Ah! did I not see a sly wink? And is there not a touch of the elbow, and then a low whisper, and by and by a buzz—and then an open proposal for a sociable game at CARDS. Presently, presently, good friends, we will have our tea and biscuit, and then for loo or whist!
Let not starched propriety look prim, nor prudery shake her head, nor jealous caution hold up her finger. Our fathers did the same before us, and "be we wiser or better than they?" Call in the "womankind," as Oldbuck of Monkbarns ungallantly styled the better part of creation, and let us have fair friends and foes to join us round the table. Trim the lights, roll from your purses just enough of silver to give an interest to our play. Avaunt! spirits of gaming and avarice from this circle—and here's at you till weariness or inclination calls us to seek
"Tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep."
And thus ends a day in Chotank: A day!—yes many, many days. In these "our latter times," and this "our age of improvement," all this may be thought wrong! Perhaps it is so. I will not dispute with stern morality and strict philosophy. Their counsels are doubtless more worthy to be followed than the maxim which
| "Holds it one of the wisest things To drive dull care away." |
But for "my single self" I can say that after a day spent in Chotank I never had reason to exclaim, following the fashion of the Roman Emperor, "Diem Perdidi!"
But Chotank, like many other parts of the Old Dominion, is not now in its "high and palmy state." Some fifteen or twenty years ago it obtained that celebrity which makes it famous now. The ancient seats of generous hospitality are still there, but their former possessors, so free of heart, so liberal, and blessed withal with the means of being free and liberal, where are they? "And echo alone answers, where are they." Their sons can only hope to keep alive the old spirit by the exercise of more prudence and economy than their fathers possessed. Otherwise here too, as alas! in some cases is too true, the families that once and now own the soil, are destined to be rudely pushed from their places by grasping money lenders! Altered as the times are however, and changed as is the condition of many of the inhabitants, the life that I have attempted faintly to sketch, is the life yet led by the merry Chotankers. With the remembrance of the "olden time" strongly impressed on their minds, and tradition to strengthen the ideas formed by their own recollections, they will have their fun and their frolics—their barbecues and their fish frys. There are fewer "roystering blades" than there used to be, and much less drinking than formerly—but the court house now and then brings up a round dozen of "good men and true," who will not disgrace their ancestors: men who will make the "welkin ring" again with uprorarious mirth, and part as they met in all that high flow of spirits which results from good eating and drinking, and freedom, at least for the present, from care.
Let us, however, close. There is that in the place and the people of whom I am writing to induce me to continue: but enough for this "Recollection." If the eye of a Chotanker should meet this page and read what is written, he will know without looking at the signature that he has met with a FRIEND to him and 'all his neighborhood.'
Alexandria, D. C., Sept. 13, 1834.