Justice to his mind was a simple thing; a man had either broken the law or he had not; if he had, he should be punished. "Extenuating circumstances" was a phrase used only by the sentimental and the guilty. I recall, as I write, his telling me with some pride and an amused smile of a certain occasion, when he had wrung a verdict from a jury against their sympathies, that the spectators had hissed him on his way out of court. "He's not a man at all. He's only a Head," Sandy Carmichael said of him once, and I find enough truth in the statement to make it worth setting down. His conceit of himself was high, as is the case with many self-made men, but he had a fine code of conduct for the direction of his private affairs, was aggressively honest and fearless, and an earnest believer in God, himself, and the Scots law. Like other great men he had his failings, however, and he set up to be a judge of music and poetry, for which he had as vile an ear as could be conceived; and to hear him read from Ramsay or Fergusson was an infliction not unnecessarily to be borne. One night, I remember, in '86, Burns and I stopped at Pitcairn's on our way home from Creech's and got him to read Leith Races and Caller Oysters, and Rab afterward went out and rolled over and over in a snow-drift, roaring with laughter, till some of the town-guard, who chanced to be going by, were for arresting him on the charge of drunkenness. It may be easily judged from this description that my friend Sandy and he were at opposite poles from each other, as I have said, and as time passed this dislike increased until it became the chiefest vexation of my life. If I mentioned Hugh's name to Sandy, he would maintain a disdainful silence or turn the talk with abruptness; while if Sandy's name was spoken before Pitcairn, the great lawyer would raise his eyebrows, shrug his shoulders, or make some biting criticism which rendered me resentful and highly uncomfortable as well. As soon as I was firmly fixed in my old home again, Pitcairn began to drop in on me, as his practise had been before my marriage, and his attitude to Nancy was a thing humorous to see. Hers to him was not without its droll side as well, for when he was present, especially if he talked of his cases, the child would sit on a stool, with some live thing held in her lap, literally devouring him with her eyes as he narrated the story of some criminal whom he had hanged or transported. I have seen her imitate his gesture as he talked, and sigh with relief when the jury handed in its verdict and the culprit's doom was finally settled. It was not long, however, before she evinced a strong dislike to being left alone with him, and if I had occasion to leave the room where the three of us were together she would invariably follow me.