On the very day when he was married, he had an intricate case on hand, and forgot his engagement, until reminded of his waiting bride, and that the legal time for performing the ceremony had nearly elapsed. He then quitted law for the church; after the ceremony, the serjeant returned to his books and his papers, having forgotten the cause he had been engaged in during the morning, until again reminded by his clerk that the assembled company impatiently awaited his presence at dinner.
Being once on Circuit, and having occasion to refer to a law authority, he had recourse, as usual, to his bag; but, to the astonishment of the Court, instead of a volume of Viner's abridgment, he took out a specimen candlestick, the property of a Birmingham traveller, whose bag Serjeant Hill had brought into Court by mistake.
A learned serjeant kept the Court waiting one morning for a few minutes. The business of the Court commenced at nine. "Brother," said the judge, "you are behind your time this morning. The Court has been waiting for you."—"I beg your lordship's pardon," replied the serjeant; "I am afraid I was longer than usual in dressing."—"Oh," returned the judge, "I can dress in five minutes at any time."—"Indeed!" said the learned brother, a little surprised for the moment; "but in that my dog Shock beats your lordship hollow, for he has nothing to do but to shake his coat, and thinks himself fit for any company."
Serjeant Davy, when at the height of his professional career, once received a large brief on which a fee of two guineas only was marked on the back. His client asked him if he had read the brief. Pointing with his finger to the fee, Davy replied: "As far as that I have read, and for the life of me I can read no further." Of the same eminent serjeant in his earlier years an Old Baily story is told. Judge Gould, who presided, asked: "Who is concerned for the prisoner?"—"I am concerned for him, my lord," said Davy, "and very much concerned after what I have just heard."
If Serjeant Davy was concerned about his client, Serjeant Miller had no such scruple about the man charged with horse stealing whom he successfully defended, although the evidence convinced the judge and everybody in the Court that there ought to have been a conviction. When the trial was over and the prisoner had been acquitted, the judge said to him: "Prisoner, luckily for you, you have been found Not Guilty by the jury, but you know perfectly well you stole that horse. You may as well tell the truth, as no harm can happen to you now by a confession, for you cannot be tried again. Now tell me, did you not steal that horse?" "Well, my lord," replied the man, "I always thought I did, until I heard my counsel's speech, but now I begin to think I didn't."
In the days of "riding" and "driving circuit," and even later, the Circuit mess was a very popular institution with circuiteers, and was made the occasion of much merriment. After the table had been cleared a fictitious charge would be made against one of the barristers present, and a mock tribunal was immediately constituted before which he was arraigned and his case duly set forth with all solemnity. The victim was invariably fined—generally in wine, which had to be paid at once, and consumed before the company retired to bed. On one such occasion Serjeant Prime, who is represented as a good-natured but rather dull man, and as a barrister wearisome beyond comparison, was engaged in an important case in an over-crowded courtroom. He had been speaking for three hours, when a boy, seated on a beam above the heads of the audience, overcome by the heat and the serjeant's monotonous tones, fell asleep, and, losing his balance, tumbled down on the people below. The incident was made the subject of a charge against the serjeant at the mess, and he was duly sentenced to pay a fine of two dozen of wine, which he did with the greatest good humour.
Serjeant Wilkins, on one occasion, on defending a prisoner, said: "Drink has upon some an elevating, upon others a depressing, effect; indeed, there is a report, as we all know, that an eminent judge, when at the Bar, was obliged to resort to heavy drinking in the morning, to reduce himself to the level of the judges." Lord Denman, the judge, who had no love for Wilkins, bridled up instantly. His voice trembled with indignation as he uttered the words: "Where is the report, sir? Where is it?" There was a death-like silence. Wilkins calmly turned round to the judge and said: "It was burnt, my lord, in the Temple fire." The effect of this was considerable, and it was a long time before order could be restored, but Lord Denman was one of the first to acknowledge the wit of the answer.
Difference of manner or temperament sometimes gives point to the collisions which occasionally occur in Court between rival counsel. Serjeant Wilkins, who had an inflated style of oratory, was once opposed in a case to Serjeant Thomas, whose manner of delivery was lighter and more lively. On the conclusion of a heavy bombardment of ponderous Johnsonian sentences from the former, Thomas rose, and, with his eyes fixed on his opponent, prefaced his address to the jury with the words, delivered with much solemnity of manner and intonation: "And now the hurly-burly's done."