t more
than the law bargained for or wanted; nor was the difficulty likely soon
to be solved. The two parties could not both be guilty, according to the
evidence, nor could one of them be guilty to the exclusion of the other;
neither, when the balance was cast, was there much difference in the
weight of the scales, because, while it was in one view more likely that
Lindsay signed the false name, it was beyond doubt that Effie wrote the
body of the document, and she had, moreover, presented it. But was it
for the honour of the law that people should be hanged on a likelihood?
It was a new case without new heads to decide it, and it made no
difference that the body of the people, who soon became inflamed on the
subject, took the part of the girl and declared against the man. It was
easy to be seen that the tracing of the money would go far to solve the
mystery; and accordingly there was a strict search made in Lindsay's
lodgings, as well as in Effie's private repositories at home. We need
not say with what effect, where the money was over the Border and away.
It was thus in all views more a case for Astraea than common heads; but
then she had gone to heaven. The Lord Advocate soon saw that the law was
likely to be caught in its own meshes. The first glimpse was got of the
danger of hanging so versatile, so inconsistent, so unsearchable a
creature as a human being on a mere confession of guilt. That that had
been the law of Scotland in all time, nay, that it had been the law of
the world from the beginning, there was no doubt. Who could know the
murderer or the forger better than the murderer or the forger himself?
and would any one throw away his life on a false plea? The reasoning
does not exhaust the deep subject; there remains the presumption that
the criminal will, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, deny, and deny
boldly. But our case threw a new light on the old law, and the Lord
Advocate was slow to indict where he saw not only reasons for failure,
but also rising difficulties which might strike at the respect upon
which the law was founded.

The affair hung loose for a time, and Lindsay's friends, anxious to save
him, got him induced to run his letters--the effect of which is to give
the prosecutor a period wherein to try the culprit, on failure of which
the person charged is free. The same was done by Effie's father; but
quickened as the Lord Advocate was, the difficulty still met him like a
ghost that would n