So saying, Mr Strachan made me a polite bow, and left the apartment. I took my solitary way to the courthouse, marvelling at the extreme rapidity of the effect which is produced by the envenomed darts of Cupid.
CHAPTER II.
On entering the court, I found that the business had commenced. An enormous raw-boned fellow, with a shock of the fieriest hair, and hands of such dimensions that a mere glimpse of them excited unpleasant sensations at your windpipe, was stationed at the bar, to which, from previous practice, he had acquired a sort of prescriptive right.
"James M'Wilkin, or Wilkinson, or Wilson," said the presiding judge, in a tone of disgust which heightened with each successive alias, "attend to the indictment which is about to be preferred against you."
And certainly, if the indictment contained a true statement of the facts, James M'Wilkin, or Wilkinson, or Wilson was about as thoroughpaced a marauder as ever perambulated a common. He was charged with sheep-stealing and assault; inasmuch as, on a certain night subsequent to the Kelso fair, he, the said individual with the plural denominations, did wickedly and feloniously steal, uplift, and away take from a field adjoining to the Northumberland road, six wethers, the property, or in the lawful possession of, Jacob Gubbins, grazier, then and now or lately residing in Morpeth; and moreover, on being followed by the said Gubbins, who demanded restitution of his property, he, the said M'Wilkin, &c., had, in the most brutal manner, struck, knocked down, and lavished divers kicks upon the corporality of the Northumbrian bumpkin, to the fracture of three of his ribs, and otherwise, to the injury of his person.
During the perusal of this formidable document by the clerk, M'Wilkin stood scratching his poll, and leering about him as though he considered the whole ceremony as a sort of solemn joke. I never in the course of my life cast eyes on a more nonchalant or unmitigated ruffian.
"How do you say, M'Wilkin," asked the judge; "are you guilty or not guilty?"
"Not guilty, aff course. D'ye tak me for a fule?" and M'Wilkin flounced down upon his seat, as though he had been an ornament to society.
"Have you a counsel?" asked the judge.
"De'il ane—nor a bawbee," replied the freebooter.