Lord Kames used to relate a story of a man who claimed the honour of his acquaintance on rather singular grounds. His lordship, when one of the justiciary judges, returning from the North Circuit to Perth, happened one night to sleep at Dunkeld. The next morning, walking towards the ferry, but apprehending he had missed his way, he asked a man whom he met to conduct him. The other answered, with much cordiality, "That I will do with all my heart, my lord. Does not your lordship remember me? My name's John ----. I have had the _honour_ to be before your lordship for stealing sheep!"--"Oh, John, I remember you well; and how is your wife? She had the honour to be before me too, for receiving them, knowing them to be stolen."--"At your lordship's service. We were very lucky; we got off for want of evidence; and I am still going on in the butcher trade."--"Then," replied his lordship, "we may have the honour of meeting again."
Once when on Circuit his lordship had been dozing on the bench, a noise created by the entrance of a new panel woke him, and he inquired what the matter was. "Oh, it's a woman, my lord, accused of child murder."--"And a weel farred b--h too," muttered his lordship, loud enough to be heard by those present.
John Clerk (Lord Eldin) was one of the best-known advocates at the Scottish Bar in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, and probably the last of them to retain the old Scots style of pronunciation. His voice was loud and his manner brow-beating, from which the Bench suffered equally with his brother members of the Bar. He suffered from a lameness in one leg, which was made the subject of a passing remark by two young women in the High Street of Edinburgh one day as Clerk was making his way to Court. "There goes John Clerk the lame lawyer," said one to the other. Clerk overheard the remark, and turning back addressed the speaker: "The lame man, my good woman, not the lame lawyer."
The stories of his advocate days are numerous, and many of them probably well known. In his retention of old Scots pronunciation he got the better of Lord Eldon when pleading before the House of Lords one day. "That's the whole thing in plain English, ma lords," he said. "In plain Scotch, you mean, Mr. Clerk."--"Nae maitter, in plain common sense, ma lords, and that's the same in a' languages." On another occasion before the same tribunal he had frequently referred to water, pronouncing it "watter," when he was interrupted by the inquiry, "Do you spell water with two t's in the north, Mr. Clerk?"--"No, my lord, but we spell mainners wi' twa n's." And there is the well-known one of his use of the word "enough," which in old Scots was pronounced "enow." His repetition of the word in the latter form drew from the Lord Chancellor the remark that at the English Courts the word was pronounced "enough." "Very well, my lord," replied Clerk, and he proceeded with his address till coming to describe his client, who was a ploughman, and his client's claim, he went on: "My lords, my client is a pluffman, who pluffs a pluff gang o' land in the parish of," &c. "Oh! just go on with your own pronunciation, Mr. Clerk," remarked the Lord Chancellor.