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About four miles distant
from the town in which Mr Aikin lived, there resided an extensive
coal-mine proprietor of the name of Davidson; and it so happened that
he, too, had a predilection for that particular article of dress,
already so often named, viz., top boots; indeed, he was never known to
wear anything else in their place. Davidson was an elderly gentleman,
harsh and haughty in his manner, and extremely mean in all his
dealings—a manner and disposition which made him greatly disliked by the
whole country, and especially by his workmen, the miners, of whom he
employed upwards of a hundred and Fifty. The abhorrence in which Mr
Davidson was at all times held by his servants, was at this particular
moment greatly increased by an attempt which he was making to reduce his
workmen’s wages; and to such a height had their resentment risen against
their employer, that some of the more ferocious of them were heard to
throw out dark hints of personal violence; and it was much feared by
Davidson’s friends—of whom he had, however, but a very few, and these
mostly connected with him by motives of interest—that such an occurrence
would, in reality, happen one night or other, and that at no great
distance of time. Nor was this fear groundless.
Mr Davidson was invited to dine with a
neighbouring gentleman. He accepted the invitation, very foolishly, as
his family thought; but he did accept it, and went accordingly. It was
in the winter time, and the house of his host was about a mile distant
from his own residence. Such an opportunity as this of giving their
employer a sound drubbing had been long looked for by some half dozen of
Mr Davidson’s workmen, and early and correct information on the subject
of his dining out enabled them to avail themselves of it. The
conspirators, having held a consultation, resolved to waylay Davidson on
his return home. With this view they proceeded, after it became dark, in
the direction of the house in which their employer was dining. Having
gone about half way, they halted, and held another consultation, whereat
it was determined that they should conceal themselves in a sunk fence
which ran alongside of the road, until the object of their resentment
approached, when they should all rush out upon him at once, and belabour
him to their hearts’ content. This settled, they all cowered down into
the ditch, to await the arrival of their victim.
"But how will we ken him
i’ the dark?" said Jock Tamson, one of the conspirators, in a low
whisper, to his next neighbour; "we may fa' foul o’ somebody else in a
mistak."
The question rather posed
Jock’s neighbour, who immediately put it to the person next him, and he
again to the next, and on went the important query, until all were in
possession of it ; but none could answer it. At length, one of more
happy device than the rest suggested that Mr Davidson might be
recognised by his top boots. The idea pleased all, and was by all
considered infallible, for the fame of Mr Aikin’s boots had not yet
reached this particular quarter of the country. Satisfied that they had
hit upon an unerring mark by which to know their man, the ruffians
waited patiently for his approach.
At length, after fully
two hours’ watching, the fall of a footstep broke faintly on their ears;
it came nearer and nearer, and became every moment more and more
distinct. Breathless with the intensity of their feelings, the
conspirators, in dead silence, grasped their cudgels with increased
energy, and sunk themselves in the ditch until their eyes were on a
level with the ground, that they might at once place the approaching
object full before them, and between them and the feeble light which
lingered in the western sky. In the meantime, the wayfarer approached;
two dim whitey objects glimmered indistinctly in the darkness. They were
instantly recognized to be Mr Davidson’s top boots; a loud shout
followed this feeling of conviction; the colliers rushed from their
hiding-place, and in the next instant half a dozen bludgeons whistled
round the ears of the unfortunate wayfarer. The sufferer roared lustily
for mercy, but he roared in vain. The blows fell thick and fast upon his
luckless head and shoulders, for it was necessary that the work should
be done quickly; and a few seconds more saw him lying senseless and
bleeding in the ditch in which his assailants had concealed themselves.
Having satisfied their vengeance, the ruffians now lied, leaving their
victim behind them in the condition we have described. Morning came; a
man was found in a ditch, speechless, and bleeding profusely from many
severe wounds on the head and face, He was dragged out, and, after
cleansing his face from the blood and dirt with which it was encrusted,
the unfortunate man was recognised to be—Mr Thomas Aikin.
The unlucky boots, and they alone, were the
cause of poor Aikin’s mischance. He had, indeed, been mauled by mistake,
as the reader will have already anticipated. There was no intention
whatever on the part of the colliers to do Mr Aikin any injury, for Mr
Aikin, in the whole course of his harmless life, had never done them any
; indeed, he was wholly unknown to them, and they to him. It was the top
boots, and nothing but the top boots, that did all the mischief. But to
go on with our story. Aikin was carried home, and, through the strength
of a naturally good constitution and skilful surgical assistance,
recovered so far in six weeks as to be able to go about as usual,
although he bore to his grave with him on his face the marks of the
violence which he had received, besides being disfigured by the loss of
some half dozen of his front teeth.
The top boots, which poor Aikin had worn
before as articles of dress, and, of course, as a matter of choice, he
was now obliged to wear daily from necessity, being, as we have already
related, dismissed from his situation in the Excise. One would think
that Aikin had now suffered enough for his predilection for top boots,
seeing—at least so far as we can see—that there was no great harm in
such an apparently inoffensive indulgence; but Mr Aikin’s evil stars, or
his top boots themselves, we do not know which, were of a totally
different opinion, and on this opinion they forthwith proceeded to act.
Some weeks after the occurrence of the
disaster just recorded, the little town of ———, where Aikin resided, was
suddenly thrown into a state of the utmost horror and consternation by
the report of a foul murder and robbery having been committed on the
highway, and within a short distance of the town ; and of all the
inhabitants who felt horror-struck on this occasion, there was no one
more horrified than Mr Thomas Aikin. The report, however, of the murder
and robbery was incorrect, in so far as the unfortunate man was still
living, although little more, when found in the morning, for the deed
had been committed over night. Being a stranger, he was immediately
conveyed to the principal inn of the town, put to bed, and medical aid
called in. The fiscal, on learning that the man was still in existence,
instantly summoned his clerk, and, accompanied by a magistrate, hastened
to the dying man’s bedside, to take down whatever particulars could be
learnt from him regarding the assault and robbery. After patiently and
laboriously connecting the half intelligible and disjointed sentences
which they from time to time elicited from him, they made out that he
was a cattle-dealer, that he belonged to Edinburgh, that he had been in
Glasgow, and that, having missed the evening coach which plies between
the former and the latter city, he had taken the road on foot, with the
view of accomplishing one stage, and there awaiting the coming up of the
next coach. They further elicited from him that he had had a large sum
of money upon him, of which, of course, he had been deprived. The fiscal
next proceeded to inquire if he could identify the person or persons who
attacked him. He mumbled a reply in the negative.
"How many were there of them? " inquired the
magistrate. "Were there more than one?"
"Only one," muttered the unfortunate man.
"Was there any peculiarity in his dress or
appearance that struck you?" asked the fiscal.
He mumbled a reply, but none of the
bystanders could make it out. The question was again put, and both the
magistrate and fiscal stooped down simultaneously to catch the answer.
After an interval it came—and what think you it was, good reader? Why,
"top boots," distinctly and unequivocally. The fiscal and magistrate
looked at each other for a second, but neither durst venture to hint at
the astounding suspicion which the mention of these remarkable objects
forced upon them.
"He wore top boots, you say?" again inquired the fiscal, to make sure
that he had heard aright.
"Y-e-s, t-o-p b-o-o-ts," was again the
reply. "Was he a
thin man, or a stout man?"
"A stout man."
"Young or middle-aged?"
"Middle-aged."
"Tall or short?"
"Short," groaned out the sufferer, and, with
that word, the breath of life departed from him.
This event, of course, put an immediate end
to the inquiry. The fiscal and magistrate now retired to consult
together regarding what was best to be done, and to consider the
deposition of the murdered man. There was a certain pair of top boots
present to the minds of both, but the wearer of them had hitherto borne
an unblemished character, and was personally known to them both as a
kind-hearted, inoffensive man. Indeed, up to this hour, they would as
soon have believed that the minister of the parish would commit a
robbery as Mr Aikin —we say Mr Aikin, for we can no longer conceal the
fact, that it was Mr Aikin’s boots, however reluctantly admitted, that
flashed upon the minds of the two gentlemen of whom we are now speaking.
"The thing is impossible, incredible of such
a man as Mr Aikin," said the magistrate, in reply to the first open
insinuation of the fiscal, although, in saying this, he said what was
not in strict accordance with certain vague suspicions which had taken
possession of his own mind.
"Why, I should say so too," replied the
officer of the law, "were I to judge by the character which he has
hitherto borne; but here," he said, holding up the deposition of the
murdered man, "here are circumstances which we cannot be warranted in
overlooking, let them implicate whom they may. There is in especial the
top boots," went on the fiscal; "now, there is not another pair within
ten miles of us but Aikin’s; for Mr Davidson, the only man whom I know
that wears them besides, is now in London. There is the personal
description, too, exact. And besides all this, bailie," continued the
law officer, "you will recollect that Mr Aikin is and has been out of
employment for the last six months; and there is no saying what a man
who has a large family upon his hands will do in these circumstances."
The bailie acknowledged the force of his
colleague’s observations, but remarked, that, as it was a serious
charge, it must be gone cautiously and warily about. "For it wad be," he
said, "rather a hard matter to hang a man upon nae ither evidence than a
pair o’ tap boots.”
"Doubtless it would," replied the fiscal;
"but here is," he said, "a concatenation of circumstances—a chain of
evidence, so far as it goes, perfectly entire and connected. But," he
continued, as if to reconcile the bailie to the dangerous suspicion, "au
alibi on the part o` Mr Aikin will set a’ to rights, and blaw the hale
charge awa, like peelin’s o’ ingans ; and if he be an innocent man,
bailie, he can hae nae difficulty in establishing an alibi."
Not so fast, Mr Fiscal, not so fast, if you
please ; this alibi was not so easily established, or rather it could
not be established at all. Most unfortunately for poor Aikin, it turned
out, upon an inquiry which the official authorities thought it necessary
to set on foot before proceeding to extremities—that is, before taking
any decisive steps against the object of their suspicion—that he had
been not only absent from his own house until a late hour of the night
on which the murder and robbery were committed, but had actually been at
that late hour on the very identical road on which it had taken place.
The truth is, that Aikin had been dining with a friend who lived about a
mile into the country, and, as it unfortunately happened, in the very
direction in which the crime had been perpetrated. Still, could it not
have been shown that no unnecessary time had elapsed between the moment
of his leaving his friend’s house and his arrival at his own? Such a
circumstance would surely have weighed something in his favour. So it
would, probably; but alas! even this slender exculpatory incident could
not be urged in his behalf ; for the poor man, little dreaming of what
was to happen, had drunk a tumbler or two more than enough, and had
fallen asleep on the road. In short, the fiscal, considering all the
circumstances of the case as they now stood, did not think it consistent
with his duty either to delay proceedings longer against Aikin, or to
maintain any further delicacy with regard to him. A report of the whole
affair was made to the sheriff of Glasgow, who immediately ordered a
warrant to be made out for the apprehension of Aikin. This instrument
was given forthwith into the custody of two criminal officers, who set
out directly in a post-chaise to execute their commission.
Arriving in the middle of the night, they
found poor Aikin, wholly unconscious of the situation in which he stood,
in bed and sound asleep. Having roused the unhappy man, and barely
allowed him time to draw on his top boots, they hurried him into the
chaise, and in little more than an hour thereafter, Aikin was fairly
lodged in Glasgow jail, to stand his trial for murder and robbery, and
this mainly, if not wholly, on the strength of his top boots.
The day of trial came. The judge summed up
the evidence, and, in an eloquent speech, directed the special attention
of the jury to Aikin’s top boots: indeed, on these he dwelt so much, and
with such effect, that the jury returned a verdict of guilty against the
prisoner at the bar, who accordingly received sentence of death, but was
strongly recommended to mercy by the jury, as well on the ground of his
previous good character, as on that of certain misgivings regarding the
top boots, which a number of the jury could not help entertaining, in
despite of their prominence in the evidence which was led against their
unfortunate owner.
Aikin’s friends, who could not be persuaded of his guilt,
notwithstanding the strong circumstantial proof with which it was
apparently established, availing themselves of this recommendation of
the jury, immediately set to work to second the humane interference; and
Providence in its mercy kindly assisted them. From a communication which
the superintendent of police in Glasgow received from the corresponding
officer in Edinburgh, about a week after Aikin’s condemnation, it
appeared that there were more gentlemen of suspicious character in the
world who wore top boots than poor Aikin. The letter alluded to
announced the capture of a notorious character—regarding whom
information had been received from Bow Street—a "flash cove," fresh from
London, on a foraying expedition in Scotland. The communication
described him as being remarkably well dressed, and, in especial,
alluded to the circumstance of his wearing top boots; concluding the
whole, which was indeed the principal purpose of the letter, by
inquiring if there was any charge in Glasgow against such a person as he
described. The circumstance, by some fortunate chance, reached the ears
of Aikin’s friends, and in the hope that something might be made of it,
they employed an eminent lawyer in Edinburgh to sift the matter to the
bottom. In the
meantime, the Englishman in the top boots was brought to trial for
another highway robbery, found guilty, and sentenced to death without
hope of mercy. The lawyer whom Aikin’s friends had employed, thinking
this a favourable opportunity for eliciting the truth from him, seeing
that he had now nothing more to fear in this world, waited upon the
unfortunate man, and, amidst a confession of a long series of crimes,
obtained from him that of the murder and robbery for which poor Aikin
had been tried and condemned. The consequence of this important
discovery was, the immediate liberation of Aikin, who again returned in
peace to the bosom of his family. His friends, however, not contented
with what they had done, represented the whole circumstances of the case
to the Secretary of State for the Home Department ; and under the
impression that there lay a claim on the country for reparation for the
injury, though inadvertent, which its laws had done to an innocent man,
the application was replied to in favourable terms in course of post,
and in less than three weeks thereafter, Mr Thomas Aikin was appointed
to a situation in the custom-house in London, worth two hundred pounds a
year. His steadiness, integrity, and general good conduct, soon procured
him still further advancement, and he finally died, after enjoying his
appointment for many, years, in the annual receipt of more than double
the sum which we have just named. And thus ends the eventful history of
Mr Thomas Aikin and his Top Boots. — Chamber’s Edinburgh Journal. |
