University of Virginia Library

9. JONATHAN AND THE CONSTABLE.

Now, brother Jonathan was a distinguished member of
the fraternity, and had maintained a leading position in the
profession for many years, ever since, indeed, he had migrated
from the land of steady habits. His masculine sense,
acuteness and shrewdness, were relieved and mellowed by
fine social habits and an original and genial humor, more
grateful because coming from an exterior something rigid
and inflexible. He had—and we hope we may be able to
say so for thirty years yet—a remarkably acute and quick
sense of the ridiculous, and is not fonder than other humor
ists of exposing a full front to the batteries of others than
turning them on his friends. Some fifty-five years has
passed over his head, but he is one of those evergreen or
never-green plants upon which time makes but little impression.
He has his whims and prejudices, and being an elder
of the Presbyterian church, he is especially annoyed by a
drunken man.

It so happened that a certain Ned Ellett was pretty high,
as well in office as in liquor, one drizzly winter evening—
during the session of the S. Circuit Court. He had taken

in charge one Nash, a horse-thief, and also a tickler of rye
whiskey; and this double duty coming upon him somewhat
unexpectedly, was more than he could well sustain
himself under. The task of discharging the prisoner over,
Ned was sitting by the fire in the hall of the Choctaw
House, in deep meditation upon the mutations in human affairs,
when he received a summons from Jonathan, to come
to his room, for the purpose of receiving a letter to be carried
to a client in the part of the county in which Ned resided.
It was about ten o'clock at night. Jonathan and I
occupied the same room and bed on the ground-floor of the
building, and I had retired for the night.

Presently Ned came in, and took his seat by the fire.
The spirits, by this time, began to produce their usual effects.
Ned was habited in a green blanket over-coat, into which the
rain had soaked, and the action of the fire on it raised a considerable
fog. Ned was a raw-boned, rough-looking customer,
about six feet high and weighing about two hundred
net—clothes, liquor, beard and all, about three hundred.
After Jonathan had given him the letter, and Ned had critically
examined the superscription, remarking something
about the handwriting, which, sooth to say, was not copy-plate—he
put it in his hat, and Jonathan asked him some
question about his errand to L.

“Why, Squire,” said Ned, “you see I had to take Nash
—Nash had been stealing of hosses, and I had a warrant
for him and took him.—Blass, Nash is the smartest feller
you ever see. He knows about most every thing and every

body. He knows all the lawyers, Blass—I tell you he does,
and no mistake. He was the merriest, jovialest feller you
ever see, and can sing more chronicle songs than one of these
show fellers that comes round with the suckus. He didn't
seem to mind bein took than a pet sheep. I tell you he
didn't, Blass—and when I tell you a thing, Blass, you better
had believe it, you had. Blass, did you ever hear of
my telling a lie? No, not by a jug-full. Blass, aint I an
hones' man? (Yes, said B., I guess you are.)— “Guess—
Guess—I say guess. Well, as I was a saying, about Nash
—I asked Nash, what he was doin perusin about the country,
and Nash said he was just perusin about the country to
see the climit? But I know'd Harvey Thompson wouldn't
like me to be bringin a prisner in loose, so I put the strings
on Nash, and then his feathers drapped, and then Blass, he
got to crying—and, Blass, he told me—(blubbering) he told
me about his—old mother in Tennessee, and how her
heart would be broke, and all that—and, Blass, I'm a hard
man and my feelins aint easy teched—but (here Ned boohood
right out,) Blass, I'll be—if I can bar to see a man exhausted.”

Ned drew his coat-sleeve over his eyes, blew his nose,
and snapped his fingers over the fire and proceeded: “Blass,
he asked about you and Lewis Scott, and what for a lawyer
you was, and I'll tell you jest what I told him, Blass, says I,
old Blass, when it comes to hard law, Nash, knows about all
the law they is—but whether he kin norate it from the stump
or not, that's the question. Blass, show me down some of these

pairs of stairs. [They were on the ground-floor, but Ned, no
doubt, was entitled to think himself high.]—B. showed him
out.

All this time I was possuming sleep in the bed as innocent
as a lamb. Blass came to the bedside and looked inquisitively
on for a moment, and went to disrobing himself.
All I could hear was a short soliloquy—“Well, doesn't that
beat all? It's one comfort, J. didn't hear that—I never
would have heard the last of it. It's most too good to be
lost. I believe I'll lay it on him.”

I got up in the morning, and as I was drawing on my
left boot, muttered as if to myself, “but whither he kin norate
it from the stump—that's the question.” B. turned his
head so suddenly—he was shaving, sitting on a trunk—that
he came near cutting his nose off.

“You doosn't mean to say you eaves-dropped and heard
that drunken fool—do you? Remember, young man, that
what you hear said to a lawyer in conference is confidential,
and don't get to making an ass of yourself, by blabbing this
thing all over town.” I told him “I thought I should have
to norate it a little.”