Crime & punishment > Curiosities of crime in Edinburgh during the last thirty years

THE HANDCUFFS.
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ling or whipping. Yes, I had been so often there, that
I might be said to have formed a habit of going, for
that kind of comfort without which I do not think
I could live in this world of man-and-woman wicked¬
ness.
Having opened the good woman’s door,—I call her
good, because, if her lodgers were often only half¬
respectable, she was wholly so, at least in my eyes,—I
entered with my usual familiarity, and sat down with
her by the fire. I have said I wanted comfort, and so
I began my old way of asking for it.
“ Any lodgers just now ?”
“Ay, a man frae the country. He came early in
the morning, and got his breakfast. He is to sleep a’
night at ony rate.”
“ What like is he 1M I inquired.
“ A perfect Anak amang the Philistines! Ye’re a
guid buirdly man yersel’; but, my faith ! ye ’re naething
to him. The man, I fancy, is guid eneugh; but I
wadna redd you meddle him—I mean if he were ane ye
had ony care for—without at least twa assistants.”
“Can you describe his face?” said I, really in the
expectation of getting nothing.
“ Indeed, no,” replied the good woman, “ for it’s lang
since I gave up spying into men’s faces, whaur I never,
in my best days, saw muckle to look at, but a nose
amang a bush o’ hair, and twa een aye glowerin’ at us
women-folk; but, besides, my niece Jenny gave him his
breakfast, and I’ve scarcely seen him;—but, Guid save