Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 062.djvu/225

1847.] and feloniously steal, uplift, and away take from a field adjoining to the Northumberland road, six wethers, the property, or in the lawful possession of, Jacob Gubbins, grazier, then and now or lately residing in Morpeth; and moreover, on being followed by the said Gubbins, who demanded restitution of his property, he, the said M'Wilkin, &c., had, in the most brutal manner, struck, knocked down, and lavished divers kicks upon the corporality of the Northumbrian bumpkin, to the fracture of three of his ribs, and otherwise to the injury of his person.

During the perusal of this formidable document by the clerk, M'Wilkin stood scratching his poll, and leering about him as though he considered the whole ceremony as a sort of solemn joke. I never in the course of my life cast eyes on a more nonchalant or unmitigated ruffian.

"How do you say, M'Wilkin," asked the judge; "are you guilty or not guilty?"

"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 freebooter.

Acting upon the noble 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 assize, 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

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 assault; 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