As the Colonel’s threats crimson’d my brother, I began to fear the loosing of his too-ready fist. In this uneasy year of King George, 1722, to strike a member of the Assembly would mean something worse than the pillory.
But my brother was, for the moment, saved; such an outcry arising from Queen Street that both men rush’d to the doorway. I glanced at my work, an advertisement for the sale of several Palatine maids, time of most of them five years. Tho’ my brother might beat me again, I set aside my composing stick and ran after them on to the cobblestones. For the shouting had grown from “Seize him” to “Murder, murder most foule!” — which made me most curious.
All Boston seem’d running: hardy ropewalkmen, unkempt ’prentices, grimy pewterers jostled by His Majesty’s grenadiers flush’d as red as their coats from grog, and good-wives scurrying with their gowns above their ankles and their tongues a-wagging. I was surprised to see the mob revolving beneath the wooden boot that advertised the shoemaker’s stall; they were clamouring around the old cobbler and the huge Irish ’prentice lad he held as easily as a partner in a dance.
The lad, Dennis O’Leary, apprentice to the candlemaker, stood meekly downcast, while round them, leaping like a bewigg’d frog in his excitement, shouted the candlemaker’s tenant, little Warwick Lowther, a silversmith whose voice was the largest part of him: “Murder, he has murder’d his master!”
“Here, man, be silent!” Colonel Clinton snapp’d, and order’d that the lad be march’d back to the candlemaker’s to view his abominable crime and confess to save his soul.
Thinking to remain out of my brother’s notice, I follow’d at the coattails of the crowd. Dennis was shaking his red locks in confusion, in obvious denial as they propell’d him into the cavernous shop and into its dim after-part, where their numbers obstructed my curiosity.
Above their heads the rafters rose steeply to the high wall which divided the house in halves. I knew the ground floor of the other half to be the sleeping quarters of the candlemaker, named Mr. Gill, and his intemperate uncle, and also of Dennis. Above it was a garret, reach’d by the narrow staircase fix’d to this side of the wall and tenanted by little Warwick Lowther, silversmith, and his wife and brood of six or seven.
I climb’d upon the silversmith’s table in the fore-part of the shop, being careful not to upset his neatly hammer’d porringers, sauce boats, wall sconces, and candlesticks, and wondering that some knave might not take this opportunity to steal them. For, lately, many Boston houses had been enter’d for their silver. A coldness slosh’d upon my shoe. I perceived I had jostled a pail of fresh beer, but thought no more of this as I stared over the heads of the crowd at a most unnatural sight.
Beneath the horizontal spokes of Mr. Gill’s candle-dipping machine, the mammoth kettle of wax seem’d stuff’d with the blue broadcloth from which coats are sewn. Two bulbous lumps of the cloth droop’d over the edge of the kettle, and from them hung gray woolens, narrowing to white stockings, which terminated in large leather shoes.
“Draw him out,” the Colonel order’d.
With a greasily osculating sound, the candlemaker’s shoulders and head were withdrawn from his kettle. The breathless room sweeten’d with the fragrance of bayberry wax. A horrid sight Mr. Gill’s corpse made, with the greenish wax flowing downward on his features as if he were a waxwork during the Great Fire.
Around his hips, which had been at the surface of the kettle, the harden’d wax gave him strange proportions. And a wag blurted: “Silversmiths oft hammer their thumbs, but never before has a candlemaker dipp’d himself.”
Some titter’d, some reproved, all talk’d. My brother thrust his hand into the kettle, but instantly withdrew it, the pan of coals beneath not being wholly expired. Recoursing to the poker, he hook’d out Mr. Gill’s sodden wig. Never one to remain a modest spectator, he thrust it at Dennis O’Leary’s nose, shouting: “Confess, I say! Here is the evidence. Blood upon your master’s wig.”
Altho’ this show’d Mr. Gill had been struck down, I wonder’d that my brother was so easily convinced of Dennis’s guilt. For a head bleeds whether struck by an apprentice or another. And I lean’d forward to hear the Irish lad’s denial.
“God witness, sir,” Dennis cried, “I found him thus — when I return’d from the Sailor’s Pleasure. He’d sent me for a pail of beer. I would o’ pull’d him out. But Mr. Lowther rush’d at me. He shouted ‘Murder’ and — chased me into the street.”
“He fled from his conscience,” the little silversmith retorted, his own fair and freckled complexion as flush’d as the boy’s.
“See the terror of guilt upon the lad’s face,” my brother added.
Colonel Clinton silenced them with a dagger’d glance. I, too, was angered by my brother, believing his opinion to be poison’d against all apprentices. And, further, I consider’d Dennis my friend, lately we having done much walking together at dusk along the ship-wharves, exchanging our grievances.
I knew full well the mindless drudgery of candlemaking, my own father being a tallow chandler, and I his unwilling helper, boiling tallow, straining tallow, pouring tallow into moulds, until I was twelve and he, detecting I would run away to sea, apprenticed me to my brother to learn the printing trade. My brother had since treated me, I consider’d, no better than a bound-boy. I did not acknowledge that my overweening tongue was the chief cause of this. And Dennis now seem’d a symbol of myself persecuted.
I resolved to speak up for him, tho’: those who in quarrels interpose, must often wipe a bloody nose. Prudently, I climbed down from the table so that my brother might not see who had spoken.
“Witness how the wax has harden’d about the waist,” I cried. “From this I deduce that Mr. Gill has been a long time in his kettle, cooling. Yet we know the lad has but recently return’d. Here, on the table, his pail of beer still has a head on it.”
This last turn’d the heads of the crowd, and my brother, with knitting brows, recognized me.
“ ’Tis true!” the old cobbler exclaim’d. “The boy had pass’d my bench with his pail of beer and before twenty pegs were driven I heard shouts of ‘Seize him’ and he return’d like a cut-purse pursued.”
Even little Warwick Lowther clapp’d his hand to his wig. “’Tis true! My apologies. When I left my wife and children and came on to the stair, I observed the boy bending strangely over his master down there, and I rush’d to interfere. ’Twas only his flight that convinced me of his guilt.”
The little silversmith made his way to his landlord’s apprentice and, reaching up, placed his hand upon the lad’s shoulder. “Tho’ Dennis has been employ’d here but a short time, I have observed him to be mild of temper. Yet there is another with whom my landlord often exchanged blows.”
“Blossom!” the apprentice gasp’d.
“Aye, Mr. Gill’s uncle it well may be,” Warwick Lowther replied.
All look’d about. Blossom Gill was so called for the grog blossoms studding his corpulent visage. An old man and living on his nephew’s charity, nevertheless he would not take orders in good spirit from the candlemaker, and their quarrelling could be heard even to our printing-shop, particularly when they had both been taking spirits of another order.
“Look for Blossom under the horses’ legs,” my brother laughed.
“He should have return’d by now,” Warwick Lowther suggested, “if he were innocent. After the lad set out for the Sailor’s Pleasure, a very considerable walk, Mr. Gill ask’d his uncle to fetch the cart, for they would go bay berrying on the morrow. Blossom retorted for him to fetch it himself. And tho’ it is less than a hundred paces from this rear doorway to the wheelwright’s, they were still squabbling when I ascended the stairway to take my tea in a less blasphemous atmosphere.”