Ill Met by Gaslight: Five Edinburgh Murders Read Online Free PDF

hotel in London `where you could get a genuine French dinner … you would seldom pay less than three or four pounds; your bottle of champagne or of claret, in the year 1814, costing you a guinea.’ Since Davy and Barney were aspiring to the High-Life rather than to mere subsistence, Gronow’s figures may seem more relevant to their desires than a note on the price of bread.
    The Portobello Races marked the start of a tour of the Borders and the North of England. They headed for Jedburgh and Kelso, where they cleared £20 at the St James’s Fair, then to Hawick, where they stayed at the Black Bull, and thence, by way of Langholm, to Dumfries for the Rood Fair. For the boy until recently tied to his apprenticeship, respectability and labour, it was an exhilarating change of pace.
    At Dumfries they stole £10 in a hosier’s shop. David’s own description is a fair indication of their habitual effrontery. Having spied a man with who was seeking to change a ten pound note, he `followed him into a hosier’s shop in the High Street, where he again asked for change; the shop was throng and the shopman said he would give it presently. He put the note in a careless manner into his waistcoat pocket, when I was standing by him with my arms across, and in that position touched him of his scrieve (banknote). I immediately asked the shopman the price of silk stockings, which were in the window. His answer was “the price is marked on them, sir.” This was the best answer in the world for me. I went out to see, but missed my way back. I did not inform young MacGuire of this prize; but Barney and I shared it with £4 of the smash taken by him.’
    Young MacGuire was Barney’s brother, who had recently joined them. The relations between David and Barney may be fairly judged by their exclusion of the young MacGuire from a share in the profits. They were both ready to cheat their confederates, but David was also prepared to take risks on Barney’s behalf. His tone is warm and sincere whenever he speaks of him; David and Jonathan also ran.
    Dumfries was dangerous however, because of Barney’s record. `We were not in safety to be seen at this place, as the MacGuires were well-known by John Richardson (a most respectable sheriff-officer from Dumfries) whom we suspected was at the Fair.’ Richardson flits through David’s story, one of those persistent, dogged detectives one meets in nineteenth century novels: like Wilkie Collins’ Sergeant Cuff, or Inspector Bucket in Bleak House, he had no method but a terrier’s. His presence was sufficiently alarming however to persuade Barney to keep to their inn room. Despite this, there were good pickings at Dumfries: Davy got £23 off a drunken farmer. (Such unhappy men were among his most frequent victims. Indeed if other pickpockets met with comparable success, as seems likely, the phrase `agricultural depression’ takes on a new meaning. Bad harvests were not necessarily the worst of it.)
    Langholm Fair, whither they next proceeded, was to provide one of their most notable coups. Young MacGuire spotted their chosen victim - ‘a coneish cove (gentleman) with a great swell in his suck. He had seen him with the lil in his fam. and he was sure there were hundreds in it’. It was an opportunity not to be let slip. Davy went to it with a will and admirable speed of hand. He got £201, and they cheated young MacGuire of his fair share yet again. This was indeed the life. `I never was happier in my life than when I fingered all this money; but I thought about it sore afterwards when I was ill and like to die.’ Such repentance, brief when it came, cast no shadow on present pleasure. However within half an hour of the coup, they saw the persistent Richardson `running about’. It was time to be off; nothing after all could explain their wealth but the truth. Fortunately it enabled them to travel like gentry. They ordered a post-chaise and set off for Carlisle.
    There followed the sort of