license, which, with the
support of outraged neighbours, he found no difficulty in effecting.
She therefore flitted to another parish, and opened a worse house
in a worse region of the city -- on the river-bank, namely, some
little distance above the quay, not too far to be within easy range
of sailors, and the people employed about the vessels loading or
discharging cargo. It pretended to be only a lodging-house, and had
no license for the sale of strong drink, but nevertheless, one way
and another, a great deal was drunk in the house, and, as always
card-playing, and sometimes worse things were going on, getting more
vigorous ever as the daylight waned, frequent quarrels and
occasional bloodshed was the consequence. For some time, however,
nothing very serious brought the place immediately within the
conscious ken of the magistrates.
In the second winter after his father's death, Gibbie, wandering
everywhere about the city, encountered Lucky Croale in the
neighbourhood of her new abode; down there she was Mistress no
longer, but, with a familiarity scarcely removed from contempt, was
both mentioned and addressed as Lucky Croale. The repugnance which
had hitherto kept Gibbie from her having been altogether to her
place and not to herself, he at once accompanied her home, and after
that went often to the house. He was considerably surprised when
first he heard words from her mouth for using which she had formerly
been in the habit of severely reproving her guests; but he always
took things as he found them, and when ere long he had to hear such
occasionally addressed to himself, when she happened to be more out
of temper than usual, he never therefore questioned her friendship.
What more than anything else attracted him to her house, however,
was the jolly manners and open-hearted kindness of most of the
sailors who frequented it, with almost all of whom he was a
favourite; and it soon came about that, when his ministrations to
the incapable were over, he would spend the rest of the night more
frequently there than anywhere else; until at last he gave up, in a
great measure, his guardianship of the drunk in the streets for that
of those who were certainly in much more danger of mishap at Lucky
Croale's. Scarcely a night passed when he was not present at one or
more of the quarrels of which the place was a hot-bed; and as he
never by any chance took a part, or favoured one side more than
another, but confined himself to an impartial distribution of such
peace-making blandishments as the ever-springing fountain of his
affection took instinctive shape in, the wee baronet came to be
regarded, by the better sort of the rough fellows, almost as the
very identical sweet little cherub, sitting perched up aloft, whose
department in the saving business of the universe it was, to take
care of the life of poor Jack. I do not say that he was always
successful in his endeavours at atonement, but beyond a doubt Lucky
Croale's house was a good deal less of a hell through the haunting
presence of the child. He was not shocked by the things he saw,
even when he liked them least. He regarded the doing of them much
as he had looked upon his father's drunkenness -- as a pitiful
necessity that overtook men -- one from which there was no escape, and
which caused a great need for Gibbies. Evil language and coarse
behaviour alike passed over him, without leaving the smallest stain
upon heart or conscience, desire or will. No one could doubt it who
considered the clarity of his face and eyes, in which the occasional
but not frequent expression of keenness and promptitude scarcely
even ruffled the prevailing look of unclouded heavenly babyhood.
If any one thinks I am unfaithful to human fact, and overcharge the
description of this child, I on my side doubt the extent of the
experience of that man or woman. I admit the child a rarity, but a
rarity in the right direction, and therefore a being with whom
humanity has the greater need to be made acquainted. I admit that
the best things are the commonest, but the highest types and the
best combinations of them are the rarest. There is more love in the
world than anything else, for instance; but the best love and the
individual in whom love is supreme are the rarest of all things.
That for which humanity has the strongest claim upon its workmen,
is the representation of its own best; but the loudest demand of the
present day is for the representation of that grade of humanity of
which men see the most -- that type of things which could never have
been but that it might pass. The demand marks the commonness,
narrowness, low-levelled satisfaction of the age. It loves its
own -- not that which might be, and ought to be its own -- not its
better self, infinitely higher than its present, for the sake of
whose approach it exists. I do not think that the age is worse in
this respect than those which have preceded it, but that vulgarity,
and a certain vile contentment swelling to self-admiration, have
become more vocal than hitherto; just as unbelief, which I think in
reality less prevailing than in former ages, has become largely more
articulate, and thereby more loud and peremptory. But whatever the
demand of the age, I insist that that which ought to be presented to
its beholding, is the common good uncommonly developed, and that not
because of its rarity, but because it is truer to humanity. Shall I
admit those conditions, those facts, to be true exponents of
humanity, which, except they be changed, purified, or abandoned,
must soon cause that humanity to cease from its very name, must
destroy its very being? To make the admission would be to assert
that a house may be divided against itself, and yet stand. It is
the noble, not the failure from the noble, that is the true human;
and if I must show the failure, let it ever be with an eye to the
final possible, yea, imperative, success. But in our day, a man who
will accept any oddity of idiosyncratic development in manners,
tastes, or habits, will refuse, not only as improbable, but as
inconsistent with human nature, the representation of a man trying
to be merely as noble as is absolutely essential to his
being -- except, indeed, he be at the same time represented as failing
utterly in the attempt, and compelled to fall back upon the
imperfections of humanity, and acknowledge them as its laws. Its
improbability, judged by the experience of most men I admit; its
unreality in fact I deny; and its absolute unity with the true idea
of humanity, I believe and assert.
It is hardly necessary for me now to remark, seeing my narrative
must already have suggested it, that what kept Gibbie pure and
honest was the rarely-developed, ever-active love of his kind. The
human face was the one attraction to him in the universe. In deep
fact, it is so to everyone; I state but the commonest reality in
creation; only in Gibbie the fact had come to the surface; the
common thing was his in uncommon degree and potency. Gibbie knew no
music except the voice of man and woman; at least no other had as
yet affected him. To be sure he had never heard much. Drunken
sea-songs he heard every night almost; and now and then on Sundays
he ran through a zone of psalm-singing; but neither of those could
well be called music. There hung a caged bird here and there at a
door in the poorer streets; but Gibbie's love embraced the lower
creation also, and too tenderly for the enjoyment of its melody.
The human bird loved liberty too dearly to gather anything but pain
from the song of the little feathered brother who had lost it, and
to whom he could not minister as to the drunkard. In general he ran
from the presence of such a prisoner. But sometimes he would stop
and try to comfort the naked little Freedom, disrobed of its space;
and on one occasion was caught in the very act of delivering a
canary that hung outside a little shop. Any other than wee Gibbie
would have been heartily cuffed for the offence, but the owner of
the bird only smiled at the would-be liberator, and hung the cage a
couple of feet higher on the wall. With such a passion of
affection, then, finding vent in constant action, is it any wonder
Gibbie's heart and hands should be too full for evil to occupy them
even a little?
One night in the spring, entering Lucky Croale's common room, he saw
there for the first time a negro sailor, whom the rest called Sambo,
and was at once taken with his big, dark, radiant eyes, and his
white teeth continually uncovering themselves in good-humoured
smiles. Sambo had left the vessel in which he had arrived, was
waiting for another, and had taken up his quarters at Lucky
Croale's. Gibbie's advances he met instantly, and in a few days a
strong mutual affection had sprung up between them. To Gibbie Sambo
speedily became absolutely loving and tender, and Gibbie made him
full return of devotion.
The negro was a man of immense muscular power, like not a few of his
race, and, like most of them, not easily provoked, inheriting not a
little of their hard-learned long-suffering. He bore even with
those who treated him with far worse than the ordinary
superciliousness of white to black; and when the rudest of city boys
mocked him, only showed his teeth by way of smile. The
ill-conditioned among Lucky Croale's customers and lodgers were
constantly taking advantage of his good nature, and presuming upon
his forbearance; but so long as they confined themselves to mere
insolence, or even bare-faced cheating, he endured with marvellous
temper. It was possible, however, to go too far even with him.
One night Sambo was looking on at a game of cards, in which all the
rest in the room were engaged. Happening to laugh at some turn it
took, one of them, a Malay, who was losing, was offended, and abused
him. Others objected to his having fun without risking money, and
required him to join in the game. This for some reason or other he
declined, and when the whole party at length insisted, positively
refused. Thereupon they all took umbrage, nor did most of them make
many steps of the ascent from displeasure to indignation, wrath,
revenge; and then ensued a row. Gibbie had been sitting all the
time on his friend's knee, every now and then stroking his black
face, in which, as insult followed insult, the sunny blood kept
slowly rising, making the balls of his eyes and his teeth look still
whiter. At length a savage from Greenock threw a tumbler at him.
Sambo, quick as a lizard, covered his face with his arm. The
tumbler falling from it, struck Gibbie on the head -- not severely,
but hard enough to make him utter a little cry. At that sound, the
latent fierceness came wide awake in Sambo. Gently as a nursing
mother he set Gibbie down in a corner behind him, then with one rush
sent every Jack of the company sprawling on the floor, with the
table and bottles and glasses atop of them. At the vision of their
plight his good humour instantly returned, he burst into a great
hearty laugh, and proceeded at once to lift the table from off them.
That effected, he caught up Gibbie in his arms, and carried him
with him to bed.
In the middle of the night Gibbie half woke, and, finding himself
alone, sought his father's bosom; then, in the confusion between
sleeping and waking, imagined his father's death come again.
Presently he remembered it was in Sambo's arms he fell asleep, but
where he was now he could not tell: certainly he was not in bed.
Groping, he pushed a door, and a glimmer of light came in. He was
in a closet of the room in which Sambo slept -- and something was to
do about his bed. He rose softly and peeped out, There stood
several men, and a struggle was going on -- nearly noiseless. Gibbie
was half-dazed, and could not understand; but he had little anxiety
about Sambo, in whose prowess he had a triumphant confidence.
Suddenly came the sound of a great gush, and the group parted from
the bed and vanished. Gibbie darted towards it. The words, "O Lord
Jesus!" came to his ears, and he heard no more: they were poor
Sambo's last in this world. The light of a street lamp fell upon
the bed: the blood was welling, in great thick throbs, out of his
huge black throat. They had bent his head back, and the gash gaped
wide.
For some moments Gibbie stood in ghastly terror. No sound except a
low gurgle came to his ears, and the horror of the stillness
overmastered him. He never could recall what came next. When he
knew himself again, he was in the street, running like the wind, he
knew not whither. It was not that he dreaded any hurt to himself;
horror, not fear, was behind him.
His next recollection of himself was in the first of the morning, on
the lofty chain-bridge over the river Daur. Before him lay he knew
not what, only escape from what was behind. His faith in men seemed
ruined. The city, his home, was frightful to him. Quarrels and
curses and blows he had been used to, and amidst them life could be
lived. If he did not consciously weave them into his theories, he
unconsciously wrapped them up in his confidence, and was at peace.
But the last night had revealed something unknown before. It was
as if the darkness had been cloven, and through the cleft he saw
into hell. A thing had been done that could not be undone, and he
thought it must be what people called murder. And Sambo was such a
good man! He was almost as good a man as Gibbie's father, and now
he would not breathe any more! Was he gone where Gibbie's father
was gone? Was it the good men that stopped breathing and grew cold?
But it was those wicked men that had deaded Sambo! And with that
his first vague perception of evil and wrong in the world began to
dawn.
He lifted his head from gazing down on the dark river. A man was
approaching the bridge. He came from the awful city! Perhaps he
wanted him! He fled along the bridge like a low-flying water-bird.
If another man had appeared at the other end, he would have got
through between the rods, and thrown himself into the river. But
there was no one to oppose his escape; and after following the road
a little way up the river, he turned aside into a thicket of shrubs
on the nearly precipitous bank, and sat down to recover the breath
he had lost more from dismay than exertion.
The light grew. All at once he descried, far down the river, the
steeples of the city. Alas! alas! there lay poor black Sambo, so
dear to wee Sir Gibbie, motionless and covered with blood! He had
two red mouths now, but was not able to speak a word with either!
They would carry him to a churchyard and lay him in a hole to lie
there for ever and ever. Would all the good people be laid into
holes and leave Gibbie quite alone? Sitting and brooding thus, he
fell into a dreamy state, in which, brokenly, from here and there,
pictures of his former life grew out upon his memory. Suddenly,
plainer than all the rest, came the last time he stood under
Mistress Croale's window, waiting to help his father home. The same
instant, back to the ear of his mind came his father's two words, as
he had heard them through the window -- "Up Daurside."
"Up Daurside!" -- Here he was upon Daurside -- a little way up too: he
would go farther up. He rose and went on, while the great river
kept flowing the other way, dark and terrible, down to the very door
inside which lay Sambo with the huge gape in his big throat.
Meantime the murder came to the knowledge of the police, Mistress
Croale herself giving the information, and all in the house were
arrested. In the course of their examination, it came out that wee
Sir Gibbie had gone to bed with the murdered man, and was now
nowhere to be found. Either they had murdered him too, or carried
him off. The news spread, and the whole city was in commotion about
his fate. It was credible enough that persons capable of committing
such a crime on such an inoffensive person as the testimony showed
poor Sambo, would be capable also of throwing the life of a child
after that of the man to protect their own. The city was searched
from end to end, from side to side, and from cellar to garret. Not
a trace of him was to be found -- but indeed Gibbie had always been
easier to find than to trace, for he had no belongings of any sort
to betray him. No one dreamed of his having fled straight to the
country, and search was confined to the city.
The murderers were at length discovered, tried, and executed. They
protested their innocence with regard to the child, and therein
nothing appeared against them beyond the fact that he was missing.
The result, so far as concerned Gibbie, was, that the talk of the
city, where almost everyone knew him, was turned, in his absence,
upon his history; and from the confused mass of hearsay that reached
him, Mr. Sclater set himself to discover and verify the facts. For
this purpose he burrowed about in the neighbourhoods Gibbie had
chiefly frequented, and was so far successful as to satisfy himself
that Gibbie, if he was alive, was Sir Gilbert Galbraith, Baronet;
but his own lawyer was able to assure him that not an inch of
property remained anywhere attached to the title. There were indeed
relations of the boy's mother, who were of some small consequence in
a neighbouring county, also one in business in Glasgow, or its
neighbourhood, reported wealthy; but these had entirely disowned her
because of her marriage. All Mr. Sclater discovered besides was, in
a lumber-room next the garret in which Sir George died, a box of
papers -- a glance at whose contents showed that they must at least
prove a great deal of which he was already certain from other
sources. A few of them had to do with the house in which they were
found, still known as the Auld Hoose o' Galbraith; but most of them
referred to property in land, and many were of ancient date. If the
property were in the hands of descendants of the original stock, the
papers would be of value in their eyes; and, in any case, it would
be well to see to their safety. Mr. Sclater therefore had the chest
removed to the garret of the manse, where it stood thereafter,
little regarded, but able to answer for more than itself.
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