University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.

Gordon's machinations against Peggy had so far
failed. On her arrival at Holly she told Miss Rachellina,
as distinctly as her tears and heavy sobs would
permit, of the death of her grandmother, and the accusation
of Bobby.

The good lady expressed deep feeling for the situation
of her unfortunate protégé; she said:

“It's alarming, child, to think of the many fearful
situations in which your cousin gets himself placed.
My brother has done everything for him that he
could; he was bailed by Sidney in a large sum for
shooting at Joseph Hitt with intent to kill, and it was
my family's influence which saved him from the consequences,
as they told Hitt it would be foolish for him
to pursue the business any farther, and he dropped it.
But, child, I know not what to say to this accusation of
counterfeiting. My brother is now in bed, where he
has been taking laudanum to ease the pain of his
gout. I cannot disturb him: Sidney is away, and
will be gone for some days. However, on to-morrow
I will speak to my brother, and let him decide what
can be done for Bobby. It is fearful to think of his
situation. But, child, you must take some of the servants
with you, and assist Agnes with the body of
your grandmother; she can be buried to-morrow
evening; everything necessary shall be provided,

child; and you must come here and make this your
home. Do not cry so, child. Stay, child, stay; till I
go and give orders.”

Mr. Fitzhurst was so tormented with the gout that
he had not feeling or patience to attend to anybody's
ills but his own, or maybe he thought it was best to
let Bobby remain in jail without bail, as a lesson to
him; for he knew not how to reconcile the frequent
accusations against the boy, with the idea of his entire
innocence. The day after her death Granny Gammon
was buried. A large concourse attended the
funeral, and among the number Miss Rachellina and
her neice. The old woman belonged to the Methodist
church, and it was decided by its members that she
should be buried in their grave-yard, which lay on
the other side of the village of Springdale. The jail
in which Bobby was confined stood about the centre
of Springdale, immediately opposite to the court-house,
as is the custom in many of the villages of the United
States. It was a rough, two-story stone building, with
thick walls, and very small, heavy, grated windows.
A wall was partly built around it, but its completion
was delayed in consequence of the present want of
funds, or some disagreement among the county commissioners.
Bobby was confined in a left-hand room
of the jail as you faced it, and his window through the
unfinished wall commanded a view of the street of
the village on that side by which the procession was
to pass. Bobby was standing by his grated window
intensely gazing forth, and Pompey had placed himself
on a pile of stones beneath it, and with his hand
on one of the bars, was doing his utmost to comfort
the prisoner, when the funeral procession came mournfully
winding along, passing close to the jail wall.

“There, Pompey, look there,” said Bobby, with a
bursting heart; “that's my fault; just when they accused

me of it, Granny died; she could'nt stand it.
She always said I'd be the death of her.”

“No, Mister Bobby,” said Pompey, looking through
the thick grates with deep sympathy; “it warn't your
fault at all; how often must I tell you that. It was in
the course of nature: and if it warnt in the course
of natur, it was Jack Gordon's fault; and he done
the whole of this; but who minds what a coloured
person says.”

On beholding his Cousin Peggy in deep black, walking
close to the hearse, and sobbing so loud that he
could hear her where he stood, he could gaze no
longer, but turning away, placed his hands to his ears,
and threw himself on the floor of his prison-house in
speechless despair.

After the funeral, Peggy was allowed to have an interview
with her Cousin Bobby, in which, on her telling
Bobby that she had made up her mind to marry
Gordon and save him, that individual's duplicity was
brought to light. Bobby insisted upon it, that Gordon's
object was to deceive her as well as himself,
and obtained her promise that she would drop the idea
of trying to save him in that way, as it would ruin
them both. After this Peggy kept close to Holly,
unless when she went to see Bobby, at which times
she was accompanied by some one or other; and,
therefore, Gordon, though constantly on the watch,
had no opportunity of seeing her.

As Squire Norris observed, when he committed
Bobby, the “county court was sitting, and he'd have
a quick trial”—it appeared that such was to be the
fact; for the day after his grandmother's funeral the
grand jury found a bill against him for passing counterfeit
money. The day of trial soon arrived; but the
cause did not come on until late in the afternoon. As
Sidney was away, and Mr. Fitzhurst, senior, could
not attend, Pinckney, moved by his own impulses,

and requested by the family, had procured the best
counsel the city afforded, and anxious for Bobby's
fate, repaired to the court.

The prosecutor was a good-hearted, red-nosed practitioner,
who was decidedly opposed to the court's
sitting after dinner, which this court was in the habit
of doing. Feed by Gordon to assist in the prosecution,
but appearing merely as a volunteer to aid the
prosecutor in his arduous duties, Mr. Lupton took
his seat by the legal minister of the state. A large,
impatient crowd were collected round and in the
court, where they had been all day. There were many
persons, too, before the jail, keenly desirous of getting
a good look at the prisoner. The whole countryside
had been ringing with the awfulness of Bobby's
many enormities; and the gaping bumpkins were
there to gaze upon the youthful moral monstrosity,
who had such skill in counterfeiting, and who had
passed off so many hundred spurious bills on the
harmless country-people.

“Yes,” said one fellow, standing amidst a group
before the jail door awaiting the forthcoming of Bobby,
“I expect he'll take the full term—and it's right; a
man what can't boast of much larning like myself is
constantly taken in by these 'ere chaps what lives on
community. Just the last market day I took a two
dollar counterfeit bill, and swallowed up all my yearthly
profits that day—sir, at the races I bet a chap a dollar,
an' won, an' it turned out counterfeit; an' cause I
tried to pass it, I got threatened.”

“Did you know it was counterfeit?” asked one of
the party.

“Know it,” was the reply; “how should I know
it, when I tell you I've got no larning, no how. Two
chaps said it was a counterfeit, I know, an' I just tried
to pass her to find out. Egad, I think this chap ought

to be hung up till he ware dead, as a sample to the
country.”

“Them's my 'pinions,” said another, while the last
speaker looked about him like a stump orator when
he thinks he has made a hit.

In the meantime, Bobby, who was the only prisoner
within the jail, except one who was confined in another
apartment on a charge of assault and battery, was
doing all he could to cheer his Cousin Peggy, who
had been admitted to his place of confinement with a
suit of new clothes, which she herself had rapidly and
with fearful anxieties made for him, that he might appear
as respectable as possible on his trial. It was an
ominous suit of black, in respect to their grandmother.
Peggy held one of Bobby's hands in her's, while with
the other she was adjusting the collar of his jacket.
The tears were streaming down her cheeks, and the
deep black in which she was dressed, together with
the sorrow she had lately suffered, and the dark room
in which she stood, had made an alteration in her appearance
that struck like a dagger to the heart of
Bobby. His appearance made a similar impression
upon her; he looked haggard in the extreme, but his
deportment was heroically firm for one of his years.

“Cousin Peggy,” he said, “I am innocent of all
this—I am, as God's my judge. So sure as Granny's
dead and in her grave, so sure I am innocent of all
this. Aunty Agnes has been here to talk to me, an'
I'm trusting in God. Let what may come of it, it's
better for me, for I have not been living the life I
ought to—I know it—I know it. Don't be down-hearted,
Cousin Peggy, it's not a hanging matter.”

“O! Bobby, Bobby! but it's a disgrace,” exclaimed
Peggy, throwing her arms around his neck; “you
musn't think hard of me for saying so. I don't mean
to throw it up to you, I know you're not guilty. My,

my! I came here to comfort you, and you comfort
me. But we'll die before we see each other again,
Bobby, if they send you to that awful place. O! if
you only get through this, I'll love you all my life, an'
none but you, an' I'll never look at such a wretch as
Gordon again. Bobby listen—just say so—and I'll
go out an' get Gordon to hurry away; I saw him as
I came here, an' he wanted to speak to me, but I
wouldn't—just say so an' I'll see him and mar—”

“No, Cousin Peggy, I would'nt say so to save my
life, said Bobby—an' I said that before.”

At this instant the sheriff entered, and told Bobby
that it was time for him to appear in court. Escorted
by the officer, and with his Cousin Peggy walking by
his side and holding his hand firmly locked in her's,
Bobby left the jail. The first person whose eye Bobby
caught, as he stepped from the jail door, was old
Pompey, who had obtained leave from his master to
attend the trial, and who appeared, by way of keeping
Bobby in countenance, in his full livery suit. The
sheriff was a kind-hearted man, and, knowing the
friendly offices which Bobby had performed for
Pompey, he was pleased to see the display of gratitude
which the old negro had evinced during the boy's
confinement, and therefore made room for him as he
advanced to the side of Bobby.

“Your humble, 'bedient servant, master sheriff,” said
Pompey to the officer with profound awe, as he stepped
up. “Master Bobby,” he whispered in great agitation,
“keep your heart up; you got a big heart, you ha' indeed.
You got old Pompey out of as tough a job
almost as this—and if the Lord of his 'finite mercy
would put a white skin on me now, I'd save you—but
what's the testimony of a coloured person?”

“Look at that,” said one of the crowd to another;
“folks say that black rascal went halves in that very

booth at the races where this money was passed. I
don't think the sheriff ought to allow that.”

“Allow that,” said another person, who was no
other than Hardy the miller; “I tell you, stranger, I
know Bobby Gammon, and I'd sooner take you for a
counterfeiter than I would him; an' for the matter of
that, before I would the old negro, either.”

The stranger eyed the stout form of the miller, and
said no more, while Hardy stepped up to Peggy, and
assisted her across the street.

“There, mother, that's what I always told you
Bob and Peg Blossom would come to,” said Miss
Maddox to her mother, as she stood at her shop-door,
and congratulated herself on being a prophetess.

The prisoner was placed in the bar, near which the
prosecutor and Mr. Lupton had been some time seated
in deep consultation. The sheriff kindly placed a
chair by the prisoner's box, and bid Peggy be seated;
she did so, she looked round and beheld Gordon
gazing at her with mingled expression, in which she
thought there was a touch of regret that fixed her attention
for a moment—it was so unusual to his features.
When he caught her eye, he nodded his head slightly
sideways, as much as to bid her leave the court, as
she interpreted it, and he would join her—but she
turned her eye from him. In a few moments she
could not resist stealing a glance at him; his head
was turned towards the bench, and he stood with his
arms folded in a resolute manner. As Pompey was
known to most persons about the court-house, he had
contrived to get within the railing that kept the crowd
from intruding on the bar, where he stood partly
screened by a pillar, and endeavouring to pass unobserved,
but to get as near to Bobby as possible.

The bench was not very imposing in its appearance,
nor remarkable for its decisions, except, perhaps, for
the frequency with which they were reversed by the

supreme judicature of the state: nor was this to be
wondered at, when it was remembered that the judges
owed their appointments, which were made by the
governor and council, more to the political influence
which they had exercised in behalf of the party in
power, than to any reputation for legal lore.

All at once, like one whom a sudden thought had
aroused to his duty, the superior judge, whose dinner
had been substantial and vinous, raised himself up lazily
on his elbow from a laughing colloquy which he had
been holding with his right-hand man, and ordered
the prisoner to stand up, and listen to the indictment
against him. Resolutely Bobby arose, but he did
not elevate his person as much as he might have done
by standing on his longer leg, for he rested on the
shorter one. While the clerk was reading the indictment,
Peggy watched him with the intense desire to
understand the meaning of the various repetitions and
many counts in it, while Pompey internally came to
the conclusion, as he listened to what he could not
possibly comprehend, “that the learning and big dictionary
words in the paper was clear against master
Bobby.”

When the clerk had read the indictment, and the
question was asked of the prisoner, “What say you—
guilty or not guilty,” Bobby replied in a clear tone—

“Gentlemen and judges, I don't deny as how that
I bought a cow and calf from Jack Gordon, and that
I paid him, mayhap, with bad money; but as God is
my judge, I took it for good money, and I thought it
was good money when I passed it.”

The eminent lawyer whom Pinckney had obtained
in the city to defend Bobby, had only arrived a few
minutes before the prisoner was brought into court;
the call of an extensive business had kept him at his
post in the city to the latest moment. No expectation

of the accumulation of professional honours had
brought him to Springdale; he came merely in the
way of his profession, and in the anticipation of a
large fee. When Bobby was arraigned he sat within
the bar conversing with Pinckney, whom he had
often met at the table of Langdale, and who was explaining
to him the case as distinctly as his own
limited knowledge of it would allow. Mr. Mason was
evidently interested in the sketch of the boy's character
which Pinckney gave him, together with his
adventures with Thompson when he rescued Pompey,
and the shooting of Hitt; all which the narrator had
frequently heard spoken of at Holly.

“And that's his cousin beside him? she is a beautiful
girl; her grief is certainly deep and heartfelt;
he certainly is a remarkable boy.” “Ah,” continued
Mason, whose quick eye comprehended matters at a
glance, “that's the old negro whom he saved from
the lash of Thompson. I know Thompson—a harsh
dog; the boy did the negro a favour worthy of his
gratitude. Mr. Pinckney, I wish I had known more
of this case before—I thought it was one among the
thousand ordinary cases of conterfeiting—my business
obscured my gallantry; I forgot how Miss Fitzhurst
urged it upon me when I met her the other day
in the city. What a thing habit is: I believe in time
we might learn to dance to the rattling of a captive's
chains, and be merry at the music. Sir, when I first
commenced my profession I felt a nervous, deep interest
in the fate of every criminal whom I beheld in
the bar; and now I can scarcely get excited in the
fate of my own client, unless something remarkable
turns up in the investigation, or a passion for victory
is aroused in me by the opposing counsel.”

The whole court appeared impressed with the
manner in which Bobby expressed himself. The

judge ordered the plea of not guilty to be entered,
which was accordingly done, and the trial proceeded.
The prosecutor made no opening remarks himself,
but left that duty to Mr. Lupton, who held forth for
more than an hour in a tirade against counterfeiters in
general, and Bobby in particular, whose depravity he
pronounced unparalleled in the annals of crime. When
he concluded, Gordon was called to the stand.

Pinckney puzzled over the features, and particularly
the form of Gordon, in strange perplexity, for he
could not remove the impression from his mind that
he had seen him before, but when, or where, he could
not possibly divine.

With characteristic swagger and indifference to
those around him, Gordon gave in his testimony. He
related the facts of the sale of the cow and calf, and
the payment of the note by Bobby, as they occurred.
He also, with great apparent frankness, mentioned what
had transpired at the cottage on the arrest of Bobby,
saying, that the old woman, when dying, had accused
him of misleading her grandchild, when the fact was,
that he could prove by Mr. Sidney Fitzhurst, if he
were in court, that when Bobby was taken up in the
city that he had called on Mr. Fitzhurst for the purpose
of getting him to defend the boy.

Here Mr. Mason told Gordon to confine himself to
the case before the court—and Gordon said he had
nothing more to say further, except that when he left
the cabin the constable showed him a tin box, containing
money such as Bobby had passed on him,
which was found between the logs by the door.

“How do you know it was found there?” inquired
Mr. Mason.

“Because he put it thar himself,” shouted Pompey,
springing to the side of Bobby as if moved by an impulse
that he had been trying in vain to control, and

facing Gordon. The whole court were mute with
amazement. “Because he put it thar himself—and,
gentlemen all, if God of his 'finite mercy, would just
for two minutes put a white skin on me and make me
a witness, I'd swear to it, and prove it, for I saw Jack
Gordon do it.”

Endowed by a deep sense of gratitude with moral
firmness, the old negro kept his stand by Bobby, and
his eye on Gordon fearlessly. Gordon started.

“Silence!” exclaimed the judge. “Sheriff, what
means this interruption?”

Before the sheriff could get to the spot where Pompey
stood to take him into custody, for county courts
have not as many officers in attendance as city ones,
Mr. Mason arose and observed—

“May it please the court, there is something in this
I would fain understand—”

“I understand it,” said Lupton, springing to his feet,
“that boy—”

“You must also understand, sir, that I am not to be
interrupted,” said Mason, with a glance on Lupton
that quailed him to his seat. “Will your Honours
suspend the cause for a few moments, while I speak
to this negro in private. I feel the interest of my
client demands it.”

“Why, Mr. Mason, if you wish it particularly,”
said the judge, glancing around on the bar, as if he
would discover in their manner if there were any
error in the proceedings. “Certainly a lawyer of
your prominent standing, sir”—Mason bowed low.
“By-the-by, the counsel who opened the cause occupied
us so long, and then there has been so much delay
that we can't progress much farther this evening—
so the court may as well adjourn. The gentlemen of
the jury will take care not to hold any conversation
with any person touching the cause in course of trial.

Witnesses be punctual in your attendance—crier adjourn
the court until to-morrow morning, ten o'clock.”

Without waiting for the adjournment of the court,
Mr. Mason left the room, attended by the sheriff and
Pompey.

As Pompey passed out, the negroes in attendance
gazed at him with a mixture of admiration, awe, and
fear. “I tell you what it are, Dave,” whispered one
negro to another, “Pompey Fitzhurst are an astonishing
coloured person; he takes the shine everywhere.”

“Yes, if he had a white skin on 'um, he'd plead law
up to the handle.”

Totally unconscious of the admiration he elicited,
but labouring under a high-wrought excitement, Pompey
followed the sheriff and Mr. Mason into a private
apartment.

“What's your name, my old man?” said Mr. Mason
to Pompey, in a conciliatory tone.

“Folks, master, calls me Pompey Fitzhurst, 'cause
I belong to the Fitzhurst family, and my father before
me; but my father's name was Pompey Johnson, an'
I was named after him.”

“Well, Pompey, tell me truly, what was the cause
of your interrupting the court?”

“'Cause, master, I couldn't help it, though I know a
coloured person can't give testimony; I couldn't help
it; for I diskivered and observed Jack Gordon with
my own eyes put that tin box thar before he went
into the house.”

“Who did you ever tell this to before?”

“Nobody, master; I held it intirely to myself. I
knew as how I couldn't be of any sarvice to Mister
Bobby, though he had done so much for me, an' I kept
it to myself, 'cause I knowed if I told it I'd get myself
into trouble, and it would'nt help nobody; but in the

court this day, when I seed Jack Gordon stand up
thar so bold, and swear away Mister Bobby to the
penitentiary, and poor Miss Peggy thar feeling so
much, and Mister Bobby feeling so much, and I feeling
so much, I couldn't stand it; and I spoke it, an' I
would ha' spoke it if I had to die for it,” said Pompey,
folding his arms, while the dignity of truth was
stamped as firmly on his black brow as ever it was on
a white one.

“I believe you, Pompey,” said Mr. Mason. “Thank
you, master,” said Pompey, while the tear glistened in
his eye, and he turned his head away and brushed his
cheek. “Master,” he resumed, “I just tell you the
whole on it, if you'll just listen to me—an' if you'll
only get Mister Bobby out of this scrape, old Pompey
'll pray for you to the last day of his life to the good
God, who hearkens to the black man just the same as
to the white man.”

“Well, Pompey, tell me exactly everything about
it, and I won't despair of getting Bobby off.”

“Master, I'll just tell the whole truth. Mister Bobby
and I agreed betwixt us, that we would 'stablish
a booth at the races. We put our money together,
and did it, for he was mighty saving to get some
things for his granny, who's dead since. Poor creature!
she died the very night they went to her cabin
to take Mister Bobby. I was out the door, but I
heard it; she laid Mister Bobby's falling off to Jack
Gordon, and she spoke an awful curse on him just as
she died. Gordon hates all of 'em. He wants revenge,
that's it. Miss Peggy would'nt have him; that's
it, Master Mason. But I'm not telling it strait. I had
to drive our family home from the races, an' I
couldn't tell how Mister Bobby was a coming on; so
after I puts away my carriage, and feeds my horses,
I thought I'd go down to Granny Gammon's, and see

Mister Bobby about our booth, an' inquire how his
Granny was; as word was about, and he had told
me at the races, as how she was ailing. Well I
went, and as I drawed near the house, I heard a
parcel of people coming, as though they were bent
there, too; so I did'nt know what to make of it, and
I bethought me, that maybe the Granny was dead.
Howsomever on I went, fast ahead; one fellow, it
was Gordon's voice—I could'nt see them, mind master,
for there ware no moon, and the starlight was uncertain
like, but I know Jack Gordon's voice any
where, he called on me to stop. Just then, somehow,
I mistrusted something, and I went on to make believe
I was going by the house, and when I got beyond
it, and behind it like, till it stood atwixt them
and me, I turned quick round towards the door, and
hid in some elder bushes by an old shed near by the
house.”

“How came you to mistrust something when you
heard Jack Gordon's voice?” inquired Mr. Mason.

“Cause, master, Mister Bobby had told me that he
believed Jack Gordon wanted to do him some evil.
Well then, I hid in them elder bushes, and they comes
up, without making any noise, and all of 'em but one
goes in. One chap just stood holding the door open
like, and that let the light shine right out. I was as
near to 'em, master, as I are to that fire-place; I saw
plain; an' I saw Jack Gordon touch the man what
stood in the door, an' then I saw something white
shine in Jack Gordon's hand, and I diskivered and
obsarved him put it plump right between the logs of the
cabin by the door,—an' when he knowed that the
other man seed him, he pushed right into the
house.”

“What did you do, then?”

“Then I staid there till they fetched Master Bobby

out, to take him afore Squire Norris: an' when they
fetched him out, a man, and he must ha' been the
same one what held open the door, and saw Gordon
put the box between the logs, went to the place an'
took out the tin box, an' he give it to somebody, and
told him to mind and hold it fast, for that he believed
there was counterfeit money in it; he said it shined,
and that made him find it. Then Gordon came out,
and wanted 'em to search the house; but they told him
they had enough to do for Master Bobby, and so
they dragged him off afore Squire Norris, and then
to jail; fur I followed behind em', and saw jist how
they acted. You see, Master Mason, I diskivered
Jack Gordon, and a parcel of other chaps, cutting
extras 'bout our booth all day, and spending money;
an' I thought things were going wrong then: cause
Master Bobby got in trouble once afore about such
money, an' I believe, with his Granny, what's dead
and gone, that it was Jack Gordon's doings.”

Mr. Mason mused a moment, and then observed to
the sheriff.

“Sheriff, I have often remarked, in the practice of
my profession, that uneducated persons, and particularly
coloured people, give in their testimony with
striking accuracy. I suppose this observation surprises
you?”

“I never thought of it before,” replied the sheriff.

“It is a fact, sir. The reason is, I suppose, because
they make no parade of pertinent phrascology;
they do not distract their minds by thinking what
people will say of them. They tell what they saw
in whatever language rises to their lips, and the unadorned
truth, in homely guise, comes home to everybody.
I venture to say, that if that jury were allowed
to-morrow to hear this old fellow's tale, that
they would acquit Bobby without leaving the box.”

“I think so,” rejoined the sheriff; “for my part I
never thought him guilty. I have known him for
many years, and I believe that the strongest trait in
his character is sterling honesty.”

“You are right, I think. Where can I find this
constable that arrested Bobby. Is he vigilant and
faithful?”

“He is. I saw him in the court-house, just now.
Would you like to see him?”

“If you please.”

The sheriff left the room, and in a few minutes returned
with the constable.

“You arrested Robert Gammon, I believe, sir, on
the charge of passing counterfeit money?” said Mr.
Mason to the constable, whose name was Jessop.

“I did, sir.”

“Describe the circumstances, if you please, sir?”

Jessop accordingly narrated them with great accuracy.

“Who was the man that discovered the box?”
asked Mason.

“I bethink me,” said Jessop, after a pause of deliberation;
“that he a kind o' clerks it for Squire Benbow,
in the city; I know I have seen him about
there.”

“Ha! Benbow's; yes in old town. Well, I'll give
you a letter to Ross, the old Hays of our city; you
know him?”

“Yes, sir; and old Hays, too—they're mighty men,”
said Jessop, with an air of professional pride. “I
know where Ross lives.”

“I'll give you a letter to him—you must start forthwith;
leave the village in a direction from the city so as
to be unsuspected. Ross will assist you. I'll give directions
in the letter; the house of this witness, where-ever
he lives, must be searched thoroughly. I hope
there'll be some tin boxes forthcoming.”

Mason wrote a hasty letter to Ross, sealed it carefully,
and inquiring the name of Jessop, wrote it
plainly in the corner of the direction, and made, apparently,
a hasty stroke with the pen beside it, as is
usual; but the mark had a cabalistic meaning, implying
the trust-worthiness of the bearer.