talked of the wedding and for a time Damory
Court was ablaze with tea-parties and dances. That was in the old days
of coaching and red-heeled slippers, when Virginia planters lived like
viceroys and money was only to throw to the birds. They were fast livers
and hard drinkers, and their passions ran away with them. Devil-John's
knew neither saddle nor bridle. Some say he grew jealous of his wife's
beauty. There were any number of stories told of his cruelties to her
that aren't worth repeating. She died early--poor lady--and your
grandfather was the only issue. Devil-John himself lived to be past
seventy, and at that age, when most men were stacking their sins and
groaning with the gout, he was dicing and fox-hunting with the youngest
of them. He always swore he would die with his boots on, and they say
when the doctor told him he had only a few hours leeway, he made his
slaves dress him completely and prop him on his horse. They galloped out
so, a negro on either side of him. It was a stormy night, black as the
Earl of Hell's riding-boots, with wind and lightning, and he rode
cursing at both. There's an old black-gum tree a mile from here that
they still call Devil-John's tree. They were just passing under it when
the lightning struck it. Lightning has no effect on the black-gum, you
know. The bolt glanced from the tree and struck him between the two
slaves without harming either of them. It killed his horse, too. That's
the story. To be sure at this date nobody can separate fact from
fiction. Possibly he wasn't so much worse than the rest of his
neighbors--not excepting even the parsons. 'Other times, other
manners.'"

"They weren't any worse than the present generation," said the doctor
malevolently. "Your four bottle men then knew only claret: now they
punish whisky-straight. They still trice up their gouty legs to take
after harmless foxes. And I dare say the women will be wearing
red-heeled slippers again next year."

The major buried his nose in his julep for a long moment before he
looked at the doctor blandly. "I agree with you, Bristow," he said;
"but it's the first time I ever heard you admit that much good of
your ancestors."

"Good!" said the doctor belligerently. "Me? I don't! I said people
now were no better. As for the men of that time, they were a cheap
swaggering lot of bullies and swash-bucklers. When I read history I'm
ashamed to be descended from them."

"I desire to inform you, sah," said the