Border beagles a tale of Mississippi |
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 | CHAPTER VI. Border beagles |  |
6. CHAPTER VI.
And by a simple swain, a mercenary,
Who bravely took the combat to himself.”
Rob. Greene, 1560.
Vernon, meanwhile, accompanied by his friend
and patron, proceeded to the court-house, in the area
in front of which he encountered the curious gaze of
all the natives to whom the face of a stranger is instantly
obvious, and in the examination of whom
they do not always content themselves with the keen
scrutiny of the eye. “Whar' are you from, stranger?”
and “whar' are you guine?” and “what's
your business here?” and “what do you do there?”
are the ordinary questions by which the forest-born
contrive to obtain possession of that intelligence for
which the Atlantic citizen has his morning gazette.
The crowd was fast assembling, and Vernon left
alone by Mr. Carter, who was required to attend to
some pressing business elsewhere, was, of course,
compelled to go through his examination like all the
rest, and bore it with the most becoming fortitude
and good nature. Not that he answered his inquisitors
with a strict regard to the truth; this might
have exposed him to defeat in the purposes which he
had in view; but with that ready adroitness which
is the sign of keen and quick imagination, and which,
by the way, is one of the very first requisites in a
country circuit lawyer; he answered them in such
he had nothing more to reveal. When asked about
New Orleans, he could tell them a long story about
the new big steamboat of which they had heard
wonders; and by conversing freely with Tom, Dick
and Harry, about matters with which neither himself
nor Tom, Dick or Harry had any thing to do,
convinced all around that he was no starched, stiff-necked
upstart, so solicitous of his own birth, family
and fortune, as to dread the effect of their contact
upon his nobility.
“A 'cute chap,” said one, “that fellow, Vernon;
knows all about that Orleans railroad and the big
steamboat; says Madame Lalaurie, she that licked
her poor niggers to death, and tied 'em week after
week without hog or hominy, will get mightily
smashed among the Orleans lawyers.”
“He's an Orleans lawyer, then?” demanded
another.”
“I rether reckon so,” was the reply, “though, by
the powers, he didn't tell me that.”
“Well, but now he's moved into Massissippi, or how
could he come to plead here in Raymond.”
“That's true—I'll go and ax him where he lives
now; I rather like the chap,” was the opinion and
resolve of the baffled inquisitor, whom Vernon had
contrived to lead from himself by freely enlarging
upon other matters, which, for the moment, amply
satisfied the hearer's curiosity.
But the youth had disappeared from the spot, and
was then in the rear of the court-house where he
had been called by Carter who held him in close
conference. Meanwhile, the court was convened,
his honour had taken his seat, and the crowd, hurrying
with that strange curiosity which is never so
well satisfied as when it hears of the misdeeds of its
own nature, and which is never so active and apprehensive
all concern for the interesting stranger, and gave
itself up, soul and body, to the clamours of officers,
silencing clamour; the calls of jurymen and witnesses;
the small wit of small lawyers, and the sapient
wisdom of the judge, whose oracles, generally
monosyllabic, are accompanied by a shake of the
head, worse-wise than Burleigh's.
Carter, having concluded the relation of a matter
which belonged to the expedition of his protegé, was
about to withdraw with him to the great moral bullring,
when one of those little and most amusing incidents
took place, which could only take place in a
country such as ours, where a bold decisive character
is formed by the adventurous life which it makes
prominent, if not necessary; and where a free spirit
and genuine humour seem absolutely to result from
the absence of any of those educational restraints,
which, in New England, graduate all intellects to an
interesting level, making them as completely the
creatures of mould and measure, as if God had decreed
them, even in morals and expression, to the
exquisite republican equality which they deny to
none—who have a money qualification and are not
Irish and Catholic.
A broad-faced, brown-cheeked, good-humoured
looking farmer approached the two, and addressing
Carter by name as an old acquaintance, turned from
him to his companion, and slapping him upon the
shoulder with all the familiarity of an old acquaintance,
spoke to him in some such language as the following.
“Look ye, now, stranger, they tell me your
name's Varnon, and that you're a lawyer, and I
reckon it's true what they tell me. You're a friend
of his, Ben Carter—eh?”
Carter answered by introducing Vernon more
satisfied on the subject of his other interrogatories.
“Well, Harry Varnon,” said the old man in continuation,
“I like your face—by the hokey but I do—
and without meaning to praise you to your teeth, I tell
you you're a d—d smart-looking fellow; and I want
to give you some law business to do for me now,
before the court's over here in Raymond.”
“Your business is his, Mr. Shippen,” said Carter,
anticipating the reply of Vernon, “and I think that
my friend will do justice to himself and you at the
same time.”
“Let the boy talk for himself, Carter. I want to
hear him talk since I'm going to hire him, you see,
to talk for me in the court-house. By his face, he
ought to have a mighty free speech, and that's the
sort of thing you see that will best suit me at this
present. What say you, Harry Varnon, are you
willing to argify a little business for me in a mighty
bad case.”
The other professed his willingness to do what he
could for his client to the best of his ability, and in
such a style as to satisfy the old man that he was
not likely to prove a bungler in his business.
“That's your sort,” said he; “and now look ye,
Varnon. The law is agin me here for licking a
d—d Yankee trader, that said something sassy to my
darter Nelly. She's only a child, Master Varnon,
a leetle over thirteen years old, and couldn't 'a
meant any harm in what she did; and if there was
any harm in it, d'ye see, why I was the only one to
blame in the matter. I gin her a five dollar bill to
go to Watson's store to buy some little truck, and
he said the bill was a false one and a counterfeit,
and spoke so to the child as if she meant to cheat
him—and she a gal too—that I got angry as a buster,
and went straight off and mounted him. I
gentle, the way I handled him. I made his sides
ache, I tell you. Well, the long and short of the
business, then, is this: instead of coming out and
making it a fight after his own fashion, with any
weapons, jist as he might think best for himself, he
goes a-lawing me about for damages, and he's put
down his bruises and black spots at five thousand
dollars; as if his laying up a week, and putting a
mush poultice on his shins, and a piece of raw beef
to his eyes, should have cost him so much money.
Well, you're right to laugh, for that's the true state
of the case, and now what do you think you can
do with it?”
“You have counsel already?” asked Vernon.
“Oh, yes; one Graham, here, that comes from
Monticello; a mealy-mouthed chap that don't please
me at all; but he was the best I could get to do the
business when I wanted it. He answered Perkins,
who is Watson's lawyer, step by step, in the law-papers
he put in; and I s'pose did that part of the
business tolerable well; but then, he can't talk, Varnon;
and he trembles and looks afeard when the
other lawyers talk, and that vexes me, to have a
lawyer that's afeard to open his mouth in my business;
and I wo'n't have him talk for me if I can
help it.”
“But, Mr. Shippen, I cannot think to supersede
Mr. Graham in this business; it is against the courtesy
of the bar.”
“There's no superseding at all. Graham's quite
willing to get somebody to help him; for, look you,
he says that he knows nothing that he can say to
help me. He says they'll prove every thing agin
me, and there's no sort of defence that he can make.
Now, he says, if I had only let Watson give me the
first clip, he could defend me very well; but wouldn't
body knows that a first clip is half the battle? No,
—no! none of that stuff for me; it may be law, but
I reckon there's no reason in it—none, that'll sarve
a man here in Massissippi.”
“I don't know that I can do much more for you
than Graham,” said Vernon, modestly; “you, at
least know, Mr. Shippen, that the law favours him
most who suffers the first injury.”
“You can talk, Varnon, and that's something more
than Graham can do. You can tell the people what
a darned skunk of a fellow that Watson is, to go and
scandalize a child—and she a gal too—to call her a
cheat and vilify her in front of his shop; and by the
Eternal, if that a'n't provocation and injury enough to
justify any father for licking the rapscallion that
does it, then I don't know any sense in our having
laws at all. Well, then, all I want is that you should
talk your mind freely to the people about these things.
I know well enough, that by the law-books, a man's
not to lick his neighbour for bad words, generally
speaking; but then, you see, here's a case different.
Here the bad words is spoken to a gal child, that has
a character to lose, and there's no such thing as
standing that; and it does seem to me that it's right to
make a monstrous difference between blackguarding
a man himself, and blackguarding his darter. Well,
Varnon, you're just the man now, to hit the skunk
hard on these p'ints. Do you score him now, up and
down, hip and thigh, for half an hour—half an hour
by the watch—and there's a clear fifty dollars in
your pocket. Say the word,—only half an hour
now,—I don't want a minute more; and it's a bargain.”
Vernon laughed at the humour of the proposition,
but seemed disposed to hesitate, when Carter, fearing
that some nice point of objection might suggest it.
present object of his appearing in Raymond only as
a lawyer seeking practice, immediately closed with
the offer on the part of the youth. The old farmer,
however, was not so well satisfied.
“Let Varnon talk for himself, Ben Carter; he's
got a tongue of his own, and it does me good to hear
him use it. Come, Varnon, my boy, say what you'll
do. I've spoken to Graham a'ready, and he says
he's willing. It mought be that you think he a'n't;
but between us, he's mighty glad to get the trouble
on to some other body's shoulders, for he's plainly
told me that it's a darned black and blue case, all
agin me, and he's no notion of any way to turn it
about to my benefit. I'm candid you see—I don't
hide nothing from you. I expect to sweat a little at
my fingers' ends for this beating, but, by the hokey,
five thousand dollars will swallow me and all my
substance, and you must rub that down to a mere
circumstance. I'm willing to bleed five hundred, but
the other is quite too digging. It'll plough me out of
the ground to raise it; and root and branch must go
along with it. A good talk now, that'll show what
a skunk Watson is, and what a shame it would be
to let a child,—a gal child too,—be abused by such
a varment, and called a cheat, and vilified as if she
was a bad woman at the foot of Natchy hill—will
help me mightily, and I don't think the jury will mind
the law so much, when the reason and the right of
the thing is so clearly in my hand. Do your best,
my chicken, and the money's in your pocket.”
“Did I understand you that Watson made no defence?”
“Took his beating like a holy mortyr.”
“What! did he not strike a blow?”
“Not the breath of one; he jist called upon the
people to see how I handled him, jist as if he had a
for me, so Graham says.”
“I'll close with you, Mr. Shippen. I'll plead for
half an hour.”
“Jist half an hour, Varnon; do it well and stick
to him for that time, my chicken, and by the hokey,
I don't want a minute more.”
“I will do it,” repeated the youth, rather amused
with the aspect of the affair, and the requisition of
the farmer; and not so hopeless of his cause as Mr.
Graham had been. From that very feature, last
related in the case, which Graham thought the most
unfavourable, the quickwitted Vernon argued the
very best results; and having appointed to meet
Shippen within the hour, to make the acquaintance
of Graham and confer with him on the business so
far as it had gone, the stouthearted defendant left
him for awhile, as fully satisfied with the proceeding,
as if his case was already won. He was
one of those worthy republicans who was not unwilling
to pay for his liberties; and the right to speak
his mind, though it might be only through the lips of
another, was one of those rights which he esteemed
cheaply paid for with fifty dollars at any time. When
he had gone, Carter resumed his conference with
Vernon, which related, we need scarcely say, to the
projected mission of the latter. Other items of intelligence
had reached him,—which furnished additional
clues to those already in possession—of the course
taken in his flight by the faithless friend and absconding
debtor; but as these matters are destined to have
their distinct development in the regular progress of
the affair, they demand none of our attention now.
When Vernon entered the court-house he found
his new client awaiting him with the “mealy-mouthed”
lawyer Graham. A few moments sufficed
to put Vernon in possession of all the facts so
to the attorney on record. During the course of his
narrative, Graham did not scruple, though in the
presence of Shippen, to declare his utter hopelessness
of his cause; a sort of sincerity which is of very
doubtful propriety, since it never yet discouraged a
litigant, and has often ruined a very worthy practitioner.
It was amusing enough to Vernon to survey
the countenance of Shippen as these opinions fell
from the lips of his lawyer.—How he would lift his
evebrows, and roll his tongue within his jaws, and
then turn away exclaiming—
“Never you mind, Charley Graham—never you
mind,—there are more eggs to be hatched this week,
than was ever laid by your mother's best hen; and
some of the chickens, let me tell you, will be long
spurred before they chip the shell. Only half an
hour, Harry Varnon; only half an hour, my boy;
but let it be well talked.”
At length, in its due place upon the docket, the
long-expected civil case of Watson v. Shippen,
sounding in damages for assault and battery, was
called, and the several parties responded accordingly.
With the first sounds of his name, Shippen perched
himself behind Vernon, and renewed his exhortations
and his promises. The plaintiff, Watson, was also
present—a huge, mammoth-feeding sort of person,
half as large again as Shippen, and having the appearance
of one, who, if he had not utterly lacked
the spirit, could have annihilated, or at least, have
swallowed his assailant. His downcast look, halting,
hesitating but sly manner, sufficiently denoted
the cold, calculating and cowardly wretch—such as
Shippen had described him,—who could wantonly
insult the young girl, whose indignant father he
dared not face, and could not contend with. His
attorney, Perkins, opened the case with considerable
which Watson had drawn upon him the wrath of
the defendant, and dwelt with proper details of law
and fact, upon the enormity of the outrage which
the latter had committed; described the cruel manner
in which his client had been dragged from his
dwelling into the public thoroughfare and beaten by
the big-fisted pugilist, whom, in his passionate exaggeration,
he made a giant, whilst the plaintiff was
diminished to a feeble and delicate person, whose
Christian forbearance while receiving the injuries
complained of, was the subject of most unbounded,
and, it may be added, most unmerited eulogium.
After this, it seemed something of an anti-climax to
show that a physician's aid was called in to heal his
hurts; particularly as the cross-examination determined
the extent of this attendance to be little over
three days; and the medicaments employed to be of
little more cost than “eye of newt and toe of frog.”
A peas poultice was shown to be one of the most
successful applications of Doctor Shinbone, and the
application of the lancet, his most serious operation.
With these proofs and the commentary which he
made with so much unction upon them, Mr. Attorney
Perkins, was willing to close his side of the case.
“You see,” said Graham, in a half whisper to
Vernon; “it is as I have told you. He has proved
every thing, and our case is to be made out of his
witnesses only.”
The words, spoken however slightly, were audible
to the keen ears of the defendant behind, who, smarting
with the declamation of Perkins, retorted before
Vernon could speak.
“And a good case, too, Charley Graham, if a
man had it in him to bring out. Up and at him,
Harry Varnon, and give him enough of it. By the
was all cream colour.”
A sly twinkle of Vernon's eyes was perceptible to
the court, as, arising from his seat, he coolly took
out his watch, and noted the precise minute before
he commenced his operations. The bargain, meanwhile,
which Shippen had made with the strange
lawyer, to talk for him half an hour only, had got
into considerable circulation, chiefly with the assistance
of the defendant himself; and the curiosity was
general, not less to hear the young and handsome
stranger, than to see what he could make of his
limits.
Vernon did not belie public expectation. Cool in
temper, rapid in reflection, and singularly fluent of
speech, he commenced his task by reviewing briefly
the evidence which had been given. He dwelt with
much more emphasis than Perkins on the gross insult
which had been offered to a young child, of good
parents, and one of a sex, which needed, from the
delicacy of its structure, the kindness and indulgence
of man; and could not live either in his harshness
or disesteem. This harshness, he proceeded to show,
was quite hostile to that claim which had been so
eloquently made by the opposite counsel, in behalf
of the Christian meekness of his client; this meekness
being the result of his cowardice, and not his
Christianity; since it was very visible in his encounter
with the man, and was singularly wanting
to his deportment in his interview with the child.
“It is very well,” proceeded Vernon, “to insist upon
the integrity of the laws, to prevent the brutality of
violence, to compel the strong arm to desist from
strife, and refer to the authorities assigned by society
for such purposes, to redress its wrongs; but there
are some cases,” he said, “where outraged humanity
becomes a rebel; and when, to wait for the dilatory
In all cases, where the reputation or the virtue of a
woman—a wife, a sister, or a daughter—are at
stake, the sudden blow of the outraged relative is a
blow struck for virtue herself, and in compliance
with laws which are infinitely more sacred than any
that can be framed by man. And, so universal,” he
continued, “are these laws, that I cannot bring myself
to believe that his honour, who now sits upon
the bench, and you, gentlemen of the jury, or any
man of proper spirit and feeling, could forbear, in
like circumstances, to do as my client has done. Ay,
gentlemen, even if the place of sanctuary which the
ruffian had chosen for his retreat, had been the altar
of God itself, rather than the counter behind which
he sells his wares, it would not have shielded him
from your honest anger, any more than the latter
place has protected Watson from the just vengeance
of a father.
“But I do not rely only on these points, gentlemen
of the jury. There are others scarcely less important
to be dwelt upon. Watson has come into court
clamouring for justice. I should say he has already
had it—that never was justice made so clearly manifest
as when Shippen punished him for the defamation
of his daughter. He founds his claim, as every
man must, who comes into court, upon his strict
compliance with the laws. But his eloquent counsel
has not deemed it sufficient to confine himself to this
modest claim. He not only asserts him to have
borne the part of a good citizen, but of a most becoming
Christian. Look at his meekness under
stripes, says Mr. Perkins, and you have the very
deportment of the old apostles under like indignities.
Gentlemen of the jury, it is a new doctrine to be
taught here—this meekness under blows—this calm,
Christian toleration of injuries—this patient bending
has himself proved quite too much for his case and
client. He has shown you by the evidence that,
so far from being meek under his suffering, he, at
the very moment, called upon the bystanders to witness—not
his courage in resenting injury—the courage
of proper manhood, which always forbears insult,
and always repels it—but the blows which he
submitted to, that they might be counted down and
paid for in money. This base creature, gentlemen,
this pretended Christian, had no abhorrence of the
shame to which he was subjected; had no consciousness
of the disgrace and degradation; had, it seems,
no actual feeling of the blows, while he consoled
himself with the reflection that they were to be paid
for; that he should get money for every stroke; that
his blood was to be weighed in an opposite scale
against five thousand dollars of my client. He
comes into court not for justice, but for money. He
comes not to sustain the laws, for he himself violated
them, when he slandered the innocent daughter of
this old man; but to speculate, like a miserable pedler,
upon what may be made out of another's violation
of them. Does such a man come into court with
clean hands? Does he not come into court with the
basest of all base feelings in his soul? And would not
such a man as this, who thus barters his blood for
money as freely as another Judas, barter his very
God for a far less sum? I have no sort of doubt of
this, myself. I believe, as conscientiously as I do that
I now stand before you, that neither your lives nor
your honours could be safe in such hands, were it
profitable for him to dispose of them, and were the
danger not too great for one endowed with such a
dastard spirit. Let us go back to that chastisement
of which he complains, the dishonour of which he
thinks can be all removed by five thousand of my
close attention to it, as was prayed for by my worthy
and eloquent opponent, though with a far different
object. He called upon you to admire the meekness
of this new apostle come down upon earth. Your
Christian feelings were exhorted to take pattern
after this blessed example of Christian forbearance.
Behold this lamb under the furious claws of
this lion going about seeking what he may devour.
See how he prays for his cruel assailant. Such was
the picture of my able brother. Let me pray you to
give as much heed to one that I shall draw. See, then,
this miserable poltroon, submitting to the assaults of
one to whom, in physical capacity, he is a giant—
hear him how he shouts to the people. He calls upon
all around to see that he strikes no blow himself,—he
begs them to take particular account of the number
that he receives. When jeered by the spectators for
such tame and unbecoming submission, he grins,
with a miserable delight, even while his foe is kicking
him. `Never mind, he shall pay for this,' is the
answer that he makes; `for all these kicks I shall
have coppers!' His enemy wrings his nose—`Ah!'
he cries with a miserable chuckle, `that shall cost
him a thousand dollars. Let him kick, he will have
to pay for all!' And this, gentlemen, is the sort of
person, the Christian, of whom we hear a eulogy
that would rank him with any of the apostles that
ever was flayed alive in the cause of God and of
mankind. To my thinking, so far from calling him
a Christian, gentlemen of the jury, I can scarcely
count him human. There is so much of cold insensibility
about this creature—something so utterly
bloodless, yet so malignant, that, were it not at the
same time so very base, I should esteem it devilish,
and worthy of Lucifer himself.
“But, gentlemen of the jury, I am not yet done
before you the evil effect of encouraging a prosecution,
such as the present, sounding in individual damages;
and the ground which I take for my objection
is in the very fact upon which Mr. Perkins rests
his strongest argument, namely, the patience with
which this creature submitted to be beaten. This
very patience under blows, I hold to be disgraceful
to the manhood of the person, as it would be to the
manhood of the nation that submitted to them tamely;
and to pay him for thus submitting, will, gentlemen,
be paying a bounty to the rankest cowardice that
ever degraded man. Every dollar which you give
to this mean creature for this affair, is neither more
nor less than a bounty to the coward; the effect of
which must be to raise a brood of cowards throughout
the country. We want no cowards in this country.
Our object should be to discourage them, to
withdraw from them the countenance of the courts,
and the approval, even indirectly, of all honest men.
We punish the coward in the field, yet give a bounty
to him in time of peace. What a monstrous contradiction—a
contradiction not to be reconciled by any
resort to common justice or common sense. Let us
punish them alike in every case—refuse them countenance
in ordinary life and never trust them in the
field. Do not suppose, gentlemen of the jury, that I
am disposed by these remarks, to encourage the
wrongdoer in his violence, and to drive the weak and
unoffending from protection. Had this man, Watson,
who is neither weak nor unoffending, made
good fight, and been overcome after an honest struggle,
by Shippen, I should have been among the first
to say that he should have had a few hundred dollars
damages; but, under existing circumstances, it is my
firm conviction that you will give him only such
damages as will carry the costs of prosecution, and
unmitigated scorn of all who have listened to the
dishonouring testimony, which he has this day, in
his own case, produced against himself.”
The half hour had elapsed, and Vernon sat down
amidst a half suppressed murmur of applause. Shippen,
as soon as he had touched his seat, jumped up,
clapped him upon his shoulder and exclaimed, so as
to be heard by all around,
“At him ag'in, Harry, only for a quarter more,
and you shall have another fifty.”
The tears were in the eyes of the old man, and
the fervency of his expression, the frank feeling tones
of his voice, so opposite as he appeared in every respect
to his opponent, Watson, moved the sympathy
of the whole court in his favour. But Vernon declined
his offer. He felt that he had made the proper
impression, and that any thing more would only
tend to weaken and impair it. He was one of those
fortunate men, of whom there are so few in our
hemisphere, whether in the senate, the forum, or the
pulpit, who know where to stop; and, though flattered
by the obvious effect of his argument, so novel,
and in some respects ingenious—of which we have
given, however, a very feeble report—he firmly resisted
all the persuasions of Shippen to renew the
speech. This single fact was not without its effect
upon the minds of those present. That a lawyer
should refuse a fee for a matter, seemingly, so easy
of execution, and that he should resist—a more difficult
matter with young lawyers—the temptation still
to talk when the auditors were willing to hear—were
events to which our south-western people are not
habituated. The confidence which his refusal indicated
in what had been already said, had its influence
also. The jury retired from the box, but before
the verdict was returned—which, par parenthese,
entered the court room suddenly, and
in a whisper summoned the young lawyer away.
“The governor is at Mrs. Baxters, and would like
to speak with you awhile.”
Shippen would have detained him, and released
him only with a promise that he should go home
and spend a night with him, and see his wife Susan,
and Bella, the little girl who had been the innocent
cause of the trial, and his ploughing oxen, and a fine
blood mare that he had just got from Georgia, and a
thousand other matters, most of which, at that moment,
Vernon might have had for the asking.
| CHAPTER VI. Border beagles | |