julep, sah."

"They make good epitaphs, too," observed the doctor.

"I notice your glass isn't going begging," the major retorted. "Unc'
Jefferson, that's as good mint as grew in the gyarden of Eden. See that
those lazy niggers of yours don't grub the patch out by mistake."

"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