Many have, doubtless, both heard and read of the case of murder in which Jeffrey performed his greatest feat of oratory and power over a jury, and in which, while engaged in his grand speech of more than six hours, he caught, from an open window, the aphony which threatened to close up his voice for ever afterwards. I have had occasion to notice the wants in reported cases tried before courts; and in reference to the one I have now mentioned, I have reason, from my inquiries, to know that the most curious details of the transaction are not only not to be found in the report, but not even suggested, if they do not, in some particulars, appear to be opposed to the public testimony. The agent of the panel sits behind the counsel, delivering to him sometimes very crude materials for the defence, and the counsel sifts that matter; sometimes taking a handful of the chaff to blind a juryman or a judge, but more often casting it away as either useless or dangerous. In that unused chaff there are often pickles not of the kind put into the sack, and again laid as an offering before the blind goddess, but of a different kind of grain—nor often less pleasant, or, if applied, less acceptable to justice.
In a certain month in the year 18—, a writer in Dundee, of the name of David M——, was busy in his office, in a dark street off the High Street—busy, no doubt, in discharging the functions of that office represented by Æsop as occupied by a monkey, holding the scales between the litigating cats. He heard a horse stop at his office door, as if brought suddenly up by a jerk of the rein.
"There is haste here," he thought; "what is up?"
And presently the door opened, and there came, or rather rushed, in a man, of the appearance of a country farmer, greatly more excited than these douce men generally are—except, perhaps, in the midst of a plentiful harvest-home—splashed up with mud to the back of the neck, and breathing as hard as, no doubt, the horse was that carried him.
"What is it, Mr. S——?" inquired the writer, as he looked at his client.
"A dreadful business!" replied he; and he turned, went back to the door, shut it, and tested the hold of the lock; then laying down his hat and whip, and pulling off his big-coat, he drew a chair so near the writer, that the man of law, brusque and even jolly as he was, instinctively withdrew his, as if he feared an appeal for money.
"What is the business?" again asked the writer, as he saw the man in a spasmodic difficulty to begin.
"We are all ruined at D——!" he at length said; "Mrs. S—— is in your jail, hard by, on a charge of murder."
"Mrs. S——! of all the women in the world!" ejaculated the writer in unfeigned amazement: "murder of whom?"
"Of a servant at D——," replied Mr. S——; "one of our own women."