In spite of all his cunning the rogue will soon or late come to a bad end. "Foxes find themselves at last at the furrier's" (French).[698] "No mad dog runs seven years" (Dutch).[699]
Hanging goes by hap.
If a man is hanged it is a sign that he was pre-destined to that end. "The gallows was made for the unlucky" (Spanish).[700] It is not always a man's fault so much as his misfortune that he dies of a hempen fever. As Captain Macheath sings,—
"Since laws were made for every degree,
To curb vice in others as well as in me,
I wonder we ha'n't better company
Upon Tyburn tree."
But "Money does not get hanged" (German).[701] It sits on the judgment-seat, and sends poor rogues to the hulks or to Jack Ketch. As it was in the days of Diogenes the cynic, so it is now: "Great thieves hang petty thieves" (French);[702] and, whilst "Petty thieves are hanged, people take off their hats to great ones" (German).[703]
First hang and draw,
Then hear the cause by Lidford law.
Ray informs us that "Lidford is a little and poor but ancient corporation in Devonshire, with very large privileges, where a Court of Stannaries was formerly kept." The same sort of expeditious justice was practised in Scotland and in Spain, as testified by proverbs of both countries. At Peralvillo the Holy Brotherhood used to execute in this manner robbers taken in the fact, or "red-hand," as the Scotch forcibly expressed it. Hence the Spanish saying, "Peralvillo justice: after the man is hanged try him."[704] The Scotch equivalent for this figures with dramatic effect in that scene of The Fair Maid of Perth where Black Douglas has just discovered the murder of the Prince of Rothsay, and exclaims,—