Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume VII Part 12

the c.o.c.ks themselves. Oh, it was gran' sport! The dominie brought twa witnesses frae Lunnon, to swear to the c.o.c.k having been brought frae Sumatra; an' I brought frae Dumbarton, where the best c.o.c.k mains in a'

Scotland are fought, twa c.o.c.k-fanciers wha had seen the dominie's bird, to swear that it was a 'blue ginger;' then there was sic proving, and counter-proving, witness against witness; the dominie's servant swearing to the instigation practised by Jock, my bothie men swearing an _aliby_; valuators for the dominie fixing ae value, and valuators by me fixing anither, till I fancy there were nae fewer than fifteen witnesses a-side."

"Famous, famous!" cried the laird; "what a glorious main! Never was sic a c.o.c.king sin the match in 1684, between Forfarshire and the Loudons.

You would be decreet.i.t favourably, beyond a' doubt."

"Mr Guidyill," answered Drumwhussle, taking up his gla.s.s, "I was cast in fifteen guineas, an' a' expenses."

"Gran'!" exclaimed the laird--"gran'! Jist as bonny a plea as a man could wish. Ye protested an' appealed."

"I gaed straught to my agent, Quirk.u.m," continued Skimclean, "and stated the case to him, expressin, at the same time, my determination no to submit to the iniquitous decision o' the sheriff. Aweel, what did Mr Quirk.u.m say or do, think ye, on my expressin mysel this way? He never spak, but, gruppin me by the haun, looked in my face, an', after a minnit, said, 'Drumwhussle, ye're a man o' spirit, an' I honour ye for't. Ye've just now come oot wi' sentiments that do ye the highest credit. I'll manage your case for ye, Drumwhussle. I'll let the dominie hear such a c.o.c.k crawin as he never heard in his life before.' Aweel, ye see, we had the c.o.c.k flappin his wings in the Court of Session in a jiffy. And as bonny a case it was, so Mr Quirk.u.m said, as ever he had the haundlin o' in his life. Seemly in a' its bearins, he said, and as clean's a leek on our side, a' as ticht an' richt as legal thack and rape could mak it. But deil may care--wad ye believe it?--it was gien against us here, too, cast wi' a' expenses. There was a dish o'

c.o.c.kyleeky for ye, laird--cast wi' a' expenses!--an' they war nae trifle, as ye may weel believe; for yon lawyer folk dinna live on muslin kail."

The laird shook his head with a concurring emphasis, whose force of expression was greatly increased by certain pungent reminiscences of his own disburs.e.m.e.nts in this way.

"Aweel, there we are, ye see," continued Drumwhussle; "but we're no beat yet. I'll hae't to the House o' Lords, laird, if I should p.a.w.n my coat for't." And he struck the table with his fist, in token of his high determination, till jugs and gla.s.ses rang again.

Delighted with his host's beautiful spirit of litigation, the laird, in a corresponding fit of enthusiasm, got up from his seat with a full b.u.mper in one hand, and, extending the other across the table towards Skimclean--

"Your haun, Drumwhussle," he said, briefly, but with great emphasis.

"Your haun, my frien. I honour ye--I respeck ye for thae sentiments."

Saying this, he grasped the extended hand of his host, who had risen to meet his advances, shook it cordially, tossed off the contents of his uplifted gla.s.s to his success in his law-plea, and concluded with a piece of advice.

"Stick till't, Skimclean," he said--"stick till't as lang's there's a b.u.t.ton on your coat. That's my way. Kittle them up wi' duplies, and triplies, and monyplies, and a' the plies that's o' them--if thae papers are allowed in the Hoose o' Lords--an', if they stir a fit, nail them wi' a rejoinder and dilatory defences. Gie them't het, Skimclean. Gie them't het; an' if a' winna do, sweep your opponent clean oot o' the court wi' a multiplepoinding an' infeftment. That's the legal coorse, accordin to the new form o' process--no Mr Eevory's, or Mr Berridges, or the like o' thae auld forms--quite oot o' date noo."

"Jist my ain notion o' things preceesely, laird," replied Drumwhussle.

"Although I say't that shouldna say't, I maybe ken law as weel as some that hae mair pretensions. A' the law in the country, laird, 's no to be fan' under puthered weegs." (This with a look of great complacency.) "My lair's maybe nae great things, but my law's guid. I'll haud up my face to that ony day. An' I'm thinkin, laird, ye ken twa or three things in that way yersel."

"I should," replied the laird, with a knowing smile.

"But ye'll never hae been in the Court o' Session, maybe," said Skimclean.

"Revise the condescendence there, Drumwhussle," replied the laird. "A score o' times at the least. It wad hae been a bonny business, indeed, if I had never had a case in the Court o' Session. A man wad hae but sma' pretension to respeck, in my opinion, that hadna been there wi'

half-a-dizzen."

We here take the liberty of interrupting, for a time, the colloquy of Skimclean and his guest, for the purpose of saying, that, although we have given, as we imagine, a pretty correct account of their conversation on the occasion to which our story refers, we have by no means done equal justice to the subject of their potations. On this point we have said little or nothing, an omission which we beg now to supply, by stating most explicitly, that, during the whole time they were engaged in exchanging the sentiments which we have just recorded, they had been also unremitting in their attention to the toddy jug, which had three several times sank to the dregs under their persevering devotions. It is not necessary to add, we should suppose, that this feat was not performed with impunity, nor that it had the effect of considerably deranging the faculties of the two lawyers. All this will be presumed--and, if it be not presumed, let it be so immediately; for it was the fact.

Both Skimclean and the laird were now in a state of great felicity and personal comfort. They swore eternal friendship to each other at least fifty times over, and on each occasion sealed their amiable protestations by a cordial shaking of hands. But it was not love alone they expressed for each other. There was respect too, the most profound respect for each other's abilities and legal knowledge, declared in no very measured terms. In truth, if their own statements on this subject could have been credited, no two lawyers had ever got together who made so near an approach to c.o.ke and Lyttleton. At an advanced period of the evening, and just after the fourth jug had been put upon active service, Skimclean again adverted to his famous game-c.o.c.k case, and, having mentioned that he was going to Paisley on the following day, to call on Quirk.u.m, on the subject of carrying the said case to the House of Lords, asked the laird if he would have any objection to go along with him and a.s.sist in the consultation which would then and there take place.

"It wad be a great favour, laird," said Skimclean; "for ye ken twa heads are better than ane, and three than twa, an', moreover, laird, to tell a truth, there's twa or three points o' law that I'm no jist sure that Mr Quirk.u.m's clean up to, an' I wad like a man o' your knowledge to be present. I dinna ken but you an' me, laird, wad bother the best o'

them."

The laird smiled slightly but complacently at this conjunct compliment, and modestly said that he had never seen the "law-wir yet that he couldna bambouzle. An' as to gaun in wi' ye the morn to Paisley, Skimclean," he added, "that I'll do wi' great pleasure." This was said, most a.s.suredly, in all sincerity; for, next to the happiness of having a plea of his own, was that of being allowed to have what may be called a handling of the pleas of others; especially if they had a dash of the spirit of litigation in them, and gave promise of a protracted and obstinate fight; and this the laird saw, with intuitive tact, was the character of Skimclean's.

This matter then settled, the two worthies proceeded to the discussion of various other subjects, until the laird, finding that he could hold out no longer, suggested, in the midst of a series of violent hiccups, that they should "clo-close the record, and re-re-revise the condescendence." Saying this, the laird got up to his feet, leaned his hands upon the table, and as he swung backwards and forwards in this att.i.tude, gazed on his friend opposite with a look of drunken gravity.

"We maun clo-clo-close the record," he repeated, "and re-re-revise the condescendence."

"That's no accordin to the form o' process, laird," replied Skimclean, making an effort, but an unavailing one, to get up also to his feet.

"That's no accordin to form, laird," he said; and now making a virtue of necessity, by throwing himself back in the chair which he found he could not conveniently leave.

"Revise the condescendence, Skimclean," rejoined the laird, after a pause, during which he had been employed in an attempt to collect his scattered senses; an operation which was accompanied by sundry odd contortions of countenance, especially a strange working of the lips. "I say, revise the condescendence, Skimclean. It's baith accordin to law an' to form. Ye're no gaun to instruck me, I houp, in a law process."

"Instruck or no instruck," replied Drumwhussle, with great confidence of manner, "ye're as far wrang as ever Maggy Low was, when you speak first o' closin the record an' then o' revisin the condescendence. Onybody that has ony law in them at a' kens that the revisin o' a condescendence taks place _before_ the closin o' the record, an' no after't."

"Before or after't, it's guid law," said the laird, doggedly, and still rocking to and fro, as he leaned on the table, and continued gazing with lackl.u.s.tre eye in the face of his learned brother opposite. "It's guid law, I'll uphaud; an' it's my opinion, Skimclean--an' I'll just tell ye't to your face--that for a' your blether o' Latin, I dinna think ye hae a' the law ye pretend to. The thorough knowledge is no in ye. That's my opinion."

The reply to this sneer at Skimclean's legal acquirements was of as summary and expressive a nature as can well be imagined. It was the contents of a jug--said contents being somewhere about a quart of boiling hot water--discharged with great force and dexterity full in the face of the "soothless insulter," accompanied by the appropriate injunction--"Tak that, ye auld guse; an' if that's no law, it's justice."

"Revise _that_ condescendence," replied the laird, making a tremendous effort to seize his antagonist across the table, in which effort the said table instantly went over with a tremendous crash, sending every individual article that it had supported into a thousand pieces. In the midst of the wreck and ruin thus occasioned lay the prostrate person of the laird, who had naturally gone down with the table, and who now, as we have said, lay floundering amongst the debris, composed of broken bottles, jugs, and gla.s.ses, with which the floor was covered.

"A clear case o' damages," shouted Skimclean.

"Revise the condescendence in that partikler," said the laird, rising to his feet, and exhibiting sundry bleeding scars on his lugubrious countenance. "That c.o.c.k 'll no fecht, Drumwhussle. The case is no guid in law. It wadna stan a hoast in the Court o' Session."

"Wull _that_ stan, then?" exclaimed Skimclean, making a lounge at the laird's face with his closed fist, which took full effect upon the enemy's left eye.

"I maun mak a rejoinder to _that_," said the laird, now attacking his host in turn, and with such effect, as finally to floor him, being, although the older, by much the stronger man--"I maun mak a rejoinder to _that_," he said, first striking at, and then grappling, his antagonist, when a deadly struggle ensued, which ended in both coming to the floor with an appalling thud.

The laird, although taken from his feet, still maintained his physical superiority by keeping the foe under him. He was uppermost, and uppermost he determined to remain; and this triumphant position he further secured himself in by seizing Skimclean by the neckcloth, and, by the vigour of his hold, subjecting him to a fac-simile of the process of strangulation.

"What think ye o' my law, noo, ye puir empty pretender?" said the laird, as he gave the other twist to Drumwhussle's neckcloth--"you and yer trash o' Latin, that ye ken nae mair aboot, I believe, than a cow kens about a steam-engine."

"That's aboot yer ain knowledge o' law, I'm thinkin," replied Skimclean, chokingly, but boldly; and in gallant defiance of his present adverse circ.u.mstances. "I wad match ony coo I hae in my byre against ye at a defeeckwalt point o' law."

"Do ye fin' _that_?" said the laird, twisting Drumwhussle's neckcloth with increasing ferocity. "There's law for ye. There's the strong arm o'

the law for ye. Doin summary justice on an ignorant, pretendin idowit."

How or in what way this fierce struggle between the two lawyers would have terminated, we cannot tell, as it was not permitted to attain its own natural conclusion. It was interrupted. At the moment that the laird had renewed his efforts on Skimclean's neckcloth, which the reader will observe was doing the duty of a bowstring, the wife of the latter rushed into the apartment, exclaiming--

"The Lord hae a care o' me! what's this o't?--what's this o't? What are ye fechtin aboot, ye auld fules?"

"A case o' hamesookin, Jenny--a decided case o' hamesookin," shouted Skimclean. "A man attacked an' abused in his ain hoose. That's hamesookin, an' severely punishable by law."

"Tuts, confound yer law?--mind reason and common sense," said Skimclean's wife, seizing the laird by the coattails, and dragging him off her prostrate husband, of whose _penchant_ for law she had long been perfectly sick. "Mind reason an' common sense, an' let alane law to them it belangs to."

Whether it was that the combatants had expended all the present pugnacity of their natures in the contest which had just been brought to a close, or that the soft tones of Mrs Drumwhussle's voice had suddenly allayed their ire, we know not; but certain it is, that the faces of both the lawyers exhibited, all at once, and at the same instant, a trait of amiable relaxation, indicative of a return of friendly feeling, together with something like a sense of regret, and perhaps shame for what had pa.s.sed. It was then, under this change of sentiment, that Skimclean replied, laughingly, to his wife--

"Weel, weel, gudewife, if the laird here's willin, we'll close the record, an' let byganes be byganes."

"Wi' a' my heart," said the former; "for it's a case that'll no stan law. Sae we'll just revise the condescendence, an' tak better care for time to come. This wark's no accordin to law."

"Neither law, nor reason, nor sense," said Mrs Drumwhussle, who was a rattling, but good-natured, motherly sort of woman. "Ye're jist a pair o' auld fules--that's what ye are. Noo, laird," she continued, as she turned round to that worthy--who presented rather an odd spectacle; his person exhibiting, at this moment, a strange combination of ludicrous points--extreme tallness, extreme thinness, extreme drunkenness, extreme snuffiness, if we may use the expression, and a countenance marked and mangled in a manner that was absolutely hideous to look upon, although the application of a little simple water would have shown that the said countenance was not, after all, very seriously damaged--"noo, laird,"

said Mrs Drumwhussle, laying her hand kindly on the shoulder of her husband's guest, "ye'll jist stap awa hame, like a guid honest man as ye are, an' you an' the gudeman 'll meet the morn, whan ye're baith yersels, an' ye'll baith be as guid freens as ever--maybe a hantle better; for I've kent folk that never could understan ane anither till they had a guid fecht."

To the general tone of this mediatory interference, neither Skimclean nor the laird offered any objection. Nay, as we have already shown, it met with their decided approbation; but there was one clause in it, as they themselves would have called it, which both peremptorily resented.

This was the insinuation that they were tipsy.

"Revise that part o' the condescendence, Mrs Drumwhussle," said the laird, in allusion to the said insinuation. "I could discuss a point o'

law as weel as ever I did in my life. I'm as soun's a bell, woman."