University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.
THE COUNTY COURT.

On Monday morning Meriwether announced to us
that the County Court was to commence its session,
and, consequently, that he was obliged to repair to
the seat of justice.

I have before intimated that my kinsman is one
of the quorum, and has always been famous for his
punctuality in the discharge of his judicial functions.
It was, moreover, necessary for him to be there today,
because his business with Philly Wart, in regard
to the arbitration, enjoined it upon him to meet
that legal luminary without delay.

He insinuated a wish that Ned and myself should
accompany him. I think Frank is a little vain of
his appearance on the bench. We readily assented
to his proposal.

Meriwether never moves on these state occasions
without old Carey, who has a suit of livery that is
preserved almost exclusively for this service. Accordingly,
the old man this morning was decorated
with all his honours, of which the principal consisted
in a thick drab coat, edged with green; and, as the
day was very hot, Carey suffered as much under his

covering as an ancient knight of the Crusades, in
his linked mail, on the sandy plains of Syria.

His master, too, had doffed the light and careless
habiliments in which he accommodated himself,
usually, to the fervours of the season, and was now
pranked out in that reverential furniture of broad
cloth which he conceived befitted the solemn import
of the duties he was about to discharge.

He rides a beautiful full-blooded sorrel; and his
pride in all matters that belong to his equitation is
particularly conspicuous in the fresh and comfortable
character of his housings and horse furniture,
He has a large new saddle, luxuriously stuffed and
covered with a richly worked coat of yellow buck-skin.
The stirrups hang inordinately low, so that it
is as much as he can do to get the point of his boot
into them. But he sits with a lordly erectness upon
his seat, and manages his horse with a bold and
dexterous hand. On horseback he is a perfect personation
of an opulent, unquestioned squire,—the
very guardian genius of the soil and its prerogatives
—fearless, graceful and masterly, his fine athletic
figure appearing here to its greatest advantage.

Ned and myself formed a part of his retinue, like
a pair of aids somewhat behind the commander-in-chief,
insensibly accommodating our position to the
respect inspired by his bearing and rank. Old Carey,
in his proper place, brought up the rear. Our
journey to the court house was about twelve miles,
and as we occasionally brought our horses to a gallop,
we arrived there at an early hour.

The sitting of this court is an occasion of great
stir. The roads leading to the little county capital
were enlivened by frequent troops of the neighbouring
inhabitants, that rode in squadrons, from all directions.
Jurors, magistrates, witnesses, attorneys
of the circuit, and all the throng of a country side
interested in this piepowder justice, were rapidly
converging to the centre of business.

Upon our arrival, a considerable part of the population
had already assembled, and were scattered
about the principal places of resort, in decent and
orderly groups, in which all seemed intent upon the
quiet and respectful discharge of their several errands.

The court house is a low, square, brick building,
entirely unornamented, occupying the middle of a
large area. It has an official appearance given to it
by a huge door of a dingy exterior and ample windows
covered with dust and cobwebs. An humble
and modest little building, of the same material,
stands on one corner of the area, and by the well-worn
path leading hence to the temple of Themis, it
may be seen that this is the only depository of
the county records. At a distance further off, a
somewhat larger edifice claims a public character,
which is denoted by one or two of the windows being
grated. A few small forest trees have been set
in the soil, over this space, which, by their feeble
growth and shelterless condition, as well as by the
formal and graceless precision with which they have
been distributed, show that the public functionaries

have at times had one or two abortive inspirations
of a spirit of improvement, and a transient passion
for beauty.

In front of the court house there is a decayed and
disjointed fixture, whose uses seem now to have gone
by. It is a pillory, with the stocks below it, and was
occupied at the moment of our visit, as a place of
meeting for a few idle negroes, who were seated on
the frame at a game of pushpin. Immediately in
this neighbourhood the horses of the crowd whose
occasions brought them to the scene, were fastened
to racks erected for that purpose; and the adjacent
fence-corners became gradually appropriated in the
same way.

Half a dozen frame dwellings, partially obscured
by trees and generally of a neat exterior, were scattered
over the landscape, and made up the village—
if so sparse an assemblage be entitled to that name.
There are two places of entertainment. The first,
a little shrunken, single-storied edifice, concealed behind
a rough, whitewashed piazza. The second is
an old building of some magnitude, composed entirely
of wood, and, from the profusion with which
its doors and windows have been supplied with architectural
embellishments, must formerly have been a
private residence of note.

Our cavalcade stopped at the latter of these rival
establishments; and we dismounted under a broad,
flaunting sign, that screeched slowly upon its hinges
in the breeze, and seemed to give a responsive note

to a party of geese, that were greeting every fresh
troop that arrived with a vociferous, periodical cackle.

There were several respectable-looking gentlemen
collected about the door; and Meriwether's
arrival was met with many kind and hearty expressions.
We were shown into a room that, from its
air of neatness, was evidently kept as an apartment
of more worship than that in which the larger portion
of the visiters of the hotel were assembled.
This room was garnished with carvings and mouldings
of an ancient date. The floor had suffered
from the ravages of time, and had a slope towards
an ample hearth, whose unsightly aperture was embowered
by a tasteful screen of the tops of asparagus
plants. Some pieces of mahogany furniture, black
with age and glistening like ebony, stood against the
wall; and above them hung divers besmirched pictures
representing game cocks in pugnacious attitudes,
distressingly clipt of their feathers, the Godolphin
Arabian, Flying Childers and some other victors
of the turf, all in black frames; and which, from
the hue that time had flung over the copperplate,
seemed to be gleaming through an atmosphere obfuscated
with smoke.

The hour soon came round for opening the court.
This was announced by a proclamation, made in a
shrill, attenuated voice, from the court house door;
and was followed by an immediate movement, from
all directions, to that quarter. The little hall in
which justice was administered was crowded almost

to overflowing. A semi-circular gallery, raised five
or six feet above the floor, at the further end of the
hall, was already occupied with a bevy of Justices—
nearly a dozen, perhaps—some of whom had flung
their feet upon the rail before them, and were lolling
back upon their seats, ready to proceed to their judicial
employments. Our friend Meriwether occupied
his place with a countenance of becoming importance.
Indeed, the whole bench presented a fine
picture of solid faces and figures, that might be said
to be a healthy and sturdy specimen of this pillar of
the sovereignty of the state;—and was well calculated
to inspire a wholesome respect for that inferior
and useful magistracy which has always been so
much a favourite of the people of Virginia.

Immediately under the gallery of the Justices, sat
the clerk of the court; and, on either side of his desk,
within the area of the semi-circle, were benches designed
for the juries. Fronting this array of the
court and jury, was a long, narrow platform, guarded
all round with railing, and elevated a few feet
above the floor, within whose constricted confines
were disposed some five or six members of the
bar, most incommodiously perched upon seats of a
height out of all proportion to the human figure;
and, before these, a narrow desk extended the whole
distance, so as to give to the place of their accommodation
somewhat of the dimensions of a pew.

These courts hold their sessions monthly, and
their jurisdiction reaches almost all the ordinary legal
requirements of the county; but, as the territorial

limit over which they preside is generally small, it
requires but a few days to despatch the business of
each term.

The first matter that occupied the attention of the
court was the marshalling of the grand jury, to whom
the usual charge was delivered. This office was assigned
by the court to one of the members of the
bar, a young practitioner, who did not fail to embellish
the summary of duties, which he unfolded to
their view, with a plentiful garniture of rhetoric.
Notwithstanding the portentous exaggeration of the
solemnity of the occasion, and the multitudinous
grave topics which were urged upon the grand inquest,
it seems that this quintessence of the freehold
dignity was sadly puzzled to find employment in
any degree commensurate with the exaltedness of its
function. It is said that the jurors revolved in their
minds the whole list of national grievances. One
party suggested the idea of presenting the established
mode of electing the President of the United
States as a grievance to the good people of the
county; another thought of a formal denunciation
of the Tariff; a few advocated an assault upon the
Supreme Court; but all were happily brought into a
harmonious concurrence in the design of presenting a
mad-cap ragamuffin, by the name of Jemmy Smith,
for disturbing the peace of a camp-meeting by drinking
whiskey and breeding a riot within the confines
of the conventicle. Accordingly, after an hour's deliberation
upon these various suggestions, they returned
to the court room with a solitary bill, made

out in due form, against Jemmy; and, this matter
constituting the sum total of their business for the
term, they were thereupon discharged, with the
thanks of the court for the able and vigilant administration
of their inquisitorial duties.

Jemmy Smith had anticipated this act of authority;
and was now in court, ready to stand his trial.
He had already selected his counsel—a flowery and
energetic advocate, whose strength lay, according to
the popular opinion, in his skill in managing a jury.
The name of this defender of Jemmy's fame was
Taliaferro, (pronounced Tolliver,) or, as it was called
for shortness, Toll Hedges, Esq. a gentleman
whose pantaloons were too short for him, and whose
bare legs were, consequently, visible above his stockings.
Toll's figure, however, was adorned with a
bran-new blue coat, of the most conceited fashion,
which, nevertheless, gave some indications of having
been recently slept in, as it was plentifully supplied
with down from a feather bed. He was conspicuous,
also, for an old straw hat, that had been
fretted at the rim by a careless habit in handling it.
This learned counsel had apparently been keeping
his vigils too strictly the night before, for his eyes
were red, and his face inflamed. His frame had all
the morning languor of a sedulous night watcher:
and, altogether, Toll did not appear to be in the best
condition to try his case. However, he had now
taken his seat at the bar; and close beside him sat
his client, Jemmy Smith, an indescribably swaggering,
saucy blade, who had the irreverence to come

into court without coat or waistcoat, and to show a
wild, grinning, disorderly countenance to his peers.

Whilst the gentleman who conducted the case for
the Commonwealth was giving a narrative of Jemmy's
delinquencies to the jury, and was vituperating
that worthy's character in good set terms, Toll was,
to all appearance, asleep upon his folded arms, resting
on the desk before him. When the charge was
fairly explained, one witness was called to support
it. This individual was pretty much such a looking
person as Jemmy himself. He was rather down-faced
and confused in his demeanor before the court,
and particularly shabby in his exterior; but he told
a plain, straight forward story enough, in the main,
and his evidence went the full length of all the traverser's
imputed enormities. The truth was, Jemmy
had certainly broke into the camp and played some
strange antics, considering the sanctity of the place.
But, during all this time, Taliaferro Hedges, Esq.
maintained his recumbent position, except, now and
then, when Jemmy, feeling himself pinched by the
testimony, would recline his head to whisper in his
counsel's ear, which act would rouse him enough to
bring upon Jemmy a rebuke, that was generally conveyed
by pushing him off, and an injunction to be
quiet. At length, the whole story was told, and bad
enough it looked for Jemmy! The attorney for the
commonwealth now informed Mr. Hedges, that the
witness was at his disposal. At this, Toll completely
roused himself, and sitting bolt upright, directed a
sharp and peremptory catechism to the witness, in

which he required him to repeat the particulars he
had before detailed. There was something bullying
in the manner of the counsel, that quite intimidated
the witness, and the poor fellow made some sad
equivocations. At last, said Toll, after admonishing
the witness, in a very formal manner, that he was
upon his oath, and explaining to him the solemnity
of his obligation to speak the truth, “I will ask you
one question; answer it categorically, and without
evasion.”

“When you and Smith went down to camp-meeting,
had'nt Smith a bottle of whiskey in the bosom
of his shirt? Tell the truth.”

The attorney for the Commonwealth objected to
the question; but the court overruled the objection.

“Why, yes, he had,” replied the witness.

“Did'nt Jemmy buy that bottle himself, and pay
for it out of his own pocket? On the oath you have
taken.”

“Why, yes, he did.”

“Well, now tell us. Did'nt you drink some of
that whiskey yourself, along the road?”

“Why, yes, I did. I tell the truth, gentlemen.”

“More than once?”

“Yes, several times.”

“After you got down to camp?”

“Oh, yes! certainly. I don't deny it.”

“Did you and Jemmy drink out of the mouth of
the bottle, or out of a cup?”

“Certainly; out of the mouth of the bottle. You
will not catch me in any lies, lawyer Hedges.”

“Really, Mr. Hedges,” interrupted the attorney
for the Commonwealth, “I don't see what this has to
do with the question. I must apply to the court.”

“Oh, very well,” said Toll, “I see how it is!
Gentlemen of the jury, I don't insist on the question,
if the gentleman does not like to have it answered.
But you can't help seeing the true state of the case.
Here's this fellow, who has been all along drinking
out of the very same bottle with Jemmy Smith,—and
Jemmy's own whiskey too,—and now he comes out
state's evidence. What credit can you attach to a
cock-and-bull story told by a fellow that comes to
swear against a man who has been dividing his liquor
with him? For the honour of the Old Dominion,
gentlemen!” cried Toll, concluding this sidebar
appeal to the jury with an indignant gesticulation,
and a look of triumph in his face, that might be
said to be oratorically comic.

The look was a master-stroke. It took complete
effect; and Jemmy was acquitted in spite of the
facts.

As the crowd broke up, Toll, on leaving the court
room, walked up to the witness, and slapping him
on the back, said, “Come, let us go take something
to drink.” And off the two went together to the
tavern.

Hazard remarked to Hedges afterwards, that it
was a little odd, as he had completely triumphed

over the facts of his case by undermining the credit
of the witness, he should be on such good terms with
this person as to bring him down to drink with
him.

“Ah!” replied Hedges, “if the jury knew that
man as well as I do, they would have believed every
word he said. For there is not an honester fellow in
the county. But I know how to work these juries.”