Tales from Blackwood Volume Vi Part 6

"Not guilty, aff course. D'ye tak me for a fule?" and M'Wilkin flounced down upon his seat, as though he had been an ornament to society.

"Have you a counsel?" asked the judge.

"De'il ane--nor a bawbee," replied the free-booter.

Acting upon the n.o.ble principle of Scottish jurisprudence, that no man shall undergo his trial without sufficient legal advice, his lordship in the kindest manner asked me to take charge of the fortunes of the forlorn M'Wilkin. Of course I made no scruples; for, so long as it was matter of practice, I should have felt no hesitation in undertaking the defence of Beelzebub. I therefore leaned across the dock, and exchanged a few hurried sentences with my first client.

"Why don't you plead guilty?"

"What for? I've been here before. Man, I'm thinking ye're a saft ane!"

"Did you not steal the sheep?"

"Ay--that's just the question. Let them find that out."

"But the grazier saw you?"

"I blackened his e'es."

"You'll be transported to a dead certainty."

"Deevil a fears, if ye're worth the price o' half a mutchkin. I'm saying--get me a Hawick jury, and it's a' richt. They ken me gey and weel thereabouts."

Although I was by no means satisfied in my own mind that an intimate acquaintance with M'Wilkin and his previous pursuits would be a strong recommendation in his favour to any possible a.s.size, I thought it best to follow his instructions, and managed my challenges so well that I secured a majority of Hawickers. The jury being sworn in, the cause proceeded; and certainly, before three witnesses had been examined, it appeared to me beyond all manner of doubt, that, in the language of Tom Campbell, my unfortunate client was

"Doom'd the long coves of Sydney isle to see,"

as a permanent addition to that cultivated and Patagonian population.

The grazier stood to his story like a man, and all efforts to break him down by cross-examination were fruitless. There was also another hawbuck who swore to the sheep, and was witness to the a.s.sault; so that, in fact, the evidence was legally complete.

Whilst I was occupied in the vain attempt to make Gubbins contradict himself, there had been a slight commotion in the court-room. On looking round afterwards, I was astonished to behold my friend Strachan seated in the Magistrate's box, next to a very pretty and showily-dressed woman, to whom he was paying the most marked and deliberate attention.

On the other side of her was an individual in a civic chain, whose fat, pursy, apoplectic appearance, and nose of the colour of an Orleans plum, thoroughly realised my mental picture of the Bailie. His small, blood-shot eyes twinkled with magisterial dignity and importance; and he looked, beside Miss Percy--for I could not doubt that it was she--like a satyr in charge of Florimel.

The last witness for the crown, a very noted police-officer from Glasgow, was then put into the box, to prove a previous conviction against my friend M'Wilkin. This man bore a high reputation in his calling, and was, indeed, esteemed as a sort of Scottish Vidocq, who knew by headmark every filcher of a handkerchief between Caithness and the Border. He met the bold broad stare of the prisoner with a kind of nod, as much as to a.s.sure him that his time was very nearly up; and then deliberately proceeded to take a hawk's-eye view of the a.s.sembly. I noticed a sort of quiet sneer as he glanced at the Magistrate's box.

"Poor Strachan!" thought I. "His infatuation must indeed be palpable, since even a common officer can read his secret in a moment."

I might just as well have tried to shake Ailsa Craig as to make an impression upon this witness; however, heroically devoted to my trust, I hazarded the attempt, and ended by bringing out several additional tales of turpitude in the life and times of M'Wilkin.

"Make room there in the pa.s.sage! The lady has fainted," cried the macer.

I started to my feet, and was just in time to see Miss Percy conveyed from the court, in an apparently inanimate state, by the Bailie and the agitated Strachan.

"Devilish fine-looking woman that!" observed the Advocate-Depute across the table. "Where did your friend Mr Strachan get hold of her?"

"I really don't know. I say--are you going to address the jury for the crown?"

"It is quite immaterial. The case is distinctly proved, and I presume you don't intend to speak?"

"I'm not so sure of that."

"Oh, well,--in that case I suppose I must say a word or two. This closes the evidence for the crown, my lord;" and the Depute began to turn over his papers, preparatory to a short harangue.

He had just commenced his speech, when I felt a hand laid upon my shoulder. I looked around: Strachan was behind me, pale and almost breathless with excitement.

"Fred--can I depend upon your friendship?"

"Of course you can. What's the row?"

"Have you ten pounds about you?"

"Yes--but what do you mean to do with them? Surely you are not going to make a blockhead of yourself by bolting?"

"No--no! give me the money--quick!"

"On your word of honour, Tom?"

"On my sacred word of honour!--That's a good fellow--thank you, Fred;"

and Strachan pocketed the currency. "Now," said he, "I have just one other request to make."

"What's that?"

"Speak against time, there's a dear fellow! Spin out the case as long as you can, and don't let the jury retire for at least three quarters of an hour. I know you can do it better than any other man at the bar."

"Are you in earnest, Tom?"

"Most solemnly. My whole future happiness--nay, perhaps the life of a human being depends upon it."

"In that case I think I shall tip them an hour."

"Heaven reward you, Fred! I never can forget your kindness!"

"But where shall I see you afterwards?"

"At the hotel. Now, my dear boy, be sure that you pitch it in, and, if possible, get the judge to charge after you. Time's all that's wanted--adieu!" and Tom disappeared in a twinkling.

I had little leisure to turn over the meaning of this interview in my mind, for the address of my learned opponent was very short and pithy.

He merely pointed out the clear facts, as substantiated by evidence, and brought home to the unhappy M'Wilkin; and concluded by demanding a verdict on both charges contained in the indictment against the prisoner.

"Do you wish to say anything, sir?" said the judge to me, with a kind of tone which indicated his hope that I was going to say nothing. Doubtless his lordship thought that, as a very young counsel, I would take the hint; but he was considerably mistaken in his man. I came to the bar for practice--I went on the circuit with the solemn determination to speak in every case, however desperate; and it needed not the admonition of Strachan to make me carry my purpose into execution. What did I care about occupying the time of the court? His lordship was paid to listen, and could very well afford to hear the man who was pleading for M'Wilkin without a fee. I must say, however, that he looked somewhat disgusted when I rose.

A first appearance is a nervous thing, but there is nothing like going boldly at your subject. "_Fiat experimentum in corpore vili_" is a capital maxim in the Justiciary Court. The worse your case, the less chance you have to spoil it; and I never had a worse than M'Wilkin's.

I began by b.u.t.tering the jury on their evident intelligence and the high functions they had to discharge, which of course were magnified to the skies. I then went slap-dash at the evidence; and, as I could say nothing in favour of my client, directed a tremendous battery of abuse and insinuation against his accuser.

"And who is this Gubbins, gentlemen, that you should believe this most incredible, most atrocious, and most clumsy apocrypha of his? I will tell you. He is an English butcher--a dealer in cattle and in b.e.s.t.i.a.l--one of those men who derive their whole subsistence from the profits realised by the sale of our native Scottish produce. This is the way in which our hills are depopulated, and our glens converted into solitudes. It is for him and his confederates--not for us--that our shepherds watch and toil, that our herds and flocks are reared, that the richness of the land is absorbed! And who speaks to the character of this Gubbins? You have heard the pointless remarks made by my learned friend upon the character of my unfortunate client; but he has not dared to adduce in this court one single witness in behalf of the character of his witness. Gentlemen, he durst not do it! Gubbins has deponed to you that he bought those sheep at the fair of Kelso, from a person of the name of Shiells, and that he paid the money for them. Where is the evidence of that? Where is Shiells to tell us whether he actually sold these sheep, or whether, on the contrary, they were not stolen from him?

Has it been proved to you, gentlemen, that M'Wilkin is not a friend of Shiells--that he did not receive notice of the theft--that he did not pursue the robber, and, recognising the stolen property by their mark, seize them for the benefit of their owner? No such proof at least has been led upon the part of the crown, and in the absence of it, I ask you fearlessly, whether you can possibly violate your consciences by returning a verdict of guilty? Is it not possible--nay, is it not extremely probable, that Gubbins was the actual thief? Was it not his interest, far more than M'Wilkin's, to abstract those poor unhappy sheep, because it is avowedly his trade to fill the insatiable maw of the Southron? And in that case, who should be at the bar? Gubbins!

Gubbins, I say, who this day has the unparalleled audacity to appear before an enlightened Scottish jury, and to give evidence which, in former times, might have led to the awful consequence of the execution of an innocent man! And this is what my learned friend calls evidence!

Evidence to condemn a fellow-countryman, gentlemen? No--not to condemn a dog!"