Here, it is the tale of Begbie the bank-porter,
stricken to the heart at a blow and left in his blood
within a step or two of the crowded High Street. There,
people hush their voices over Burke and Hare; over drugs
and violated graves, and the resurrection-men smothering
their victims with their knees. Here, again, the fame of
Deacon Brodie is kept piously fresh. A great man in his
day was the Deacon; well seen in good society, crafty
with his hands as a cabinet-maker, and one who could sing
a song with taste. Many a citizen was proud to welcome
the Deacon to supper, and dismissed him with regret at a
timeous hour, who would have been vastly disconcerted had
he known how soon, and in what guise, his visitor
returned. Many stories are told of this redoubtable
Edinburgh burglar, but the one I have in my mind most
vividly gives the key of all the rest. A friend of
Brodie's, nested some way towards heaven in one of these
great LANDS, had told him of a projected visit to the
country, and afterwards, detained by some affairs, put it
off and stayed the night in town. The good man had lain
some time awake; it was far on in the small hours by the
Tron bell; when suddenly there came a creak, a jar, a
faint light. Softly he clambered out of bed and up to a
false window which looked upon another room, and there,
by the glimmer of a thieves' lantern, was his good friend
the Deacon in a mask. It is characteristic of the town
and the town's manners that this little episode should
have been quietly tided over, and quite a good time
elapsed before a great robbery, an escape, a Bow Street
runner, a cock-fight, an apprehension in a cupboard in