oose; and here am I, come from my ain house all the way to yours
for sma' comfort, I think."

"My stars, madam," said the perplexed scribe, "what would you have me to
do in such a blind story as yours, Mrs. Dods?--Be a thought
reasonable--consider that there is no _Corpus delicti_."

_"Corpus delicti?_ and what's that?" said Meg; "something to be paid
for, nae doubt, for your hard words a' end in that.--And what for suld I
no have a Corpus delicti, or a Habeas Corpus, or ony other Corpus that I
like, sae lang as I am willing to lick and lay down the ready siller?"

"Lord help and pardon us, Mrs. Dods," said the distressed agent, "ye
mistake the matter a'thegether! When I say there is no Corpus delicti, I
mean to say there is no proof that a crime has been committed."[I-19]

"And does the man say that murder is not a crime, than?" answered Meg,
who had taken her own view of the subject far too strongly to be
converted to any other--"Weel I wot it's a crime, baith by the law of
God and man, and mony a pretty man has been strapped for it."

"I ken all that very weel," answered the writer; "but, my stars, Mrs.
Dods, there is nae evidence of murder in this case--nae proof that a man
has been slain--nae production of his dead body--and that is what we
call the Corpus delicti."

"Weel, than, the deil lick it out of ye," said Meg, rising in wrath,
"for I will awa hame again; and as for the puir lad's body, I'll hae it
fund, if it cost me turning the earth for three miles round wi' pick and
shool--if it were but to give the puir bairn Christian burial, and to
bring punishment on MacTurk and the murdering crew at the Waal, and to
shame an auld doited fule like yoursell, John Bindloose."

She rose in wrath to call her vehicle; but it was neither the interest
nor the intention of the writer that his customer and he should part on
such indifferent terms. He implored her patience, and reminded her that
the horses, poor things, had just come off their stage--an argument
which sounded irresistible in the ears of the old she-publican, in whose
early education due care of the post-cattle mingled with the most sacred
duties. She therefore resumed her seat again in a sullen mood, and Mr.
Bindloose was cudgelling his brains for some argument which might bring
the old lady to reason, when his attention was drawn by a noise in the
passage.

FOOTNOTE:

[I-19] For example, a man cannot be tried for murder merely in the case of
the non