The Courts in Scotland usually _frowned_ upon cases submitted to them where there was a strong presumption that either party had been victimised by the other; but, unfortunately, the requirements were so simple, and the facility of procuring witnesses so great, that many a poor frolicksome fellow paid dearly for his joke by finding himself suddenly transformed, from a bachelor, to a spick and span Benedict; and that too upon evidences which would not in these days have sent a fortune-telling impostor to the tread-mill: the lords of the justiciary being content that some one had heard him use the endearing term of wife to the pursuer, or had witnessed a mock form at an obscure public-house, or that the parties were by habit and repute man and wife. How truly then may it have been said, that a man in the Northern Capital, so open to imposition, scarcely knew whether he was married or not. In cases where the ceremony was performed, it {68} did not follow that the priest of Hymen should be of the clerical profession: "To tie the knot," says John Hope, "there needed none; He'd find a clown, in brown, or gray, Booted and spurr'd, should preach and pray; And, without stir, grimace, or docket, Lug out a pray'r-book from his pocket; And tho' he blest in wond'rous haste, Should tie them most securely fast." _Thoughts_, 1780. In Chambers's _Traditions of Edinburgh_, there is a slight allusion to these Canongate marriages: "The White Horse Inn," says he, "in a close in the Canongate, is an exceedingly interesting old house of entertainment. It was also remarkable for the runaway couples from England, who were married in its large room." The White Hart, in the Grass-market, appears to have been another of these Gretna Green houses. A curious fellow, well known in Edinburgh at the period referred to, was the high priest of the Canongate hymeneal altar. I need hardly say this was the famous "Claudero, the son of Nimrod the Mighty Hunter," as he grandiloquently styled himself: otherwise James Wilson, a disgraced schoolmaster, and poet-laureate to the Edinburgh _canaille_. In the large rooms of the above inns, this comical fellow usually presided, and administered relief to gallant swains and love-sick damsels, and a most lucrative trade he is said to have made of it:-- "Claudero's skull is ever dull, Without the sterling shilling:" in allusion to their being called half-merk or shilling marriages. Chambers gives an illustrative anecdote of our subjects' matrimonial practices in that of a soldier and a countryman seeking from Wilson a cast of his office: from the first Claudero took his shilling, but demanded from the last a fee of five, observing-- "I'll hae this sodger ance a week a' the times he's in Edinburgh, and you (the countryman) I winna see again."