tioner, for the
Ordinary, for his wife, for Mrs. Thompson, his drunken doxy, and he went
to his death with the sure step of one who, having done his duty, is
reconciled with the world. The mob testified its affectionate admiration
by dubbing him 'Charley,' and remembered with effusion his last grim
pleasantry. 'What is the scaffold?' he asked with sublime earnestness.
And the answer came quick and sanctimonious: 'A short cut to Heaven!'

III--A PARALLEL

(DEACON BRODIE AND CHARLES PEACE)

NOT a parallel, but a contrast, since at all points Peace is Brodie's
antithesis. The one is the austerest of Classics, caring only for the
ultimate perfection of his work. The other is the gayest of Romantics,
happiest when by the way he produces a glittering effect, or dazzles the
ear by a vain impertinence. Now, it is by thievery that Peace reached
magnificence. A natural aptitude drove him from the fiddle to the
centre-bit. He did but rob, because genius followed the impulse. He
had studied the remotest details of his business; he was sternly
professional in the conduct of his life, and, as became an old
gaol-bird, there was no antic of the policeman wherewith he was not
familiar. Moreover, not only had he reduced house-breaking to a science,
but, being ostensibly nothing better than a picture-frame maker, he had
invented an incomparable set of tools wherewith to enter and evade
his neighbour's house. Brodie, on the other hand, was a thief for
distraction. His method was as slovenly as ignorance could make it.
Though by trade a wright, and therefore a master of all the arts of
joinery, he was so deficient in seriousness that he stole a coulter
wherewith to batter the walls of the Excise Office. While Peace fought
the battle in solitude, Brodie was not only attended by a gang, but
listened to the command of his subordinates, and was never permitted to
perform a more intricate duty than the sounding of the alarm. And yet
here is the ironical contrast. Peace, the professional thief, despised
his brothers, and was never heard to patter a word of flash. Brodie,
the amateur, courted the society of all cross coves, and would rather
express himself in Pedlar's French than in his choicest Scots. While the
Englishman scraped Tate and Brady from a one-stringed fiddle, the Scot
limped a chaunt from The Beggar's Opera, and thought himself a devil
of a fellow. The one was a man about town masquerading as a thief; the
other the most se