A JURY-TRIAL
‘Ah, Mr. Macnee (it was before the painter received his knighthood), I’m glad to see you again. But you look very weary; are you well enough?’
‘Oh yes, thank you, I am quite well, but somewhat tired after a long day in the jury-court’
‘A juryman! Mr. Macnee, were you a juryman? Well now, I hope you had some personal satisfaction out of the case.’
‘I really don’t know what you mean. I had the satisfaction of serving my turn and doing my duty; and I hope I am not likely to be called again for some time to come.’
‘Of course, of course, you would be doing your duty, whatever. But did you have no personal satisfaction in your verdict?’
‘I am entirely at a loss to understand what you can mean. I gave the verdict which seemed to me just, and according to the evidence.’
‘No doubt, no doubt, Mr. Macnee, you would indeed do that. But I’ll explain by giving you an account of a case that once happened to myself,’ and he proceeded to recount a narrative worthy of the days ‘when wretches hung that jurymen might dine.’ ‘Well, you see, there was a man in the village near my place and his house was broken into and a lot of valuable things were stolen from it. The police were on the spot next morning, but for a time they could get no clue at all. They found in the end that the last man seen at the house was a baker in the village, and their suspicions began to fall on him. Well this baker was a notorious radical, and he was corrupting the village with his radical notions and theories. And I had determined, if I could manage it anyhow, to get him away. So I was not sorry to hear that the police were looking up the baker and his doings. At last, as they could get nobody else to suspect, they arrested him, and after a while a day was appointed for his trial. A jury was summoned, and I was one of the jury; and being the chief man in the place, I was chosen as foreman. Well, the case went to trial, and we heard all the evidence the police could scrape together, and the jury retired to consider their verdict. When we were all met, I said to them, “Well, gentlemen, what do you think of the case?” And they answered to a man, “O the baker’s as innocent as any of us.” So I looked amazed and said, “What’s that you say, gentlemen? Innocent! I really am astonished to hear you say that. Just let us go over the evidence.” So I went over all the facts and inferences, bit by bit, and showed how they all made for the prisoner’s guilt. I argued down every objection, and when they were all silenced and convinced, we marched back into the court with a unanimous verdict of “guilty as libelled.” You should have seen the face of the judge, but still more, you should have seen the face of the baker. But there was the verdict, and so the judge passed sentence of imprisonment on the baker, and we have never seen him more in the village. Now, Mr. Macnee, that’s what I mean by personal satisfaction!’
The Scottish judges of the type of Hermand, Braxfield, Eskgrove and others, so vividly pictured by Lord Cockburn, and of whom so many anecdotes have been recorded, have long passed away. One of the latest of them was Patrick (or as he was familiarly called, Peter) Robertson, of whose wit and humour many reminiscences have been preserved. He was noted for his obesity which occasioned the soubriquet applied to him by Scott. According to the well-known story, Robertson, while still an advocate, was one day the centre of a group in the Parliament House which he was amusing with his drollery when Scott was seen approaching. ‘Hush, boys,’ said he, ‘here comes old Peveril—I see his peak,’ alluding to the novelist’s remarkably high skull. Scott, coming up in the midst of the general laugh which followed, asked Lockhart what was the joke. When Robertson’s personal remark was repeated to him, Scott, with a look at the advocate’s rotund figure, retorted with another personality, quietly remarking, ‘Ay, ay, my man, as weel Peveril o’ the Peak ony day as Peter o’ the Paunch.’
PATRICK ROBERTSON