My lord gave her the oath in his most roaring voice, and added an intolerant warning.
"Mind what ye say now, Janet," said he.

"I have an e'e upon ye, I'm ill to jest with." Presently, after she was tremblingly embarked on her story, "And what made ye do this, ye auld runt ?" the Court interposed.

"Do ye mean to tell me ye was the panel's mistress ?" "If you please, ma loard," whined the female.
"Godsake! ye made a bonny couple," observed his lordship; and there was something so formidable and ferocious in his scorn that not even the galleries thought to laugh.
The summing up contained some jewels.
"These two peetiable creatures seem to have made up thegither, it's not for us to explain why."-- "The panel, who (whatever else he may be) appears to be equally ill set-out in mind and boady."-- "Neither the panel nor yet the old wife appears to have had so much common sense as even to tell a lie when it was necessary." And in the course of sentencing, my lord had this _obiter dictum_: "I have been the means, under God, of haanging a great number, but never just such a disjaskit rascal as yourself." The words were strong in themselves; the light and heat and detonation of their delivery, and the savage pleasure of the speaker in his task, made them tingle in the ears.
When all was over, Archie came forth again into a changed world.

Had there been the least redeeming greatness in the crime, any obscurity, any dubiety, perhaps he might have understood.

But the culprit stood, with his sore throat, in the sweat of his mortal agony, without defence or excuse: a thing to cover up with blushes: a being so much sunk beneath the zones of sympathy that pity might seem harmless.