“Why, here’s an old acquaintance of mine, called Edie Ochiltree, whom some of your myrmidons have mewed up in jail on account of an alleged assault on that fellow Dousterswivel, of whose accusation I do not believe one word.”
The magistrate here assumed a very grave countenance. “You ought to have been informed that he is accused of robbery, as well as assault—a very serious matter indeed; it is not often such criminals come under my cognizance.”
“And,” replied Oldbuck, “you are tenacious of the opportunity of making the very most of such as occur. But is this poor old man’s case really so very bad?”
“It is rather out of rule,” said the Bailie—“but as you are in the commission, Monkbarns, I have no hesitation to show you Dousterswivel’s declaration, and the rest of the precognition.” And he put the papers into the Antiquary’s hands, who assumed his spectacles, and sat down in a corner to peruse them.
The officers, in the meantime, had directions to remove their prisoner into another apartment; but before they could do so, M’Intyre took an opportunity to greet old Edie, and to slip a guinea into his hand.
“Lord bless your honour!” said the old man; “it’s a young soldier’s gift, and it should surely thrive wi’ an auld ane. I’se no refuse it, though it’s beyond my rules; for if they steek me up here, my friends are like eneugh to forget me—out o’sight out o’mind, is a true proverb; and it wadna be creditable for me, that am the king’s bedesman, and entitled to beg by word of mouth, to be fishing for bawbees out at the jail window wi’ the fit o’ a stocking, and a string.” As he made this observation he was conducted out of the apartment.
Mr. Dousterswivel’s declaration contained an exaggerated account of the violence he had sustained, and also of his loss.
“But what I should have liked to have asked him,” said Monkbarns, “would have been his purpose in frequenting the ruins of St. Ruth, so lonely a place, at such an hour, and with such a companion as Edie Ochiltree. There is no road lies that way, and I do not conceive a mere passion for the picturesque would carry the German thither in such a night of storm and wind. Depend upon it, he has been about some roguery, and in all probability hath been caught in a trap of his own setting—Nec lex justitior ulla.”
The magistrate allowed there was something mysterious in that circumstance, and apologized for not pressing Dousterswivel, as his declaration was voluntarily emitted. But for the support of the main charge, he showed the declaration of the Aikwoods concerning the state in which Dousterswivel was found, and establishing the important fact that the mendicant had left the barn in which he was quartered, and did not return to it again. Two people belonging to the Fairport undertaker, who had that night been employed in attending the funeral of Lady Glenallan, had also given declarations, that, being sent to pursue two suspicious persons who left the ruins of St. Ruth as the funeral approached, and who, it was supposed, might have been pillaging some of the ornaments prepared for the ceremony, they had lost and regained sight of them more than once, owing to the nature of the ground, which was unfavourable for riding, but had at length fairly lodged them both in Mucklebackit’s cottage. And one of the men added, that “he, the declarant, having dismounted from his horse, and gone close up to the window of the hut, he saw the old Blue-Gown and young Steenie Mucklebackit, with others, eating and drinking in the inside, and also observed the said Steenie Mucklebackit show a pocket-book to the others;—and declarant has no doubt that Ochiltree and Steenie Mucklebackit were the persons whom he and his comrade had pursued, as above mentioned.” And being interrogated why he did not enter the said cottage, declares, “he had no warrant so to do; and that as Mucklebackit and his family were understood to be rough-handed folk, he, the declarant, had no desire to meddle or make with their affairs, Causa scientiae patet. All which he declares to be truth,” etc.
“What do you say to that body of evidence against your friend?” said the magistrate, when he had observed the Antiquary had turned the last leaf.