Scott has sketched in Peter Peebles the type of a class of crazy and half-crazy litigants who at all times haunt the Parliament House. Usually they are rustic men possessing small properties, such as a house and garden, which they are constantly talking of as their ‘subject.’ Sometimes a faded shawl and bonnet is associated with the case—objects to be dreaded by every good-natured member of the bar. But most frequently it is simple countrymen who become pests of this kind. That is to say, simple men of difficult and captious tempers, cursed with an overstrong sense of right or an overstrong sense of wrong, under which they would, by many degrees, prefer utter ruin to making the slightest concession to a neighbour. Ruined these men often are; and yet it seems ruin well bought, since they have all along had the pleasure of seeing themselves and their little affairs the subject of consideration amongst men so much above themselves in rank.
Peebles was, as we are assured by the novelist himself, a real person, who frequented the Edinburgh courts of justice about the year 1792, and ‘whose voluminous course of litigation served as a sort of essay piece to most young men who were called to the bar.’[129] Many persons recollect him as a tall, thin, slouching man, of homely outworn attire, understood to be a native of Linlithgow. Having got into law about a small house, he became deranged by the cause going against him, and then peace was no more for him on earth. He used to tell his friends that he had at present thirteen causes in hand, but was only going to ‘move in’ seven of them this session. When anxious for a consultation on any of his affairs, he would set out from his native burgh at the time when other people were going to bed, and reaching Edinburgh at four in the morning, would go about the town ringing the bells of the principal advocates, in the vain hope of getting one to rise and listen to him, to the infinite annoyance of many a poor serving-girl, and no less of the Town-guard, into whose hands he generally fell.
Another specimen of the class was Campbell of Laguine, who had perhaps been longer at law than any man of modern times. He was a store-farmer in Caithness, and had immense tracts of land under lease. When he sold his wool, he put the price in his pocket (no petty sum), and came down to waste it in the Court of Session. His custom—an amusing example of method in madness—was to pay every meal which he made at the inns on the road double, that he might have a gratis meal on his return, knowing he would not bring a cross away in his pocket from the courts of justice. Laguine’s figure was very extraordinary. His legs were like two circumflexes, both curving outward in the same direction; so that, relative to his body, they took the direction of the blade of a reaping-hook, supposing the trunk of his person to be the handle. These extraordinary legs were always attired in Highland trews, as his body was generally in a gray or tartan jacket, with a bonnet on his head; and duly appeared he at the door of the Parliament House, bearing a tin case, fully as big as himself, containing a plan of his farms. He paid his lawyers highly, but took up a great deal of their time. One gentleman, afterwards high in official situation, observed him coming up to ring his bell, and not wishing that he himself should throw away his time or Laguine his fee, directed that he should be denied. Laguine, however, made his way to the lady of the learned counsel, and sitting down in the drawing-room, went at great length into the merits of his cause, and exhibited his plans; and when he had expatiated for a couple of hours, he departed, but not without leaving a handsome fee, observing that he had as much satisfaction as if he had seen the learned counsel himself. He once told a legal friend of the writer that his laird and he were nearly agreed now—there was only about ten miles of country contested betwixt them! When finally this great cause was adjusted, his agent said: ‘Well, Laguine, what will ye do now?’ rashly judging that one who had, in a manner, lived upon law for a series of years would be at a loss how to dispose of himself now. ‘No difficulty there,’ answered Laguine; ‘I’ll dispute your account, and go to law with you!’ Possessed as he was by a demon of litigation, Campbell is said to have been, apart from his disputes, a shrewd and sensible, and, moreover, an honourable and worthy man. He was one of the first who introduced sheep-farming into Ross-shire and Caithness, where he had farms as large as some whole Lowland or English counties; and but for litigation, he had the opportunity of making much money.
A person usually called, from his trade, the Heckler was another Parliament House worthy. He used to work the whole night at his trade; then put on a black suit, curled his hair behind and powdered it, so as to resemble a clergyman, and came forth to attend to the great business of the day at the Parliament House. He imagined that he was deputed by Divine Providence as a sort of controller of the Court of Session; but as if that had not been sufficient, he thought the charge of the General Assembly was also committed to him; and he used to complain that that venerable body was ‘much worse to keep in good order’ than the lawyers. He was a little, smart, well-brushed, neat-looking man, and used to talk to himself, smile, and nod with much vivacity. Part of his lunacy was to believe himself a clergyman; and it was chiefly the Teind Court which he haunted, his object there being to obtain an augmentation of his stipend. The appearance and conversation of the man were so plausible that he once succeeded in imposing himself upon Dr Blair as a preacher, and obtained permission to hold forth in the High Church on the ensuing Sunday. He was fortunately recognised when about to mount the pulpit. Some idle boys about the Parliament House, where he was a constant attendant, persuaded him that, as he held two such dignified offices as his imagination shaped out, there must be some salary attached to them, payable, like others upon the Establishment, in the Exchequer. This very nearly brought about a serious catastrophe; for the poor madman, finding his applications slighted at the Exchequer, came there one day with a pistol heavily loaded to shoot Mr Baird, a very worthy man, an officer of that court. This occasioned the Heckler being confined in durance vile for a long time; though, I think, he was at length emancipated.
Other insane fishers in the troubled waters of the law were the following:
Macduff of Ballenloan, who had two cases before the court at once. His success in the one depended upon his showing that he had capacity to manage his own affairs; and in the other, upon his proving himself incapable of doing so. He used to complain, with some apparent reason, that he lost them both!
Andrew Nicol, who was at law thirty years about a midden-stead—Anglicé, the situation of a dunghill. This person was a native of Kinross, a sensible-looking countryman, with a large, flat, blue bonnet, in which guise Kay has a very good portrait of him, displaying, with chuckling pride, a plan of his precious midden-stead. He used to frequent the Register House as well as the courts of law, and was encouraged in his foolish pursuits by the roguish clerks of that establishment, by whom he was denominated Muck Andrew, in allusion to the object of his litigation. This wretched being, after losing property and credit and his own senses in following a valueless phantom, died at last (1817) in Cupar jail, where he was placed by one of his legal creditors.
