One adventure in particular, which I think is not alluded to in _Swallow Barn_, should have formed a chapter there. Kennedy himself was the ringleader, and his wife's father the victim. The old gentleman was expected to arrive on a certain day, as a visitor, from Baltimore. It was not long after Nat Turner's insurrection, and he had conceived an exaggerated idea of the affair. He was a little timid, in consequence, about travelling into Virginia alone at that particular time. John knew that his father-in-law was decidedly "nervous" on the subject. So he, with what we used to call "the clan," the endless line or circle of cousins--Dandridges, Kennedys, Pendletons--blacked their faces, clothed themselves like plantation hands, carrying old muskets, spades and forks, with cocks' feathers in the hats of the leaders, and marched to meet their prey. When "attacked" by the gang, the old gentleman gave himself up for lost. They surrounded his carriage, but before dragging him forth to his doom they began delivering to him the most preposterous harangue; which, notwithstanding his fright, led him to detect a son-in-law under the disguise of the principal desperado. Anger was useless with such a party, and by the time he reached the house his prayers for mercy had changed to laughter. Prominent in "the clan" and its diversions in those days was Colonel Strother, subsequently "Porte Crayon:" "Cousin Dave" was his title then. When Hon. Charles J. Faulkner was married he was keeping bachelor's hall, and it was proposed that he should give his bride a breakfast the next morning. Kennedy was the master spirit in the arrangements. The table was covered with a cloth that was far from immaculate, and set with broken, cracked and odd pieces of china. The viands were bacon, corn-bread, etc., arranged in the most grotesque manner possible. When the bridal-party were ushered in, profoundly ignorant of the joke, they stood horror-stricken. Kennedy, solemn as an owl, clad as a butler and with white apron, advanced and presented to the bride about a peck of great rusty keys strung on a chain that might have drawn a plough, the whole so heavy she could not lift them. And the speech in which he presented them! Any attempt to repeat or describe its drollery would only spoil it. I believe he never wrote anything so witty, so inimitably funny. He wound up by saying that he resigned, with tears in his eyes--which were tears of laughter--all authority and control over the establishment. When the farce was played out there was another announcement, and then a breakfast fit for the gods was served in earnest.