Within aucht days, I gat bot lybellandum;
Within ane moneth, I gat ad opponendum;
In half ane yeir, I gat interloquendum.
But, or thay cam half gate to concludendum,
The fiend ane plack was left for to defend him.
For sentence silver, thay cryit at the last.
Of pronunciandum, thay made me wonder faine;
But, I gat never my gude gray mear againe.[16]
THE LITIGIOUS SCOT
The same national tendency has survived down to our own times. It is excellently pourtrayed by Scott in several of the Waverley Novels. Dandie Dinmont, for instance, having won the ‘grand plea about the grazing of the Langtae-head,’ was keen to have another legal tussle with his neighbour, Jock o’ Dawston Cleuch, about a wretched bit of land that might ‘feed a hog or aiblins twa in a good year’; not that he valued the land, but he wanted ‘justice,’ and could ill bear to be overridden, even in regard to what was in itself quite worthless. The phraseology of the law courts came glibly to the tongues of men who, like Bartoline Saddletree, picked it up from attendance in the Parliament House, but had only an imperfect notion of what it meant. In some cases, such as that of Poor Peter Peebles, loss of wits and fortune, together with a parrot-like facility in repeating law terms, was all the outcome of years of litigation.