Chapter Twenty-seven

Over eggs and bacon, porridge and beer two days later, Walt heard him out. “You do the kind and honorable thing, and now you fear for your position,” he said, then belched quietly into his napkin.

“There was a distinct chill in Dissection Three yesterday, as we mulled over a woman dead of syphilis.” It was more than that, and so he admitted it to his friend. Sir Winston had made him a figure of ridicule, asking the students, “Should we put this vile female specimen in a down-padded coffin when we’re done? Mr. Coffin would perhaps agree.”

Josiah shook his head, remembering. Some of the students laughed. Others seemed appalled. From his perch in the back row, Davey looked away, his expression so sad, sad enough to make Josiah wonder if the lad was thinking about his own mother, whoever she was.“I wish I could help you, Josiah,” Walt said, “but I don’t know how.”

Josiah ate his last piece of bacon. “The thing is, I believe Avon. Last night he swept in that what I call ‘The Deserving Poor Ward,’ with the dying man and his family. He said the same two students were there. I know they cannot harvest this man for Dissection Three, because his family would never countenance such an atrocity. What does thee think is their aim with this poor fellow?”

Walt took another swig of beer and belched. “Best breakfast I know,” he said. Josiah knew better than to interrupt the silence that followed; he knew Walt well. He sat forward when his friend’s face brightened.

“Tell me something, Josiah. Have there been times when the college of medicine lacks bodies for dissection?”

“Now and then.” Josiah attempted a joke that went entirely against everything he believed and regretted it instantly. What was he turning into? “Edinburgh needs more felons and criminals, I suppose. Oh, forgive that.”

Walt gave him a measuring look that made Josiah cringe inside. “Josiah, are you certain you are in the right profession?”

“I have been wondering lately, not so much about medicine, but my current application of it. Aye, we sometimes lack sufficient exhibits to educate our students.”

“What do you do in those cases?”

“We might dissect dogs or calves. They reveal considerable knowledge about the circulation of blood and provide practice in wielding a scalpel.”

“But you need bodies.”

“We do. These are modern times, and not the Middle Ages, where physicians feared for their lives if they even suggested opening up a human body.”

It was Walt’s turn to hesitate. “Do you, um, ever open corpses that have the whiff of formaldehyde about them? Perhaps that are even a little too tidy? Maybe you only expose their limbs to dissection?”

He didn’t want to think about it. He also didn’t care to remember a recent corpse on the dissecting table with hair neatly clubbed at the back of his neck in the style of the last generation. He knew without being told that the man had come from a freshly tilled grave. God help him, he knew. He also knew Walter Scot was a man of great discretion and his friend.

“We have dissected people I know were resurrected from burial grounds,” he said softly, unwilling to be overheard. “Walt, what am I to do when I have a class of students eager to learn, and I pull back a sheet from someone robbed from a grave?”

“I doubt the other physicians question it,” Walt said. He finished his beer. “However, I expect…”

“…better of me,” Josiah concluded. He sighed and leaned back against the bench. “If it’s any consolation to thee, I am certain to lose my position now because I have finally taken a feeble stand against dissecting the ill-gotten.” He thought of earnest Avon March – guttersnipe bastard to some – appalled at the injustice done to an old man and his widow. He took a long look at his friend and breakfast companion. “Thee knows something, doesn’t thee?”

“Aye, lad.” Walt signaled for more beer, and after a questioning glance at Josiah, made that two.

“For breakfast?”

“Try it.”

Josiah did, briefly considering the scruples of beer for breakfast. He took a swig when it came, knowing that beer for breakfast was still better than dissecting corpses he had no business separating from their parts.

“I do know something,” Walt said, after a prim wipe of his lips. “As an officer of the petty court in Selkirk, I have heard complaints about grave-robbing. It shouldn’t surprise you that some of the meeker citizens of that shire have considerable wrath directed at the college of medicine.”

“I am a babe in the woods,” Josiah said, thinking to himself, Or perhaps I was happy to give the matter no thought. That notion stung, as it should have.

“The better-heeled parishioners surround burial plots of the recently dead with iron bars,” Walt said. “Some hire guards. The respectable poor cannot afford that, and must take their chances with the Resurrectionists.”

Resurrectionists. Trust the Scots to give grave robbing a fitting name. He thought of the woman and children Avon had told him about in the ward he had no permission to visit, because a Quaker physician could expect no favors, being on sufferance himself. I must find out who those students are, he told himself, as he listened to Walt. I can’t ignore it.

“This isn’t a matter of law that interests me too much,” Walt was saying, as Josiah dragged his thoughts back. “The Resurrectionists are a slippery lot, and in the favor of many on your faculty.”

“I understand. What do you know?”

“I know of one I would like to send to Australia on the next convict ship – Wee Willie,” Walt said.

“Singular name,” Josiah commented, and took another drink. Perhaps he should order beer to accompany his eggs and bacon – tasty.

Walt laughed. “Rumor has it that he got the name from trollops and prossies who were less than impressed with his, um, manly anatomy.” He rolled his eyes. “Whatever his attributes or lack thereof, Wee Willie has robbed many a grave. I’d like to see that end.”

“He steals hopes and dreams, and no one’s the wiser,” Josiah said. “For shame.”

“Can you do something about this?” Walt asked. “If your goose is already cooked, why not go out in style?” He turned solemn then, after a glance at his timepiece. “I must go. Wee Willie does something else: He takes souvenirs from the graves he robs. It’s one thing to earn a dishonest living by preying on the dead. It’s another to make sport of it.” He rapped the table and stood up. “Keep me in touch with what you decide, my friend.”

After subbing in first-year circulation of blood in Materia Medica, Josiah made his way to Bones to discover that Professor McGrath must have informed the entire college of his insistence on burying Mr. Perkins, students included. He had prepared to spend time discussing the female leg, cut open yesterday. At his suggestion, Davey was to prepare a short lecture on the bones of the feet, using the skeleton that held permanent residence in the classroom.

In its place was a turnip and four toads. Davey sat on the stool by the table, his frustration evident. No one else was in the room. Davey held out a placard. “Sir, I found this attached to the skeleton.”

The placard had one word: Quaker.

Josiah took the placard and tore it in half, stuffing it in the ashcan. He took a deep breath and another, humiliated and angered at the same time. “It would seem I am to suffer for the burial of Mr. Perkins,” he said when he could speak.

“Sir, you wouldn’t be in this predicament if Avon and I weren’t here,” Davey said. “He came to skulk. What he learned is reflecting on you. We wouldn’t for the world do this.”

“I know thee wouldn’t. It isn’t thy fault, so don’t blame yourself.” Josiah heard students in the hall. “I think Avon has unintentionally reminded me that I have been remiss in my own conscience,” he said. “I have been making a mockery of death.” He gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile, praying to lessen the stricken look in Davey’s eyes. “Now we will deal with frogs. I do not doubt that we can.”

I am in charge here, he thought calmly as the students filed in. He could tell by the way some averted their eyes and others smirked, that they were in on the joke. Everyone, including students, must know he had seen to the burial of a pauper. He understood as never before what Davey Ten had suffered last year, simply because he was different.

Josiah gamely downed a sizeable scoop of humiliation, reminded himself that others of his faith had suffered far worse, and held up the toad by one leg.

“Gentlemen, today we will dissect these toads. As we do so, let us also consider the challenge of working in small nooks and crannies of the human body.” To his relief, he saw some smiles. He set down the toad and patted it, then tossed the turnip over his shoulder. “I’ll save root vegetables for some other professor. I dislike turnips.”

The smiles grew wider, and he took heart. “Mr. Ten, divide us into groups, please, about four to a toad. Gentlemen, choose a leader amongst thee and pick up a scalpel.” His own cheery temperament took over, something he hadn’t felt in a long while. “Although these specimens have shuffled off their mortal coil, it will amaze you what happens when we touch some of their nerves and muscles.”

His mood lightened. “I have it on good authority that in Louisiana in the United States of America, some people eat frog legs. Unless you are ravenous, let us forgo that culinary delight, shall we?”

His reward was good-humored laughter. A quick glance told him that two students – among them John Yerby and Richard Sterling – did not seem to get the joke. He gave each a measuring look in turn. Sterling looked away, and John glared at him.

Well, well. He held John’s gaze a little longer, deriving small satisfaction when the lad finally couldn’t meet his gaze. An idea formed in his mind, as Josiah wondered by what scheme he could visit Miss Teague and her Gunwharf Rats. There had to be a way that a modest man could intrude on a kind lady’s domain.