Redgauntlet: A Tale Of The Eighteenth Century

by Walter Scott

  CHAPTER I

  NARRATIVE

  The advantage of laying before the reader, in the words of the actorsthemselves, the adventures which we must otherwise have narrated inour own, has given great popularity to the publication of epistolarycorrespondence, as practised by various great authors, and by ourselvesin the preceding chapters. Nevertheless, a genuine correspondence ofthis kind (and Heaven forbid it should be in any respect sophisticatedby interpolations of our own!) can seldom be found to contain all inwhich it is necessary to instruct the reader for his full comprehensionof the story. Also it must often happen that various prolixities andredundancies occur in the course of an interchange of letters, whichmust hang as a dead weight on the progress of the narrative. To avoidthis dilemma, some biographers have used the letters of the personagesconcerned, or liberal extracts from them, to describe particularincidents, or express the sentiments which they entertained; while theyconnect them occasionally with such portions of narrative, as may serveto carry on the thread of the story.

  It is thus that the adventurous travellers who explore the summit ofMont Blanc now move on through the crumbling snowdrift so slowly, thattheir progress is almost imperceptible, and anon abridge their journeyby springing over the intervening chasms which cross their path, withthe assistance of their pilgrim-staves. Or, to make a briefer simile,the course of story-telling which we have for the present adopted,resembles the original discipline of the dragoons, who were trained toserve either on foot or horseback, as the emergencies of the servicerequired. With this explanation, we shall proceed to narrate somecircumstances which Alan Fairford did not, and could not, write to hiscorrespondent.

  Our reader, we trust, has formed somewhat approaching to a distinctidea of the principal characters who have appeared before him duringour narrative; but in case our good opinion of his sagacity has beenexaggerated, and in order to satisfy such as are addicted to thelaudable practice of SKIPPING (with whom we have at times a strongfellow-feeling), the following particulars may not be superfluous.

  Mr. Saunders Fairford, as he was usually called, was a man of businessof the old school, moderate in his charges, economical and evenniggardly in his expenditure, strictly honest in conducting his ownaffairs and those of his clients, but taught by long experience to bewary and suspicious in observing the motions of others. Punctual as theclock of Saint Giles tolled nine, the neat dapper form of the littlehale old gentleman was seen at the threshold of the court hall, or atfarthest, at the head of the Back Stairs, trimly dressed in a completesuit of snuff-coloured brown, with stockings of silk or woollen as,suited the weather; a bob-wig, and a small cocked hat; shoes blackedas Warren would have blacked them; silver shoe-buckles, and a goldstock-buckle. A nosegay in summer, and a sprig of holly in winter,completed his well-known dress and appearance. His manners correspondedwith his attire, for they were scrupulously civil, and not a littleformal. He was an elder of the kirk, and, of course, zealous for KingGeorge and the Government even to slaying, as he had showed by takingup arms in their cause. But then, as he had clients and connexionsof business among families of opposite political tenets, he wasparticularly cautious to use all the conventional phrases which thecivility of the time had devised, as an admissible mode of languagebetwixt the two parties. Thus he spoke sometimes of the Chevalier, butnever either of the Prince, which would have been sacrificing his ownprinciples, or of the Pretender, which would have been offensive tothose of others. Again, he usually designated the Rebellion as theAFFAIR of 1745, and spoke of any one engaged in it as a person who hadbeen OUT at a certain period. [OLD-FASHIONED SCOTTISH CIVILITY.--Suchwere literally the points of politeness observed in general societyduring the author's youth, where it was by no means unusual in a companyassembled by chance, to find individuals who had borne arms on oneside or other in the civil broils of 1745. Nothing, according to myrecollection, could be more gentle and decorous than the respectthese old enemies paid to each other's prejudices. But in this I speakgenerally. I have witnessed one or two explosions.] So that, on thewhole, Mr. Fairford was a man much liked and respected on all sides,though his friends would not have been sorry if he had given a dinnermore frequently, as his little cellar contained some choice old wine, ofwhich, on such rare occasions he was no niggard.

  The whole pleasure of this good old-fashioned man of method, besidesthat which he really felt in the discharge of his daily business, wasthe hope to see his son Alan, the only fruit of a union which deathearly dissolved, attain what in the father's eyes was the proudest ofall distinctions--the rank and fame of a well-employed lawyer.

  Every profession has its peculiar honours, and Mr. Fairford's mind wasconstructed upon so limited and exclusive a plan, that he valued nothingsave the objects of ambition which his own presented. He would haveshuddered at Alan's acquiring the renown of a hero, and laughed withscorn at the equally barren laurels of literature; it was by the path ofthe law alone that he was desirous to see him rise to eminence, andthe probabilities of success or disappointment were the thoughts of hisfather by day, and his dream by night.

  The disposition of Alan Fairford, as well as his talents, were such asto encourage his father's expectations. He had acuteness of intellect,joined to habits of long and patient study, improved no doubt by thediscipline of his father's house; to which, generally speaking, heconformed with the utmost docility, expressing no wish for greater ormore frequent relaxation than consisted with his father's anxious andsevere restrictions. When he did indulge in any juvenile frolics, hisfather had the candour to lay the whole blame upon his more mercurialcompanion, Darsie Latimer.

  This youth, as the reader must be aware, had been received as an inmateinto the family of Mr. Fairford, senior, at a time when some of thedelicacy of constitution which had abridged the life of his consortbegan to show itself in the son, and when the father was, of course,peculiarly disposed to indulge his slightest wish. That the youngEnglishman was able to pay a considerable board, was a matter of noimportance to Mr. Fairford; it was enough that his presence seemed tomake his son cheerful and happy. He was compelled to allow that 'Darsiewas a fine lad, though unsettled,' and he would have had some difficultyin getting rid of him, and the apprehensions which his levities excited,had it not been for the voluntary excursion which gave rise to thepreceding correspondence, and in which Mr. Fairford secretly rejoiced,as affording the means of separating Alan from his gay companion, atleast until he should have assumed, and become accustomed to, the dutiesof his dry and laborious profession.

  But the absence of Darsie was far from promoting the end which the elderMr. Fairford had expected and desired. The young men were united by theclosest bonds of intimacy; and the more so, that neither of them soughtnor desired to admit any others into their society. Alan Fairford wasaverse to general company, from a disposition naturally reserved,and Darsie Latimer from a painful sense of his own unknown origin,peculiarly afflicting in a country where high and low are professedgenealogists. The young men were all in all to each other; it is nowonder, therefore, that their separation was painful, and that itseffects upon Alan Fairford, joined to the anxiety occasioned by thetenor of his friend's letters, greatly exceeded what the senior hadanticipated. The young man went through his usual duties, his studies,and the examinations to which he was subjected, but with nothing likethe zeal and assiduity which he had formerly displayed; and his anxiousand observant father saw but too plainly that his heart was with hisabsent comrade.

  A philosopher would have given way to this tide of feeling, in hopes tohave diminished its excess, and permitted the youths to have beensome time together, that their intimacy might have been broken off bydegrees; but Mr. Fairford only saw the more direct mode of continuedrestraint, which, however, he was desirous of veiling under someplausible pretext. In the anxiety which he felt on this occasion, he hadheld communication with an old acquaintance, Peter Drudgeit, with whomthe reader is partly acquainted. 'Alan,' he said, 'was ance wud, anday waur; and he was expecting every moment when he would
start off in awildgoose-chase after the callant Latimer; Will Sampson, the horse-hirerin Candlemaker Row, had given him a hint that Alan had been looking fora good hack, to go to the country for a few days. And then to opposehim downright--he could not but think on the way his poor mother wasremoved. Would to Heaven he was yoked to some tight piece of business,no matter whether well or ill paid, but some job that would hamshacklehim at least until the courts rose, if it were but for decency's sake.'

  Peter Drudgeit sympathized, for Peter had a son, who, reason or none,would needs exchange the torn and inky fustian sleeves for the bluejacket and white lapelle; and he suggested, as the reader knows, theengaging our friend Alan in the matter of Poor Peter Peebles, justopened by the desertion of young Dumtoustie, whose defection would be atthe same time concealed; and this, Drudgeit said, 'would be felling twodogs with one stone.'

  With these explanations, the reader will hold a man of the elderFairford's sense and experience free from the hazardous and impatientcuriosity with which boys fling a puppy into a deep pond, merely to seeif the creature can swim. However confident in his son's talents, whichwere really considerable, he would have been very sorry to have involvedhim in the duty of pleading a complicated and difficult case, uponhis very first appearance at the bar, had he not resorted to it as aneffectual way to prevent the young man from taking a step which hishabits of thinking represented as a most fatal one at his outset oflife.

  Betwixt two evils, Mr. Fairford chose that which was in his ownapprehension the least; and, like a brave officer sending forth his sonto battle, rather chose he should die upon the breach, than desert theconflict with dishonour. Neither did he leave him to his own unassistedenergies. Like Alpheus preceding Hercules, he himself encountered theAugean mass of Peter Peebles' law-matters. It was to the old man alabour of love to place in a clear and undistorted view the real meritsof this case, which the carelessness and blunders of Peter's formersolicitors had converted into a huge chaotic mass of unintelligibletechnicality; and such was his skill and industry, that he wasable, after the severe toil of two or three days, to present to theconsideration of the young counsel the principal facts of the case, ina light equally simple and comprehensible. With the assistance of asolicitor so affectionate and indefatigable, Alan Fairford was enabled,then the day of trial arrived, to walk towards the court, attended byhis anxious yet encouraging parent, with some degree of confidence thathe would lose no reputation upon this arduous occasion.

  They were met at the door of the court by Poor Peter Peebles in hisusual plenitude of wig and celsitude of hat. He seized on the youngpleader like a lion on his prey. 'How is a' wi' you, Mr. Alan--how isa' wi' you, man? The awfu' day is come at last--a day that will be langminded in this house. Poor Peter Peebles against Plainstanes--conjoinedproceases--Hearing in presence--stands for the Short Roll for thisday--I have not been able to sleep for a week for thinking of it, and, Idare to say, neither has the Lord President himsell--for such a cause!!But your father garr'd me tak a wee drap ower muckle of his pint bottlethe other night; it's no right to mix brandy wi' business, Mr. Fairford.I would have been the waur o' liquor if I would have drank as muckle asyou twa would have had me. But there's a time for a' things, and ifye will dine with me after the case is heard, or whilk is the same, ormaybe better, I'LL gang my ways hame wi' YOU, and I winna object to acheerfu' glass, within the bounds of moderation.'

  Old Fairford shrugged his shoulders and hurried past the client, sawhis son wrapped in the sable bombazine, which, in his eyes, was morevenerable than an archbishop's lawn, and could not help fondly pattinghis shoulder, and whispering to him to take courage, and show he wasworthy to wear it. The party entered the Outer Hall of the court, (oncethe place of meeting of the ancient Scottish Parliament), and whichcorresponds to the use of Westminster Hall in England, serving as avestibule to the Inner House, as it is termed, and a place of dominionto certain sedentary personages called Lords Ordinary.

  The earlier part of the morning was spent by old Fairford in reiteratinghis instructions to Alan, and in running from one person to another,from whom he thought he could still glean some grains of information,either concerning the point at issue, or collateral cases. Meantime,Poor Peter Peebles, whose shallow brain was altogether unable to bearthe importance of the moment, kept as close to his young counsel asshadow to substance, affected now to speak loud, now to whisper in hisear, now to deck his ghastly countenance with wreathed smiles, now tocloud it with a shade of deep and solemn importance, and anon to contortit with the sneer of scorn and derision. These moods of the client'smind were accompanied with singular 'mockings and mowings,' fantasticgestures, which the man of rags and litigation deemed appropriate to hischanges of countenance. Now he brandished his arm aloft, now thrust hisfist straight out, as if to knock his opponent down. Now he laid hisopen palm on his bosom, and now hinging it abroad, he gallantly snappedhis fingers in the air.

  These demonstrations, and the obvious shame and embarrassment of AlanFairford, did not escape the observation of the juvenile idlers in thehall. They did not, indeed, approach Peter with their usual familiarity,from some feeling of deference towards Fairford, though many accusedhim of conceit in presuming to undertake, at this early stage of hispractice, a case of considerable difficulty. But Alan, notwithstandingthis forbearance, was not the less sensible that he and his companionwere the subjects of many a passing jest, and many a shout of laughter,with which that region at all times abounds.

  At length the young counsel's patience gave way, and as it threatened tocarry his presence of mind and recollection along with it, Alan franklytold his father, that unless he was relieved from the infliction of hisclient's personal presence and instructions, he must necessarily throwup his brief, and decline pleading the case.

  'Hush, hush, my dear Alan,' said the old gentleman, almost at hisown wit's end upon hearing this dilemma; 'dinna mind the sillyne'er-do-weel; we cannot keep the man from hearing his own cause, thoughhe be not quite right in the head.'

  'On my life, sir,' answered Alan, 'I shall be unable to go on, he driveseverything out of my remembrance; and if I attempt to speak seriously ofthe injuries he has sustained, and the condition he is reduced to, howcan I expect but that the very appearance of such an absurd scarecrowwill turn it all into ridicule?'

  'There is something in that,' said Saunders Fairford, glancing a lookat Poor Peter, and then cautiously inserting his forefinger under hisbob-wig, in order to rub his temple and aid his invention; 'he is nofigure for the fore-bar to see without laughing; but how to get ridof him? To speak sense, or anything like it, is the last thing he willlisten to. Stay, aye,--Alan, my darling, hae patience; I'll get him offon the instant, like a gowff ba'.'

  So saying, he hastened to his ally, Peter Drudgeit, who on seeing himwith marks of haste in his gait, and care upon his countenance, clappedhis pen behind his ear, with 'What's the stir now, Mr. Saunders? Isthere aught wrang?'

  'Here's a dollar, man,' said Mr. Saunders; 'now, or never, Peter, do mea good turn. Yonder's your namesake, Peter Peebles, will drive the swinethrough our bonny hanks of yarn; get him over to John's Coffeehouse,man--gie him his meridian--keep him there, drunk or sober, till thehearing is ower.' [The simile is obvious, from the old manufacture ofScotland, when the gudewife's thrift, as the yarn wrought in the winterwas called, when laid down to bleach by the burn-side, was peculiarlyexposed to the inroads of pigs, seldom well regulated about a Scottishfarm-house.]

  'Eneugh said,' quoth Peter Drudgeit, no way displeased with his ownshare in the service required, 'We'se do your bidding.'

  Accordingly, the scribe was presently seen whispering in the ear ofPeter Peebles, whose response came forth in the following broken form:--

  'Leave the court for ae minute on this great day of judgement? not I, bythe Reg--Eh! what? Brandy, did ye say--French brandy?--couldna ye fetcha stoup to the bar under your coat, man? Impossible? Nay, if it's cleanimpossible, and if we have an hour good till they get through the singlebill and the
summar-roll, I carena if I cross the close wi' you; I amsure I need something to keep my heart up this awful day; but I'll nostay above an instant--not above a minute of time--nor drink aboon asingle gill,'

  In a few minutes afterwards, the two Peters were seen moving through theParliament Close (which new-fangled affectation has termed a Square),the triumphant Drudgeit leading captive the passive Peebles, whose legsconducted him towards the dramshop, while his reverted eyes werefixed upon the court. They dived into the Cimmerian abysses of John'sCoffeehouse, [See Note 5.] formerly the favourite rendezvous of theclassical and genial Doctor Pitcairn, and were for the present seen nomore.

  Relieved from his tormentor, Alan Fairford had time to rally hisrecollections, which, in the irritation of his spirits, had nearlyescaped him, and to prepare himself far a task, the successful dischargeor failure in which must, he was aware, have the deepest influence uponhis fortunes. He had pride, was not without a consciousness of talent,and the sense of his father's feelings upon the subject impelled him tothe utmost exertion. Above all, he had that sort of self-commandwhich is essential to success in every arduous undertaking, and he wasconstitutionally free from that feverish irritability by whichthose whose over-active imaginations exaggerate difficulties, renderthemselves incapable of encountering such when they arrive.

  Having collected all the scattered and broken associations which werenecessary, Alan's thoughts reverted to Dumfriesshire, and the precarioussituation in which he feared his beloved friend had placed himself; andonce and again he consulted his watch, eager to have his present taskcommenced and ended, that he might hasten to Darsie's assistance. Thehour and moment at length arrived. The macer shouted, with all hiswell-remembered brazen strength of lungs, 'Poor Peter Peebles VERSUSPlainstanes, PER Dumtoustie ET Tough!--Maister Da-a-niel Dumtoustie!'Dumtoustie answered not the summons, which, deep and swelling as it was,could not reach across the Queensferry; but our Maister Alan Fairfordappeared in his place.

  The court was very much crowded; for much amusement had been receivedon former occasions when Peter had volunteered his own oratory, andhad been completely successful in routing the gravity of the wholeprocedure, and putting to silence, not indeed the counsel of theopposite party, but his own.

  Both bench and audience seemed considerably surprised at the juvenileappearance of the young man who appeared in the room of Dumtoustie, forthe purpose of opening this complicated and long depending process, andthe common herd were disappointed at the absence of Peter the client,the Punchinello of the expected entertainment. The judges looked witha very favourable countenance on our friend Alan, most of them beingacquainted, more or less, with so old a practitioner as his father, andall, or almost all, affording, from civility, the same fair play to thefirst pleading of a counsel, which the House of Commons yields to themaiden speech of one of its members.

  Lord Bladderskate was an exception to this general expression ofbenevolence. He scowled upon Alan, from beneath his large, shaggy, greyeyebrows, just as if the young lawyer had been usurping his nephew'shonours, instead of covering his disgrace; and, from feelings which didhis lordship little honour, he privately hoped the young man would notsucceed in the cause which his kinsman had abandoned.

  Even Lord Bladderskate, however, was, in spite of himself, pleased withthe judicious and modest tone in which Alan began his address to thecourt, apologizing for his own presumption, and excusing it by thesudden illness of his learned brother, for whom the labour of openinga cause of some difficulty and importance had been much more worthilydesigned. He spoke of himself as he really was, and of young Dumtoustieas what he ought to have been, taking care not to dwell on either topica moment longer than was necessary. The old judge's looks became benign;his family pride was propitiated, and, pleased equally with the modestyand civility of the young man whom he had thought forward and officious,he relaxed the scorn of his features into an expression of profoundattention; the highest compliment, and the greatest encouragement, whicha judge can render to the counsel addressing him.

  Having succeeded in securing the favourable attention of the court,the young lawyer, using the lights which his father's experience andknowledge of business had afforded him, proceeded with an address andclearness, unexpected from one of his years, to remove from the caseitself those complicated formalities with which it had been loaded, as asurgeon strips from a wound the dressings which had been hastily wrappedround it, in order to proceed to his cure SECUNDUM ARTEM. Developed ofthe cumbrous and complicated technicalities of litigation, with whichthe perverse obstinacy of the client, the inconsiderate haste orignorance of his agents, and the evasions of a subtle adversary, hadinvested the process, the cause of Poor Peter Peebles, standing uponits simple merits, was no bad subject for the declamation of a youngcounsel, nor did our friend Alan fail to avail himself of its strongpoints.

  He exhibited his client as a simple-hearted, honest, well-meaningman, who, during a copartnership of twelve years, had gradually becomeimpoverished, while his partner (his former clerk) having no funds buthis share of the same business, into which he had been admitted withoutany advance of stock, had become gradually more and more wealthy.

  'Their association,' said Alan, and the little flight was receivedwith some applause, 'resembled the ancient story of the fruit which wascarved with a knife poisoned on one side of the blade only, so thatthe individual to whom the envenomed portion was served, drew decay anddeath from what afforded savour and sustenance to the consumer of theother moiety.' He then plunged boldly into the MARE MAGNUM of accomptsbetween the parties; he pursued each false statement from the waste-bookto the day-book, from the day-book to the bill-book, from the bill-bookto the ledger; placed the artful interpolations and insertions of thefallacious Plainstanes in array against each other, and against thefact; and availing himself to the utmost of his father's previouslabours, and his own knowledge of accompts, in which he had beensedulously trained, he laid before the court a clear and intelligiblestatement of the affairs of the copartnery, showing, with precision,that a large balance must, at the dissolution, have been due to hisclient, sufficient to have enabled him to have carried on business onhis own account, and thus to have retained his situation in society asan independent and industrious tradesman. 'But instead of this justicebeing voluntarily rendered by the former clerk to his former master,--bythe party obliged to his benefactor,--by one honest man to another,--hiswretched client had been compelled to follow his quondam clerk, hispresent debtor, from court to court; had found his just claims met withwell-invented but unfounded counter-claims, had seen his party shifthis character of pursuer or defender, as often as Harlequin effects histransformations, till, in a chase so varied and so long, the unhappylitigant had lost substance, reputation, and almost the use of reasonitself, and came before their lordships an object of thoughtlessderision to the unreflecting, of compassion to the better-hearted, andof awful meditation to every one who considered that, in a country whereexcellent laws were administered by upright and incorruptible judges, aman might pursue an almost indisputable claim through all the mazes oflitigation; lose fortune, reputation, and reason itself in the chase,and now come before the supreme court of his country in the wretchedcondition of his unhappy client, a victim to protracted justice, and tothat hope delayed which sickens the heart.'

  The force of this appeal to feeling made as much impression on the Benchas had been previously effected by the clearness of Alan's argument.The absurd form of Peter himself, with his tow-wig, was fortunately notpresent to excite any ludicrous emotion, and the pause that took placewhen the young lawyer had concluded his speech, was followed by a murmurof approbation, which the ears of his father drank in as the sweetestsounds that had ever entered them. Many a hand of gratulation was thrustout to his grasp, trembling as it was with anxiety, and finally withdelight; his voice faltering as he replied, 'Aye, aye, I kend Alan wasthe lad to make a spoon or spoil a horn.' [Said of an adventurous gipsy,who resolves at all risks to convert a sheep's horn into
a spoon.]

  The counsel on the other side arose, an old practitioner, who had notedtoo closely the impression made by Alan's pleading not to fear theconsequences of an immediate decision. He paid the highest complimentsto his very young brother--'the Benjamin, as he would presume to callhim, of the learned Faculty--said the alleged hardships of Mr.Peebles were compensated by his being placed in a situation wherethe benevolence of their lordships had assigned him gratuitously suchassistance as he might not otherwise have obtained at a high price--andallowed his young brother had put many things in such a new point ofview, that, although he was quite certain of his ability to refute them,he was honestly desirous of having a few hours to arrange his answer,in order to be able to follow Mr. Fairford from point to point. Hehad further to observe, there was one point of the case to whichhis brother, whose attention had been otherwise so wonderfullycomprehensive, had not given the consideration which he expected; it wasfounded on the interpretation of certain correspondence which had passedbetwixt the parties soon after the dissolution of the copartnery.'

  The court having heard Mr. Tough, readily allowed him two days forpreparing himself, hinting at the same time that he might find his taskdifficult, and affording the young counsel, with high encomiums upon themode in which he had acquitted himself, the choice of speaking,either now or at the next calling of the cause, upon the point whichPlainstanes's lawyer had adverted to.

  Alan modestly apologized for what in fact had been an omission verypardonable in so complicated a case, and professed himself instantlyready to go through that correspondence, and prove that it was inform and substance exactly applicable to the view of the case he hadsubmitted to their lordships. He applied to his father, who sat behindhim, to hand him, from time to time, the letters, in the order in whichhe meant to read and comment upon them.

  Old Counsellor Tough had probably formed an ingenious enough scheme toblunt the effect of the young lawyer's reasoning, by thus obliging himto follow up a process of reasoning, clear and complete in itself, bya hasty and extemporary appendix. If so, he seemed likely to bedisappointed; for Alan was well prepared on this as on other parts ofthe cause, and recommenced his pleading with a degree of animation whichadded force even to what he had formerly stated, and might perhaps haveoccasioned the old gentleman to regret his having again called him up,when his father, as he handed him the letters, put one into his handwhich produced a singular effect on the pleader.

  At the first glance, he saw that the paper had no reference to theaffairs of Peter Peebles; but the first glance also showed him, what,even at that time, and in that presence, he could not help reading; andwhich, being read, seemed totally to disconcert his ideas. He stoppedshort in his harangue--gazed on the paper with a look of surprise andhorror-uttered an exclamation, and flinging down the brief which he hadin his hand, hurried out of court without returning a single word ofanswer to the various questions, 'What was the matter?'--'Was he takenunwell?'--'Should not a chair be called?' &c. &c. &c.

  The elder Mr. Fairford, who remained seated, and looking as senseless asif he had been made of stone, was at length recalled to himself by theanxious inquiries of the judges and the counsel after his son's health.He then rose with an air, in which was mingled the deep habitualreverence in which he held the court, with some internal cause ofagitation, and with difficulty mentioned something of a mistake--a pieceof bad news--Alan, he hoped would be well enough to-morrow. But unableto proceed further, he clasped his hands together, exclaiming, 'My son!my son!' and left the court hastily, as if in pursuit of him.

  'What's the matter with the auld bitch next?' [Tradition ascribes thiswhimsical style of language to the ingenious and philosophical LordKaimes.] said an acute metaphysical judge, though somewhat coarse inhis manners, aside to his brethren. 'This is a daft cause,Bladderskate--first, it drives the poor man mad that aught it--then yournevoy goes daft with fright, and flies the pit--then this smart younghopeful is aff the hooks with too hard study, I fancy--and now auldSaunders Fairford is as lunatic as the best of them. What say ye till't,ye bitch?'

  'Nothing, my lord,' answered Bladderskate, much too formal to admire thelevities in which his philosophical brother sometimes indulged--'I saynothing, but pray to Heaven to keep our own wits.'

  'Amen, amen,' answered his learned brother; 'for some of us have but fewto spare.'

  The court then arose, and the audience departed, greatly wondering atthe talent displayed by Alan Fairford at his first appearance in a caseso difficult and so complicated, and assigning a hundred conjecturalcauses, each different from the others, for the singular interruptionwhich had clouded his day of success. The worst of the whole was, thatsix agents, who had each come to the separate resolution of thrusting aretaining fee into Alan's hand as he left the court, shook their headsas they returned the money into their leathern pouches, and said, 'thatthe lad was clever, but they would like to see more of him before theyengaged him in the way of business--they did not like his lowping awaylike a flea in a blanket.'