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Cuthbert Dangerfield, or, as he was commonly
called (for every second man you meet
with in this country has a title to a certainty),
Colonel Dangerfield, was a Virginia gentleman—
a regular Tuckahoe—whose family originally
came over with Captain John Smith “the conqueror,”
and had resided for several generations
on James River, in the neighbourhood of Turkey
Island, below the beautiful city of Richmond.
His plantation was large enough to have entitled
him in Germany to at least half a vote in the diet;
the number of his subjects, alias slaves, equal to
those of a Russian boyar; and his spirit was that
of a prince; taking it for granted that, agreeably
to the old mode of comparison, the spirit of a prince
is much more liberal than that of a gentleman.

At the period of which we speak, Turkey Island
and the shores of James River, on either side, as
far down as James Town, the cradle of our New
World, were embellished by the seats of a great
number of the ancient gentry of Old Virginia. It
was here that the Randolphs, the Byrds, the Pages,
the Carters, the Harrisons of Berkeley and Brandon,
together with divers others equally hospitable,
kept open house to all comers, rich and poor; and
no stranger of any pretensions to good breeding
ever declined a visit without manifest danger of
undergoing a defiance, or laying himself open to

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a suspicion of being a horse-stealer, or a fugitive
from justice. Never were they so happy as when
their houses were filled with visiters, and it is on
record that strangers sometimes forgot themselves
while enjoying their hospitality, and fancied themselves
at home. Such was their horror of formal
visits and formal invitations, that to this day there
is a coolness between two families of these parts,
which arose from an ancestor of one of the houses
having once left his card at the mansion of the
other. It was held a mortal offence to good neighbourhood
to send notice of a visit, and no man
considered himself welcome if he went on an invitation.
If Randolph of Turkey Island thought
his neighbour Dangerfield on the opposite shore
delayed his visit too long, he caused the old black
herald to sound his horn to summon him to the
field or the table; and the consequence of neglect
or disobedience in answering it would have been
a mortal feud, enduring even unto the fourth
generation.

Never were there people so rich with so little
money. Plenty, nay, profusion, reigned all around
them; yet many lived, as it were, by anticipation.
They were almost always beforehand with their
means, and the crops of the ensuing year were
for the most part mortgaged to supply the demand
of the present. They feared nothing but a
bad season for tobacco, a deed of trust, and a
Scotch merchant. They were a high-spirited
race, among the best specimens of aristocracy in
modern times; but they have almost all disappeared
from their ancient possessions. Industry
and economy, when not counteracted by laws and
institutions to prevent their otherwise inevitable
result, will always, sooner or later, effect a

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transfer of property from the rich to the poor. Here
and there, however, one of these ancient lords of
the soil still maintains his state along the shores
of James River; and we have yet on our palates
the relish of some of the sacred relics of the old
Madeira which is still dispensed with open hand
at their hospitable boards.

Colonel Dangerfield was rich in lands and
slaves; but what products of lands or human labour
can supply the demands of careless prodigality,
whose perpetual drains will at length convert
the richest soil into the sands of the desert?
Your tobacco is a sore devourer of the juices of
the earth, and too many crops in succession will
exhaust it, so that it will be incapable of producing
any thing but weeds and sumack for years.
The colonel kept open house, and his necessities
ran him so hard, that he ran in debt to the Scotch
merchant two years in anticipation. To meet
these new difficulties, he ran his land still harder,
extended his tobacco-fields, repeated his crops on
the same soil, until at length it gave up the ghost,
and, like an over-cultivated intellect, became incurably
barren.

The Scotch merchant was reasonably patient
for two, or rather three, special reasons. He was
on the whole a good-natured and liberal man except
in small matters; he knew that to press
a planter too zealously for the payment of his
debts would be to lose the business of all the
others, who would rise up and make common
cause against such ungentlemanly avidity; and,
moreover, he was aware that, according to the
ancient law of the Old Dominion, there was no
way of getting hold of real estate except by a deed
of trust given voluntarily by the possessor. For

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these reasons, his patience lasted rather longer
than might otherwise have been expected.

But the patience of a creditor is nothing compared
with that of a debtor. The one is a mere
hack-horse, that breaks down at the first heat;
the other a full-blooded racer—an Eclipse, a Henry,
or a Bonnets of Blue—which, like Old Virginia
herself, “never tires.” The merchant at length
got out of patience, and began to hint at a deed
of trust—infamous words and outrageous to the
ear of a planter! The colonel challenged the
Scotch merchant for insulting him with such a
proposal; but the latter answered, like a reasonable
man, that if he would only pay him his
money, he would fight him afterwards with great
pleasure. But it was rather more agreeable to a
debtor to liquidate his debts with a bullet than for
a creditor to be paid after that fashion. From
that time forward he dunned the colonel by every
post, which, however, in justice to the merchant,
ran only once a week.

Some men don't mind being dunned every day;
they become accustomed to it in time, and attain
to an extraordinary dexterity in the invention of
excuses. But Colonel Dangerfield was not one
of these; he could not invent a falsehood for the
life of him, and, if he could, he would never have
condescended to utter one. The situation of his
affairs, which gradually grew worse and worse,
and the importunities of his creditor, which daily
became more pressing, worried him to the soul.
He lost his spirits, and, with them, all relish for
social enjoyment; he became moody, testy, abstracted,
and abstained from all his usual amusements
within doors and without. All at once,
however, he seemed to rally again. A notice

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appeared in the public papers, under the signature
of a noted gentleman sportsman, offering to run
his imported gray mare Lady Molly Magpie, four
mile heats, at the next fall meeting, against all
Virginia, for any sum from one to twenty thousand
pounds, old currency. Colonel Dangerfield
pricked up his ears; he had a famous horse yclept
Barebones, who had long reigned lord of the Virginia
course, and won him so much money, that
he might have paid the Scotch merchant if he
had not lost it all in betting on bay fillies, bright
sorrels, and three year olds of his own breeding,
all of whom had the misfortune to bolt, break
down, or be distanced, to his great astonishment
and mortification. He determined to accept the
challenge, after which, as is usual with all wise
men when they have made up their minds, he
went to consult his wife on the matter.

Mrs. Dangerfield was one of the choicest ornaments
of the sex; a saint in her closet, a matron
in the nursery, a lady in her kitchen as well as in
her parlour; delicate, sensible, accomplished in
all that becomes a woman; a watchful mistress,
a careful, mild, yet firm mother; a wife who,
without attempting to govern, aimed only to control
the imprudence or overrule the foibles of her
husband by modest firmness, in urging arguments
better than he could oppose. Nine times in ten
the colonel fell into a passion at being thwarted
in his wishes or whims, and flounced away in disgust;
but he seldom failed to return in due season,
and, as Mrs. Dangerfield had the good sense
and forbearance to refrain from renewing the subject,
would come over to her opinion with something
like the following salvo:—

“My dear, upon reflection, I think I did not

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quite understand you this morning; you meant
so and so.”

“To be sure I did, my dear; how could you
think otherwise? I agreed with you perfectly.”

“O, well, if that is the case, I shall certainly
not oppose you. Do just as you please, my dear.”

“No, just as you please, my dear.”

“Very well, I leave it to you entirely;” and the
affair was amicably adjusted. The colonel was
satisfied, or rather he chose to be satisfied, that he
had his own way; and Mrs. Dangerfield was too
considerate to undeceive him.

Having, as we premised, made up his mind to
accept the challenge of Lady Molly Magpie, he
sought his wife, and apprized her of his resolution.
Being a sensible, discreet lady, she of course
attempted to dissuade him from carrying it into
effect.

“You know, colonel, that Barebones is getting
old; he is now eight years of age.”

“Seven,—only seven, my dear,—last grass.”

“Well, that comes to almost the same thing;
it is now the beginning of autumn. But besides
this, you remember he faltered and almost broke
down in his last contest with Betsey Richards.
Everybody said if Betsey had not flown the
course he would have been beaten.”

“Then everybody talked like fools,” replied the
colonel, not a little nettled.

Mrs. Dangerfield smiled.

“What everybody says must be true, my dear,
according to the old proverb.”

“D—n old proverbs! but the short and the
long of the matter is, that I am determined to
accept this defiance. It shall never be said I

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flinched from a challenge of old Allen of Claremont.”

“But Allen of Claremont has not challenged
you, my dear.”

“But he has challenged my horse, and that is
just the same thing.”

“The challenge is general.”

“Yes, but I know he meant me. He can't get
over being distanced the first heat at the last fall
meeting at Tree Hill, by my three-year-old.” And
the colonel chuckled mightily at the recollection
of his triumph over his old neighbour and rival
Allen of Claremont.

“Well, colonel, if you are determined—”

“I am determined—but—but yet—I want to
consult you a little about it.”

“What, when you are determined?” said Mrs.
Dangerfield, a little archly.

“I—I—I want your opinion, Cornelia,” said
Colonel Dangerfield, drawing his chair confidentially
towards his wife.

“My opinion is always at your service, my
husband, such as it is; and be assured that whatever
it may want in discretion, is supplied by a
desire which is never absent from my heart,—
that of contributing to your honour and happiness.”

“I know it, I know it,” cried he, and the dotard
kissed her tenderly, though they had been married
almost nine years!

“Listen to me,” and here his proud spirit hesitated
for a moment; “I am in debt more than I
have the means of paying.”

“I know it, my dear.”

“You know it!—in the name of heaven how

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came you to know what I have tried all I could
to keep secret?”

“Affection is both prying and sagacious. I
have seen you every week of late receiving letters
the handwriting of which I know, and the contents
of which I know; for I know that you, my
husband, never did any act in your life, save one,
that could cause you to shrink from communications
from any man living, and exhibit such
melancholy feelings on reading them.”

“And yet you never inquired about them!
wonderful woman!”

“I wished to convince you that a woman can
keep her tongue, if she cannot keep a secret,”
replied the lady, good-humouredly.

“Well, my dear, I am in debt, deeply in debt;
my crops are mortgaged for three years at least;
the merchant, when I call for farther advances,
duns me for those already made. My only chance
is upon Barebones,—I intend to risk twenty thousand
at least, and if I win, as no doubt I shall, it
will make me a man again.”

“But if you lose?”

“No danger of that; Barebones may defy all
Virginia. But if I should lose by any unlucky
accident,—I shall be no worse off than before. I
am already indebted more than I can pay without
a miracle.”

“Not so, my husband,—I think I can put you
in a way of retrieving your affairs without a
miracle.”

“Ah! as how, Cornelia?”

“By saving your next three years' crops to pay
the Scotch merchant.”

“Save! impossible!” cried the colonel, in utter
astonishment; “I never heard of such a thing

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in the whole course of my life. How the deuse
shall I go about it?”

“In the first place dispose of your race horses.”

“Impossible! what will Allen of Claremont
say to it?”

“Never mind what he says; he'll think you
wiser than he ever did before. In the next place
we must omit our winter's visit to Richmond.”

“Impossible! what will Mrs. Grundy and all
the rest of your old friends say?”

“Let them say what they please. I believe
one half the miseries of this life originate in our
foolish fears of what people will say of us. Let
us do right, and let others wonder if they will.”

“Well, well,” said Colonel Dangerfield, shaking
his head; “what next?”

“We must leave off keeping open house, and
treating all comers.”

“I'll be hanged if I do!” cried he, in a rage;
“what, shut up my doors, like a miserable hunks,
and turn my back and pretend not to see strangers
as they pass? no, no, that won't do,—what will
Randolph of Turkey Island say to that?”

“Why, what can he say, but that you have
changed from an imprudent to a prudent man?”

“Prudence! prudence is a beggarly virtue, and
I hate the very name of it. Randolph of Turkey
Island swears it is a very aldermanly virtue, and
I am of his opinion.”

“It is a cardinal virtue.”

“Yes, but not the virtue of a cardinal;” and
the colonel laughed himself almost into good-humour
at this happy turn; “well, what else?”

“We can turn the four carriage horses to the
labours of the field, and use them on Sundays to
go to church.”

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Now the colonel valued his carriage horses next
unto his prime favourite Barebones. They were
full brothers and full blooded, and their ancestors,
we believe, came over with William the Conqueror.
In short, they had a pedigree that might
have figured in Ragman's roll, or that of Battle
Abbey. The idea of degrading them to the
plough overturned all the complacency of spirit
engendered by the lucky joke about the cardinal,
and the colonel waxed wroth.

“Yes,” exclaimed he, “yes, turn the blood of
the Godolphin Arabian to the plough tail, work
them to skin and bone, till their sleek glossy coats
become like the hair of a Narragansett pacer, and
then hitch them to the carriage on Sunday, go to
church on a snail's gallop, and have old Allen of
Claremont laugh in his sleeve at us,—curse me
if I ever heard of such an unreasonable woman.
No, madam,” continued he, with an air and tone
of lofty sublimity, “no, madam, never shall it be
said that Cuthbert Dangerfield turned a blood
horse to a plough's tail, and disgraced his ancestors,
himself, and his posterity. Hear me, Mistress
Dangerfield!—Barebones shall enter against
Molly Magpie, as sure as he has legs to run, and
ground to run upon. Old Allen of Claremont
shall never have it to say I refused his challenge.”
And the colonel, according to custom, went to
consult with his prime confidant and counsellor,
Mr. Ulysses Littlejohn, whom it may be proper
to introduce to our readers.

This worthy wight was of an unknown relationship
to Colonel Dangerfield, a sixteenth cousin removed,
who on the score of his near connexion with
the family was considered fully entitled to claim
bed and board and maintenance at his hands. He

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had inherited a pretty good estate which he spent
like a gentleman,—that is to say, by paying no
attention to his affairs, and wasting every year
more than his income. This is an infallible
method; but it was too slow for Mr. Littlejohn.
Finding he was going down hill, he determined
to relieve himself by a speculation. Accordingly
he borrowed money, and built a mill on a fine
stream of water which ran through his estate.
This lucky hit would undoubtedly have retrieved
his affairs, had not the stream soon after dried up
in consequence of the draining of a great marsh
about twenty miles off. Ulysses was advised to
prosecute the owner of the marsh for this unneighbourly
act. Accordingly he went to law,
and everybody prophesied that he was a ruined
man. The law, as all know who have had experience
in the matter, is as it were a snail without
legs. They say it actually does move, but it
is not always that people can see it without spectacles.
It is therefore little to be wondered at,
that rogues should complain, as we are credibly
informed they do, that the law is so slow they
sometimes lose all patience before they are brought
to the gallows. Be this as it may, Mr. Littlejohn
waited patiently five years, and was rewarded at
last by a decision against him. He was obliged
to give a deed of trust on the remainder of his
estate to pay a bill, which, if it had been cut into
slices, would have made five dozen tailor's measures;
and he was indebted for a mill that had
no water to set it going. But he was predestined
to happiness in this world in despite of fortune;
everybody pitied him, yet he was the merriest
rogue in all the country round, and did more
laughing than any ten men in Virginia,—we

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mean white men; for, notwithstanding the negroes
are so unutterably miserable, it somehow
or other happens that they are a hundred times
merrier than their masters.

When the time came to pay the money he had
borrowed, he offered his creditor the mill he had
built with it. The creditor refused, and Mr. Littlejohn
thought him a very unreasonable person.
To make an end of the matter, in due time he
was obliged to sell his estate, the proceeds of
which were just sufficient to pay his debts; and
at the age of eight-and-twenty, was left, as the
phrase is, high and dry ashore, the most helpless,
the most careless, and the most gentlemanly pauper,
that ever broke bread in the house of a sixteenth
cousin removed. In proportion as Ulysses
grew poor, he multiplied his visits to Colonel
Dangerfield, whose kindness increased with his
poverty. At first he came only to dine, and it
was amazing to see the relish with which he
drank the colonel's wine, and cracked his jokes as
if he had ten thousand a year. By degrees his
visits became more frequent, and longer; he
sometimes staid all night; from this he got to
two or three days, and finally, when his estate
departed from him, and he had nothing left but a
blood horse descended from Flying Childers by
the mother's side, he rode over to Powhatan,—
gave his horse to one blackey, his saddle-bags to
another, and quietly took possession of his accustomed
room. No questions were asked, not a
word said,—every thing was understood; he was
perfectly welcome, and the matter was settled.

He had now remained upwards of six years an
inmate of the family, and during all that time
had never once talked of going away, that he

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might be pressed to stay. Nay, what is still more
remarkable, he had never been reminded by a
look, a hint, a word of unkindness, a neglect
of the servants, or an omission of the colonel to
ask him to take wine, that he was a beggar and
dependant. The blackeys loved Massa Leetlejohn,
or Massa Lysses, as he was indifferently
called, for he made them laugh at his odd jokes;
the children of the house followed him about like
pet lambs, for he had a pleasure in levelling himself
to their capacity, shared in their amusements,
made them whistles, told them stories, and gained
their little hearts, by repressing all pretensions to
superior wisdom. Mrs. Dangerfield was always
particularly careful to have his room kept in
order, his shoes well cleaned, his apparel whole
and decent; and in the season of flowers, you
never failed to see a bouquet placed on his table,
and a bunch of evergreens in his fireplace.

As to the colonel, he had become so accustomed
to Mr. Littlejohn, that he could not live without
him. His easiness of temper, his pleasing disposition,
his cheerful habit of mind, and, above all,
his unparalleled knack at killing time, were
invaluable qualities in a companion to a country
gentleman, who read little, worked less, and was
out of the sphere of those city amusements which
in a great degree disarm idleness of its leaden
sting. Never man was so expert at getting
through a morning as Mr. Ulysses Littlejohn,
without doing any earthly thing either for “posterity
or the immortal gods.” Many a time did
he and the colonel set forth on horseback for a
morning ride, and get no farther than the gateway,
where they stopped peradventure to discuss
the propriety of a new gate-post or some such

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matter. The colonel loved conversation, but was
not very fruitful in suggesting topics, or bringing
ideas to bear upon them. When, therefore, he
was lucky enough to get hold of a subject, he did
not like to part with it in a hurry, any more than
a dog does to resign his only bone, let it be ever
so bare. He soon tired of a person who never
contradicted him, for without something of this
sort conversation is apt to fall dead to the ground.
To do Ulysses justice, though a dependant, he
felt his situation so lightly, or rather forgot it so
entirely, that he never had the least hesitation in
opposing the opinions of the colonel on all occasions
where he really differed with him. Thus
they lived together in perpetual collision, the best
friends in the world, for they helped each other
to kill time, and Mr. Littlejohn, in addition to
his excellence at making indifferent jokes, had a
still more invaluable faculty of laughing heartily
at a dull one, after the manner of the members
of the English parliament.

The colonel, who, as we premised, departed in
wrath from the presence of Mrs. Dangerfield in
search of Mr. Littlejohn, found that worthy, lounging
as was his custom, about the stable; for there
is a singular affinity between an idle man and a
horse,—at least there was between Ulysses and
honest Barebones, who never failed to twinkle his
nostrils and utter a most significant chuckle whenever
he received a visit from his friend.

“How is Barebones to-day, cousin Littlejohn?”
said the colonel.

“Prime, colonel.”

“Do you know that Mrs. Dangerfield says he
would have been beaten at Tree Hill course last
year if Betsey Richards had not bolted?”

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