“If Counsellor Crossmyloof used the dative for the nominative, I would have crossed his loof with a tight leathern strap, Mr. Saddletree; there is not a boy on the booby form but should have been scourged for such a solecism in grammar.”
“I speak Latin like a lawyer, Mr. Butler, and not like a schoolmaster,” retorted Saddletree.
“Scarce like a schoolboy, I think,” rejoined Butler.
“It matters little,” said Bartoline; “all I mean to say is, that Porteous has become liable to the poena extra ordinem, or capital punishment—which is to say, in plain Scotch, the gallows—simply because he did not fire when he was in office, but waited till the body was cut down, the execution whilk he had in charge to guard implemented, and he himself exonered of the public trust imposed on him.”
“But, Mr. Saddletree,” said Plumdamas, “do ye really think John Porteous’s case wad hae been better if he had begun firing before ony stanes were flung at a’?”
“Indeed do I, neighbour Plumdamas,” replied Bartoline, confidently, “he being then in point of trust and in point of power, the execution being but inchoat, or, at least, not implemented, or finally ended; but after Wilson was cut down it was a’ ower—he was clean exauctorate, and had nae mair ado but to get awa wi’ his guard up this West Bow as fast as if there had been a caption after him—And this is law, for I heard it laid down by Lord Vincovincentem.”
“Vincovincentem?—Is he a lord of state, or a lord of seat?” inquired Mrs. Howden.*
* A nobleman was called a Lord of State. The Senators of the College * of Justice were termed Lords of Seat, or of the Session.
“A lord of seat—a lord of session.—I fash mysell little wi’ lords o’ state; they vex me wi’ a wheen idle questions about their saddles, and curpels, and holsters and horse-furniture, and what they’ll cost, and whan they’ll be ready—a wheen galloping geese—my wife may serve the like o’ them.”
“And so might she, in her day, hae served the best lord in the land, for as little as ye think o’ her, Mr. Saddletree,” said Mrs. Howden, somewhat indignant at the contemptuous way in which her gossip was mentioned; “when she and I were twa gilpies, we little thought to hae sitten doun wi’ the like o’ my auld Davie Howden, or you either, Mr. Saddletree.”