[CHAPTER I.]
"Hallo, Tom! Are you not up yet? Why, man, the judges have gone down to the court half an hour ago, escorted by the most ragged regiment of ruffians that ever handled a Lochaberaxe."
Such was my matutinal salutation to my friend Thomas Strachan, as I entered his room on a splendid spring morning. Tom and I were early college allies. We had attended, or rather, to speak more correctly, taken out tickets for the different law classes during the same sessions. We had fulminated together within the walls of the Juridical Society on legal topics which might have broken the heart of Erskine, and rewarded ourselves diligently thereafter with the usual relaxations of a crab and a comfortable tumbler. We had aggravated the same grinder with our deplorable exposition of the Pandects; and finally assumed, on the same day, the full-blown honours of the Advocate's wig and gown. Nor did our fraternal parallel end there: for although we had walked the boards of the Parliament House with praiseworthy diligence for a couple of sessions, neither of us had experienced the dulcet sensation which is communicated to the palm by the contact of the first professional guinea. In vain did we attempt to insinuate ourselves into the good graces of the agents, and coin our intellects into such jocular remarks as are supposed to find most favour in the eyes of facetious practitioners. In vain did I carry about with me, for a whole week, an artificial process most skilfully made up; and in vain did Tom compound and circulate a delectable ditty, entitled "The Song of the Multiplepoinding." Not a single solicitor would listen to our wooing, or even intrust us with the task of making the simplest motion. I believe they thought me too fast, and Tom too much of a genius; and, therefore, both of us were left among the ranks of the briefless army of the stove. This would not do. Our souls burned within us with a noble thirst for legal fame and fees. We held a consultation (without an agent) at the Rainbow, and finally determined that since Edinburgh would not hear us, Jedburgh should have the privilege of monopolising our maiden eloquence at the ensuing justiciary circuit. Jedburgh presents a capital field to the ambition of a youthful advocate. Very few counsel go that way; the cases are usually trifling, and the juries easily bamboozled. It has besides this immense advantage—that should you by any accident happen to break down, nobody will in all probability be the wiser for it, provided you have the good sense to ingratiate yourself with the circuit-clerk.
Tom and I arrived at Jedburgh the afternoon before the circuit began. I was not acquainted with a human being within the parliamentary boundaries of that respectable borough, and therefore experienced but a slight spasm of disappointment when informed by the waiter at the inn, that no inquiries had yet been made after me, on the part of writers desirous of professional assistance. Strachan had been wiser. Somehow or other, he had got a letter of introduction to one Bailie Beerie, a notable civic dignitary of the place; and, accordingly, on presenting his credentials, was invited by that functionary to dinner, with a hint that he "might maybe see a wheen real leddies in the evening." This pointed so plainly to a white choker and dress boots, that Strachan durst not take the liberty of volunteering the attendance of his friend; and accordingly I had been left alone to wile away, as I best might, the tedium of a sluggish evening. Before starting, however, Tom pledged himself to return in time for supper; as he entertained a painful conviction that the party would be excessively slow.
So long as it was light, I amused myself pretty well by strolling along the banks of the river, and enunciating a splendid speech for the panel in an imaginary case of murder. However, before I reached the peroration (which was to consist of a vivid picture of the deathbed of a despairing jury-man, conscience-stricken by the recollection of an erroneous verdict), the shades of evening began to close in; the trouts ceased to leap in the pool, and the rooks desisted from their cawing. I returned to discuss my solitary mutton at the inn; and then, having nothing to do, sat down to a moderate libation, and an odd number of the Temperance Magazine, which valuable tract had been left for the reformation of the traveller by some peripatetic disciple of Father Mathew.
Nine o'clock came, but so did not Strachan. I began to wax wroth, muttered anathemas against my faithless friend, rang for the waiter, and—having ascertained the fact that a Masonic Lodge was that evening engaged in celebrating the festival of its peculiar patron—I set out for the purpose of assisting in the pious and mystic labours of the Brethren of the Jedburgh St Jeremy. At twelve, when I returned to my quarters, escorted by the junior deacon, I was informed that Strachan had not made his appearance, and accordingly I went to bed.
Next morning I found Tom, as already mentioned, in his couch. There was a fine air of negligence in the manner in which his habiliments were scattered over the room. One glazed boot lay within the fender, whilst the other had been chucked into a coal-scuttle; and there were evident marks of mud on the surface of his glossy kerseymeres. Strachan himself looked excessively pale, and the sole rejoinder he made to my preliminary remark was, a request for soda-water.
"Tom," said I, inexpressibly shocked at the implied confession of the nature of his vespers—"I wonder you are not ashamed of yourself! Have you no higher regard for the dignity of the bar you represent, than to expose yourself before a Jedburgh Bailie?"
"Dignity be hanged!" replied the incorrigible Strachan. "Bailie Beerie is a brick, and I won't hear a word against him. But, O Fred! if you only knew what you missed last night! Such a splendid woman—by Jove, sir, a thoroughbred angel. A bust like one of Titian's beauties, and the voice of a lovelorn nightingale!"