The murder, by an unknown hand, of Ludwell Cary, shot through the heart, beside Indian Run, as he rode from Malplaquet to Greenwood, became the overwhelming topic of interest in Albemarle, and a chief subject far and wide throughout the great state.  His kinsmen and connections were numerous, and he had himself been a man widely known, by many greatly liked, and by a few well loved.  There arose from town and country a cry of grief and wrath, a great wave of sympathy for the one man left of all the Greenwood Carys, solitary now in the old brick house behind the line of oaks, and a loud demand for the speedy discovery and apprehension of the murderer.  Indignation was high, the Court House and the Court House yard crowded on the morning of the inquest, the verdict brought in by the coroner’s jury received by the county at large with incredulous disappointment.  Death at the hands of a person unknown.

No evidence was produced in the court room which threw any clear light upon the commission of the deed, its motive, or its perpetrator.  There were ample accounts of the capture of the horse, the finding of the body, its position, and the nature of the wound,—­medical opinion in addition that death had been instantaneous, and probably received before the breaking of the storm.  If there had been any telltale track or mark in the soil of the river road, the continued and beating rain had made the way impossible to read.  Witnesses from Malplaquet told of Ludwell Cary’s setting forth that morning, and Forrest, the blacksmith, vouched for his passing the forge, alone.  Men from the mill at the ford swore to his pausing to answer their questions as to the trial of Aaron Burr, and to his riding on—­by the main road.  Here arose the confusion.  They were certain that Mr. Cary had taken the main road.  They thought so then, and they did not see yet how they were mistaken.  They told the next man who came riding by that he had taken that road—­the main road.  It was not the next man,—­boatmen and others had passed going up country,—­but when Mr. Rand came up, they told him that Mr. Cary was on the road before him—­the main road.  Yes, sir, it was Mr. Rand and his negro boy, and he could speak for it that Mr. Cary was supposed to be riding to Greenwood by the usual road—­the main road.  The river road was after all very little shorter, and everybody knew that it was mortal bad.

Lewis Rand was called.  He testified that he had left Richmond upon the third, having with him a negro boy known as Young Isham.  The night of the sixth he had slept at the Cross Roads Tavern and gone on the next morning, passing Malplaquet about nine.  His horse loosening a shoe, he stopped at Forrest’s forge, and there learned from the smith that there was considerable travel, and that Mr. Cary of Greenwood had passed some time before.  “You remember, Forrest?  I asked you if Mr. Cary had mentioned which road he would take at the ford, and you answered that he had not, but that you supposed the main road