"God protect us, Mr. Fettes!" said the landlord, coming first into possession of his customary senses. "What in the universe is all this?These are strange things you have been saying."
Fettes turned toward us;he looked us each in succession in the face. "See if you can hold your tongues," said he. "That man Macfarlane is not safe to cross;those that have done so already have repented it too late."
And then, without so much as finishing his third glass, far less waiting for the other two, he bade us good-bye and went forth, under the lamp of the hotel, into the black night.
We three turned to our places in the parlour, with the big red fire and four clear candles;and as we recapitulated what had passed, the first chill of our surprise soon changed into a glow of curiosity. We sat late;it was the latest session I have known in the old George.Each man, before we parted, had his theory that he was bound to prove;and none of us had any nearer business in this world than to track out the past of our condemned companion, and surprise the secret that he shared with the great London doctor.It is no great boast, but I believe I was a better hand at worming out a story than either of my fellows at the George;and perhaps there is now no other man alive who could narrate to you the following foul and unnatural events.
In his young days Fettes studied medicine in the schools of Edinburgh. He had talent of a kind, the talent that picks up swiftly what it hears and readily retails it for its own.He worked little at home;but he was civil, attentive, and intelligent in the presence of his masters.They soon picked him out as a lad who listened closely and remembered well;nay, strange as it seemed to me when I first heard it, he was in those days well favoured, and pleased by his exterior.There was, at that period, a certain extramural teacher of anatomy, whom I shall here designate by the letter K.His name was subsequently too well-known.The man who bore it skulked through the streets of Edinburgh in disguise, while the mob that applauded at the execution of Burke called loudly for the blood of his employer.But Mr.K was then at the top of his vogue;he enjoyed a popularity due partly to his own talent and address, partly to the incapacity of his rival, the university professor.The students, at least, swore by his name, and Fettes believed himself, and was believed by others, to have laid the foundations of success when he had acquired the favour of this meteorically famous man.Mr.K was a BON VIVANT as well as an accomplished teacher;he liked a sly illusion no less than a careful preparation.In both capacities Fettes enjoyed and deserved his notice, and by the second year of his attendance he held the half-regular position of second demonstrator or sub-assistant in his class.