Page:Memorials of a Southern Planter.djvu/25

 Rh the books when he was at hand. My father used to tell us of his vivid recollections of seeing him drive home every evening when the court was in session. He was accompanied by his body-servant, who followed the gig on horseback, and who, after my grandfather got out, carried into the house the shot-bags of gold doubloons that had been stowed away under the seat in the gig-box. He sometimes brought home several of these. One of his fees amounted to four thousand dollars, which, considering that he died when barely in his prime, and the value of money at that time, was exceptionally large.

His eight-year-old son was already learning from him some of the fond, fatherly ways, which were destined years after to endear him to his own children and grand-children, and which he practised in imitation of this tender father eighty years after that father was laid in his grave. One of our earliest recollections of our father was his having some treat for us always on his return home from a visit. This dainty was invariably put in the very bottom of his great-coat pocket, and the delightful mystery of feeling for that package and bringing it up to light, and then, with eager, expectant fingers untying the string before the treasure could be seen, was a pleasure not to be forgotten. My father's face at such times was one of the great charms of the scene, so merry and loving, and almost as full of the pleasant little excitement as the group of bright young ones gathered around him. In explanation to a visitor who might be looking on, he would say, "This is the way that my father treated me. I shall never forget how I enjoyed running my hand down in his great-coat pocket when he came back in the evening from court. I was always sure of finding there a great piece of what we called in Virginia 'court-house cake.'"

He was like his father in his thorough business methods and his punctuality. On the days when Benjamin Dabney did not attend court he retired to his study after breakfast, and his wife used to say that her orders were not to have him disturbed unless the house