Redgauntlet: A Tale of the Eighteenth Century by Walter Scott (classic romance novels txt) 📗

of you. These out of the question, I could have grappled with the bags, had they been as large as corn-sacks. But, to turn what was grave into farce, the door opened, and Wilkinson ushered in Peter Peebles.

You must have seen this original, Darsie, who, like others in the same predicament, continues to haunt the courts of justice, where he has made shipwreck of time, means, and understanding. Such insane paupers have sometimes seemed to me to resemble wrecks lying upon the shoals on the Goodwin Sands, or in Yarmouth Roads, warning other vessels to keep aloof from the banks on which they have been lost; or rather, such ruined clients are like scarecrows and potato-bogies, distributed through the courts to scare away fools from the scene of litigation.

The identical Peter wears a huge greatcoat threadbare and patched itself, yet carefully so disposed and secured by what buttons remain, and many supplementary pins, as to conceal the still more infirm state of his under garments. The shoes and stockings of a ploughman were, however, seen to meet at his knees with a pair of brownish, blackish breeches; a rusty-coloured handkerchief, that has been black in its day, surrounded his throat, and was an apology for linen. His hair, half grey, half black, escaped in elf-locks around a huge wig, made of tow, as it seemed to me, and so much shrunk that it stood up on the very top of his head; above which he plants, when covered, an immense cocked hat, which, like the chieftain’s banner in an ancient battle, may be seen any sederunt day betwixt nine and ten, high towering above all the fluctuating and changeful scene in the Outer House, where his eccentricities often make him the centre of a group of petulant and teasing boys, who exercise upon him every art of ingenious torture. His countenance, originally that of a portly, comely burgess, is now emaciated with poverty and anxiety, and rendered wild by an insane lightness about the eyes; a withered and blighted skin and complexion; features begrimed with snuff, charged with the self-importance peculiar to insanity; and a habit of perpetually speaking to himself. Such was my unfortunate client; and I must allow, Darsie, that my profession had need to do a great deal of good, if, as is much to be feared, it brings many individuals to such a pass.

After we had been, with a good deal of form, presented to each other, at which time I easily saw by my father’s manner that he was desirous of supporting Peter’s character in my eyes, as much as circumstances would permit, ‘Alan,’ he said, ‘this is the gentleman who has agreed to accept of you as his counsel, in place of young Dumtoustie.’

‘Entirely out of favour to my old acquaintance your father, said Peter. with a benign and patronizing countenance, ‘out of respect to your father, and my old intimacy with Lord Bladderskate. Otherwise, by the REGIAM MAJESTATEM! I would have presented a petition and complaint against Daniel Dumtoustie, Advocate, by name and surname—I would, by all the practiques!—I know the forms of process; and I am not to be triffled with.’

My father here interrupted my client, and reminded him that there was a good deal of business to do, as he proposed to give the young counsel an outline of the state of the conjoined process, with a view to letting him into the merits of the cause, disencumbered from the points of form. ‘I have made a short abbreviate, Mr. Peebles,’ said he; ‘having sat up late last night, and employed much of this morning in wading through these papers, to save Alan some trouble, and I am now about to state the result.’

‘I will state it myself,’ said Peter, breaking in without reverence upon his solicitor.

‘No, by no means,’ said my father; ‘I am your agent for the time.’

‘Mine eleventh in number,’ said Peter; ‘I have a new one every year; I wish I could get a new coat as regularly.’

‘Your agent for the time,’ resumed my father; ‘and you, who are acquainted with the forms, know that the client states the cause to the agent—the agent to the counsel’—

‘The counsel to the Lord Ordinary,’ continued Peter, once set a-going, like the peal of an alarm clock, ‘the Ordinary to the Inner House, the President to the Bench. It is just like the rope to the man, the man to the ox, the ox to the water, the water to the fire’—

‘Hush, for Heaven’s sake, Mr. Peebles,’ said my father, cutting his recitation short; ‘time wears on—we must get to business—you must not interrupt the court, you know.—Hem, hem! From this abbreviate it appears’—

‘Before you begin,’ said Peter Peebles ‘I’ll thank you to order me a morsel of bread and cheese, or some cauld meat, or broth, or the like alimentary provision; I was so anxious to see your son, that I could not eat a mouthful of dinner.’

Heartily glad, I believe, to have so good a chance of stopping his client’s mouth effectually, my father ordered some cold meat; to which James Wilkinson, for the honour of the house, was about to add the brandy bottle, which remained on the sideboard, but, at a wink from my father, supplied its place with small beer. Peter charged the provisions with the rapacity of a famished lion; and so well did the diversion engage him, that though, while my father stated the case, he looked at him repeatedly, as if he meant to interrupt his statement, yet he always found more agreeable employment for his mouth, and returned to the cold beef with an avidity which convinced me he had not had such an opportunity for many a day of satiating his appetite. Omitting much formal phraseology, and many legal details, I will endeavour to give you, in exchange for your fiddler’s tale, the history of a litigant, or rather, the history of his lawsuit.

‘Peter Peebles and Paul Plainstanes,’ said my father, entered into partnership, in the year—, as mercers and linendrapers, in the Luckenbooths, and carried on a great line of business to mutual advantage. But the learned counsel needeth not to be told, SOCIETAS EST MATER DISCORDIARUM, partnership oft makes pleaship. The company being dissolved by mutual consent, in the year—, the affairs had to be wound up, and after certain attempts to settle the matter extra-judicially, it was at last brought into the court, and has branched out into several distinct processes, most of whilk have been conjoined by the Ordinary. It is to the state of these processes that counsel’s attention is particularly directed. There is the original action of Peebles v. Plainstanes, convening him for payment of 3000l., less or more, as alleged balance due by Plainstanes. Secondly, there is a counter action, in which Plainstanes is pursuer and Peebles defender, for 2500l., less or more, being balance alleged per contra, to be due by Peebles. Thirdly, Mr. Peeble’s seventh agent advised an action of Compt and Reckoning at his instance, wherein what balance should prove due on either side might be fairly struck and ascertained. Fourthly, to meet the hypothetical case, that Peebles might be found liable in a balance to Plainstanes, Mr. Wildgoose, Mr. Peebles’s eighth agent, recommended a Multiplepoinding, to bring all parties concerned into the field.’

My brain was like to turn at this account of lawsuit within lawsuit, like a nest of chip-boxes, with all of which I was expected to make myself acquainted.

‘I understand,’ I said, ‘that Mr. Peebles claims a sum of money from Plainstanes—how then can he be his debtor? and if not his debtor, how can he bring