BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 5
Failing, however, in every attempt to provoke the hostility of Government,
and thinking, in his despair of success, that if he could once again get within
the walls of a jail, it would be at any rate something gained, and that his
incarceration might lead to the result he was so desirous of obtaining, he fell on
the ingenious expedient of running in debt to his landlady, whom, by a threat of
non-payment, he induced to incarcerate him. This delightful consummation
accordingly took place, and the Laird was made happy by having so far got, as
he imagined, on the road to martyrdom.
It was a very easy matter to get the Laird into jail, but it was by no means
so easy a one to get him out again. Indeed, it was found next to impossible.
No entreaties would prevail upon him to quit it, even after the debt for which
he was imprisoned was paid. There he insisted on remaining until he should be
regularly brought to trial for high treason. At last a stratagem was resorted to,
to induce him to remove. One morning two soldiers of the Town Guard
appeared in his apartment in the prison, and informed him that they had come to
escort him to the Justiciaryqourt, where the Judges were assembled, and waiting
for his presence, that they might proceed with his trial for high treason.
Overjoyed with the delightful intelligence, the Laird instantly accompanied
the soldiers down stairs, when the latter having got him fairly outside of the
jail, locked the door to prevent his re-entering, and deliberately walked off,
leaving the amazed and disappointed candidate for a halter to reflect on the
slippery trick that had just been played him.
The Laird, after this, having, it would seem, abandoned all hope of being
hanged, betook himself to an amusement which continued to divert him during
the remainder of his life. This was carving in wood, for which he had a talent,
the heads of public personages, or of any others who became special objects
of his dislike, and in some cases, of those, too, for whom he entertained a
directly oppdsite feeling; thus, amongst his collection were those of the
Pretender, and several of his most noted adherents.
These little figures he stuck on the end of a staff or cane, which, as he
walked about, he held up to public view. His enemies, or such as he believed
to be such, were always done in a style of the most ridiculous caricature. The
Laird exhibited a new figure every day of the year, and as this was expected
of him, the question, “ Wha hae ye up the day, Laird ? ” was frequently put to
him, when he would readily give every information on the subject required.
When the Print to which this notice refers was first exhibited, the Laird
retaliated by mounting a caricature likeness of the limner on his staff; and
when asked for the usual information demanded in such cases, “ Don’t you see
it’s the barber 1 ” he would reply ; “ and wasn’t it a wise thing of him when
drawing twa daft men, to put a sodger between them?” On another occasion,
meeting the Honourable Henry Erskine one day as he was about to enter the
Parliament House, of which the Laird was a great frequenter, the former
inquired how he did : ‘‘ Oh, very wee1 ! ” answered the Laird ; but I’ll tell ye
what, Harry, tak’ in Justice wi’ ye,” pointing to one of the statues over the old
.
