Verdict on Appeal

Here ends the court record of the famous Case of the Slippery Swine. One presumes (and prays) that by this time Mary Ball, now an adult and doubtless already châtelaine of “Scotland,” had transcended her infatuation with her former master.

One would prefer, indeed, to report that the Munroes had no more to do with the Bacons, after this painful if eventually triumphant episode. Don’t know how we’d know that, if it were the case: proving a negative is a notoriously tall order.

In the event, alas, we do know that William and Michael tangled once again in the County Court, four years later. Characteristically enough, this final clash was the Munroes’ only recorded legal dispute for the rest of their peaceable lives. The same cannot be said for the Bacons…