DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22217#0226
214
THE TORN TARTAN SHA WL.
arms, and kissed it and cuddled it to make it warm, and then
she took the shawl off her shouthers—that shawl that you're
makin' sic a wark aboot—and wrapped it roon' my wean, an'
brocht a pair o' stockin's oot o' her bundle for it, an' tellt me
to keep them. Then she gie'd me a shillin', an' tellt me to
gang to a lodging in the Grassmarket, and then said she was
in a hurry or she wad have ta'en me there hersel', and gaed
awa'."
And the half-sovereign found in her possession ? How did
she account for that? How did it happen that when the
mysterious woman with the bundle spoke to her she had not a
penny, and now she had a half-sovereign ?
" Oh, a gentleman gied me that," she answered, quite
promptly. ". I was sittih' restin' on a step, when I got in the
toon a bit—for I didna think it worth while to gang to the
lodging as it was after six o'clock—when a gentleman cam' up
to me and asked me hoo far I had come, and aboot my man
and my wean, and then he put his hand in his pooch, and
brought oot a half-sovereign and put it in my hands. I
thought it was a sixpence, for it was dark at the time, and
maybe he thought that too. He looked a wee touched wi'
drink—drunk, ye ken—and I was gled when he gaed awa'."
Clumsy, clumsy ! a clumsy story in the extreme. We tried
to convince her of that, and by cross-examining her to trip her
up, but she stuck to her statements with amazing firmness, and
even volunteered fresh details in confirmation. Finding her
obdurate, we gave her up in despair, and she was taken away
and locked up in a state of frenzy which looked wonderfully
real, and therefore piteous enough.
The only wonder to us now was where the rest of the stolen
clothes had been hidden. Allowing for the woman spending
some money in the forenoon, she might be reasonably expected
to have about ten shillings left of the fourteen given by the
pawnbroker, but that disposal accounted for only a part of the
stolen things. Could she have had any assistant who would
share the plunder ? I was anxious to settle that question. I
brought in the pawnbroker's son to see her, and he identified
her in a haphazard fashion as the woman who pawned the
things, but then, as-I have recorded, he was a blockhead, and
his evidence had no great value. I then thought of visiting
the Infirmary to see if she had a husband there, and learn if
the name she had given—Ellen Hunter—was real or assumed.
A little to my surprise I found the husband there, Archibald
THE TORN TARTAN SHA WL.
arms, and kissed it and cuddled it to make it warm, and then
she took the shawl off her shouthers—that shawl that you're
makin' sic a wark aboot—and wrapped it roon' my wean, an'
brocht a pair o' stockin's oot o' her bundle for it, an' tellt me
to keep them. Then she gie'd me a shillin', an' tellt me to
gang to a lodging in the Grassmarket, and then said she was
in a hurry or she wad have ta'en me there hersel', and gaed
awa'."
And the half-sovereign found in her possession ? How did
she account for that? How did it happen that when the
mysterious woman with the bundle spoke to her she had not a
penny, and now she had a half-sovereign ?
" Oh, a gentleman gied me that," she answered, quite
promptly. ". I was sittih' restin' on a step, when I got in the
toon a bit—for I didna think it worth while to gang to the
lodging as it was after six o'clock—when a gentleman cam' up
to me and asked me hoo far I had come, and aboot my man
and my wean, and then he put his hand in his pooch, and
brought oot a half-sovereign and put it in my hands. I
thought it was a sixpence, for it was dark at the time, and
maybe he thought that too. He looked a wee touched wi'
drink—drunk, ye ken—and I was gled when he gaed awa'."
Clumsy, clumsy ! a clumsy story in the extreme. We tried
to convince her of that, and by cross-examining her to trip her
up, but she stuck to her statements with amazing firmness, and
even volunteered fresh details in confirmation. Finding her
obdurate, we gave her up in despair, and she was taken away
and locked up in a state of frenzy which looked wonderfully
real, and therefore piteous enough.
The only wonder to us now was where the rest of the stolen
clothes had been hidden. Allowing for the woman spending
some money in the forenoon, she might be reasonably expected
to have about ten shillings left of the fourteen given by the
pawnbroker, but that disposal accounted for only a part of the
stolen things. Could she have had any assistant who would
share the plunder ? I was anxious to settle that question. I
brought in the pawnbroker's son to see her, and he identified
her in a haphazard fashion as the woman who pawned the
things, but then, as-I have recorded, he was a blockhead, and
his evidence had no great value. I then thought of visiting
the Infirmary to see if she had a husband there, and learn if
the name she had given—Ellen Hunter—was real or assumed.
A little to my surprise I found the husband there, Archibald