The Valiants of Virginia

by Hallie Erminie Rives

“Yas, suh,” said Uncle Jefferson, as he retired with the tray. “Ah gwineter put er fence eroun’ dat ar baid ’fo’ sundown.”

The question that had sprung to Valiant’s lips now found utterance. “I saw you look at the portrait there,” he said to the major. “Which of my ancestors is it?”

The other got up and stood before the mantelpiece in a Napoleonic attitude. “That,” he said, fixing his eye-glasses, “is your great-grandfather, Devil-John Valiant.”

“Devil-John!” echoed his host. “Yes, I’ve heard the name.”

The doctor guffawed. “He earned it, I reckon. I never realized what a sinister expression that missing optic gives the old ruffian. There was a skirmish during the war on the hillside yonder and a bullet cut it out. When we were boys we used to call him ‘Old One-Eye.’”

“It interests me enormously.” John Valiant spoke explosively.

“The stories of Devil-John would fill a mighty big book,” said the major. “By all accounts he ought to have lived in the middle ages.” Crossing the library, he looked into the dining-room. “I thought I remembered. The portrait over the console there is his wife, your great-grandmother. She was a wonderful swimmer, by the way,” he went on, returning to his seat. “It was said she had swum across the Potomac in her hunting togs. When Devil-John heard of the feat, he swore he would marry her and he did. It was a love-match, no doubt, on her side; he must have been one to take with women. Even in those days, when men still lived picturesquely and weren’t all cut to the same pattern, he must have been unique. There was something satanically splendid and savage about him. My great-uncle used to say he stood six feet two, and walked like an emperor on a love-spree. He was a man of sky-high rages, with fingers that could bend a gold coin double.

“They say he bet that when he brought his bride home, she should walk into Damory Court between rows of candlesticks worth twenty-thousand dollars. He made the wager good, too, for when she came up those steps out there, there was a row of ten candles burning on either side of the doorway, each held by a young slave worth a thousand dollars in the market. The whole state 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.”