A first appearance is a nervous thing, but there is nothing like going boldly at your subject. "Fiat experimentum in corpora vili," is a capital maxim in the Justiciary Court. The worse your case, the less chance you have to spoil it; and I never had a worse than M'Wilkin's.
I began by buttering the jury on their evident intelligence and the high functions they had to discharge, which of course were magnified to the skies. I then went slap-dash at the evidence; and, as I could say nothing in favour of my client, directed a tremendous battery of abuse and insinuation against his accuser.
"And who is this Gubbins, gentlemen, that you should believe this most incredible, most atrocious, and most clumsy apocrypha of his? I will tell you. He is an English butcher—a dealer in cattle and in bestial—one of those men who derive their whole subsistence from the profits realised by the sale of our native Scottish produce. This is the way in which our hills are depopulated, and our glens converted into solitudes. It is for him and his confederates—not for us—that our shepherds watch and toil, that our herds and flocks are reared, that the richness of the land is absorbed! And who speaks to the character of this Gubbins? You have heard the pointless remarks made by my learned friend upon the character of my unfortunate client; but he has not dared to adduce in this court one single witness in behalf of the character of his witness. Gentlemen, he durst not do it! Gubbins has deponed to you that he bought, those sheep at the fair of Kelso, from a person of the name of Shiells, and that he paid the money for them. Where is the evidence of that? Where is Shiells to tell us whether he actually sold these sheep, or whether on the contrary they were not stolen from him? Has it been proved to you, gentlemen, that M'Wilkin is not a friend of Shiells—that he did not receive notice of the theft—that he did not pursue the robber, and, recognising the stolen property by their mark, seize them for the benefit of their owner? No such proof at least has been led upon the part of the crown, and in the absence of it, I ask you fearlessly, whether you can possibly violate your consciences by returning a verdict of guilty? Is it not possible—nay, is it not extremely probable, that Gubbins was the actual thief? Was it not his interest, far more than M'Wilkin's, to abstract those poor unhappy sheep, because it is avowedly his trade to till the insatiable maw of the Southron? And in that case, who should be at the bar? Gubbins! Gubbins, I say, who this day has the unparalleled audacity to appear before an enlightened Scottish jury, and to give evidence which, in former times, might have led to the awful consequence of the execution of an innocent man! And this is what my learned friend calls evidence! Evidence to condemn a fellow-countryman, gentlemen? No—not to condemn a dog!"
Having thus summarily disposed of Gubbins, I turned my artillery against the attendant drover and the policeman. The first I indignantly denounced as either an accomplice or a tool: the second I smote more severely. Policemen are not popular in Hawick; and, knowing this, I contrived to blacken the Scottish Vidocq as a bloodhound.
But by far the finest flight of fancy in which I indulged was reserved for the peroration. I was not quite sure of the effect of my commentary on the evidence, and therefore thought it might be advisable to touch upon a national raw.
"And now, gentlemen," said I, "assuming for one moment that all my learned friend has said to you is true—that the sheep really belonged to this Gubbins, and were taken from him by M'Wilkin—let us calmly and deliberately consider how far such a proceeding can be construed into a crime. What has my unfortunate client done that he should be condemned by a jury of his countrymen? What he stands charged with is simply this—that he has prevented an Englishman from driving away the produce of our native hills. And is this a crime? It may be so, for aught I know, by statute; but sure I am, that in the intention, to which alone you must look, there lies a far deeper element of patriotism than of deliberate guilt. Think for
