His client claimed the use of a
mill-stream by a prescriptive right. Mr. Clerk spoke broad Scotch, and
argued that "the _watter_ had rin that way for forty years. Indeed
naebody kenn'd how long, and why should his client now be deprived of
the watter?" etc. The chancellor, much amused at the pronunciation of
the Scottish advocate, in a rather bantering tone asked him, "Mr. Clerk,
do you spell water in Scotland with two t's?" Clerk, a little nettled at
this hit at his national tongue, answered, "Na, my Lord, we dinna spell
watter (making the word as short as he could) wi' twa t's, but we spell
mainners (making the word as long as he could) wi' twa n's."
John Clerk's vernacular version of the motto of the Celtic Club is
highly characteristic of his humour and his prejudice. He had a strong
dislike to the whole Highland race, and the motto assumed by the modern
Celts, "Olim marte, nunc arte," Clerk translated "Formerly robbers, now
thieves." Quite equal to Swift's celebrated remark on William III.'s
motto--_Recepit, non rapuit_--"that the receiver was as bad as the
thief." Very dry and pithy too was Clerk's legal _opinion_ given to a
claimant of the Annandale peerage, who, when pressing the employment of
some obvious forgeries, was warned that if he persevered, nae doot he
might be a peer, but it would be a peer o' anither _tree!_
The clever author of "Peter's Letters" gives an elaborate description of
Clerk's character whilst at the bar, and speaks of him as "the plainest,
the shrewdest, and the most sarcastic of men.
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