One of the most biting of caustic jests made by a judge of the old Court of Session of Scotland, before its reconstruction at the beginning of the nineteenth century, was uttered during the hearing of a claim to a peerage. The claimant was obviously resting his case upon forged documents, and the judge suddenly remarked in the broad dialect of the time, "If ye persevere ye'll nae doot be a peer, but it will be a peer o' anither tree!" The claimant did not appreciate this idea of being grafted, and abandoned the case.
To return to the stories of the earlier period of the eighteenth century, there is one told of Lord Halkerston. He was waited on by a tenant, who with a woeful countenance informed his lordship that one of his cows had gored a cow belonging to the judge, and he feared the injured animal could not live. "Well, then, of course you must pay for it," said his lordship. "Indeed, my lord, it was not my fault, and you know I am but a very poor man."—"I can't help that. The law says you must pay for it. I am not to lose my cow, am I?"—"Well, my lord, if it must be so, I cannot say more. But I forgot what I was saying. It was my mistake entirely. I should have said that it was your lordship's cow that gored mine."—"Oh, is that it? That's quite a different affair. Go along, and don't trouble me just now. I am very busy. Be off, I say!"
And there is one of the testy old Lord Polkemmet when he interrupted Mr. James Ferguson, afterwards Lord Kilkerran, whose energy in enforcing a point in his address to the Bench took the form of beating violently on the table: "Maister Jemmy, dinna dunt; ye may think ye're dunting it intill me, but ye're juist dunting it oot o' me, man."
He was reputed to be dull, and rarely decided a case upon the first hearing. On one occasion, after having heard counsel, among whom was the Hon. Henry Erskine, John Clerk, and others, in a cause of no great difficulty, he addressed the Bar: "Well, Maister Erskine, I heard you, and I thocht ye were richt; syne I heard you, Dauvid, and I thocht ye were richt; and noo I hae heard Maister Clerk, and I think he's richtest amang ye a'. That bauthers me, ye see! Sae I man een tak' hame the process an' wimble-wamble it i' ma wame a wee ower ma toddy, and syne ye'se hae ma interlocutor."
"The Fifteen," as the full Bench of the old Court of Session of Scotland was popularly called, were deliberating on a bill of suspension and interdict relative to certain caravans with wild beasts on the then vacant ground which formed the beginning of the new communication with the new Town of Edinburgh spreading westwards and the Lawnmarket—now known as the Mound. In the course of the proceedings Lord Bannatyne fell fast asleep. The case was disposed of and the next called, which related to a right of lien over certain goods. The learned lord who continued dozing having heard the word "lien" pronounced with an emphatic accent by Lord Meadowbank, raised the following discussion:
Meadowbank: "I am very clear that there was a lien on this property."
Bannatyne: "Certain; but it ought to be chained, because——"