Read Ebook: George Washington's Last Duel 1891 by Page Thomas Nelson

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Ebook has 252 lines and 15260 words, and 6 pages

"Major, your valet appears to be a very intelligent person."

The Major turned upon her.

"My 'valet'! Madam! I have no valet!"

"I mean your body servant, your butler"--explained Miss Jemima. "I have been much impressed by him."

"George!--George Washington?--you mean George Washington! No, madam, he has not a particle of intelligence.--He is grossly and densely stupid. I have never in fifty years been able to get an idea into his head."

"Oh, dear! and I thought him so clever! I was wondering how so intelligent a person, so well informed, could be a slave."

The Major faced about.

Miss Jemima threw up her hands in astonishment, and the Major, who was on a favorite theme, proceeded:

"Why, madam, the very coat on my back belongs to that rascal George Washington, and I do not know when he may take a fancy to order me out of it. My soul is not my own. He drinks my whiskey, steals my tobacco, and takes my clothes before my face. As likely as not he will have on this very waistcoat before the week is out."

The Major stroked his well-filled velvet vest caressingly, as if he already felt the pangs of the approaching separation.

"Oh, dear! You amaze me," began Miss Jemima.

"Yes, madam, I should be amazed myself, except that I have stood it so long. Why, I had once an affair with an intimate and valued friend, Judge Carrington. You may have heard of him, a very distinguished man! and I was indiscreet enough to carry that rascal George Washington to the field, thinking, of course, that I ought to go like a gentleman, and although the affair was arranged after we had taken our positions, and I did not have the pleasure of shooting at him.

"I say I did not have that pleasure," corrected the Major, blandly; "the affair was, as I stated, arranged without a shot; yet do you know? that rascal George Washington will not allow that it was so, and I understand he recounts with the most harrowing details the manner in which 'he and I,' as he terms it, shot my friend--murdered him."

Miss Jemima gave an "Ugh. Horrible! What depravity!" she said, almost under her breath.

The Major caught the words.

"Yes, madam, it is horrible to think of such depravity. Unquestionably he deserves death; but what can one do! The law, kept feeble by politicians, does not permit one to kill them, however worthless they are --except, of course, by way of example, under certain peculiar circumstances, as I have stated to you." He bowed blandly.

Miss Jemima was speechless, so he pursued.

"I have sometimes been tempted to make a break for liberty, and have thought that if I could once get the rascal on the field, with my old pistols, I would settle with him which of us is the master."

"Do you mean that you would--would shoot him?" gasped Miss Jemima.

"Yes, madam, unless he should be too quick for me," replied the Major, blandly,--"or should order me from the field, which he probably would do."

The old lady turned and hastily left the room.

Though Miss Jemima after this regarded the Major with renewed suspicion, and confided to her niece that she did not feel at all safe with him, the old gentleman was soon on the same terms with Rose that he was on with Margaret herself. He informed her that he was just twenty-five his "last grass," and that he never could, would, or should grow a year older. He notified Jeff and his friend Mr. Lawrence at the table that he regarded himself as a candidate for Miss Endicott's hand, and had "staked" the ground, and he informed her that as soon as he could bring himself to break an oath which he had made twenty years before, never to address another woman, he intended to propose to her. Rose, who had lingered at the table a moment behind the other ladies, assured the old fellow that he need fear no rival, and that if he could not muster courage to propose before she left, as it was leap-year, she would exercise her prerogative and propose herself. The Major, with his hand on his heart as he held the door open for her, vowed as Rose swept past him her fine eyes dancing, and her face dimpling with fun, that he was ready that moment to throw himself at her feet if it were not for the difficulty of getting up from his knees.

A little later in the afternoon Margaret was down among the rose-bushes, where Lawrence had joined her, after Rose had executed that inexplicable feminine manoeuvre of denying herself to oppose a lover's request.

Jeff was leaning against a pillar, pretending to talk to Rose, but listening more to the snatches of song in Margaret's rich voice, or to the laughter which floated up to them from the garden below.

Suddenly he said abruptly, "I believe that fellow Lawrence is in love with Margaret."

Rose insisted on knowing what ground he had for so peculiar an opinion, on which he incontinently charged his friend with being one of "those fellows who falls in love with every pretty girl on whom he lays his eyes," and declared that he had done nothing but hang around Margaret ever since he had come to the county.

What Rose might have replied to this unexpected attack on one whom she reserved for her own especial torture cannot be recorded, for the Major suddenly appeared around the verandah. Both the young people instinctively straightened up.

"Ah! you rascals! I catch you!" he cried, his face glowing with jollity. "Jeff, you'd better look out,--honey catches a heap of flies, and sticks mighty hard. Rose, don't show him any mercy,--kick him, trample on him."

"I am not honey," said Rose, with a captivating look out of her bright eyes.

"Yes, you are. If you are not you are the very rose from which it is distilled."

"Oh, how charming!" cried the young lady. "How I wish some woman could hear that said to me!"

"Don't give him credit before you hear all his proverb," said Jeff. "Do you know what he said in the dining-room?"

"What did he say? Please tell me." She appealed to Jeff, and then as he was about to speak, seeing the Major preparing to run, she caught him. "No, you have to listen. Now tell me," to Jeff again.

"Well, he said honey caught lots of flies, and women lots of fools."

Rose fell back, and pointing her tapering finger at the Major, who, with mock humility, was watching her closely, declared that she would "never believe in him again." The old fellow met her with an unblushing denial of ever having made such a statement or held such traitorous sentiments, as it was, he maintained, a well established fact that flies never eat honey at all.

From this moment the Major conceived the idea that Jeff had been caught by his fair visitor. It had never occurred to him that any one could aspire to Margaret's hand. He had thought at one time that Jeff was in danger of falling a victim to the charms of the pretty daughter of an old friend and neighbor of his, and though it appeared rather a pity for a young fellow to fall in love "out of the State," yet the claims of hospitality, combined with the fact that rivalry with Mr. Lawrence, against whom, on account of his foppishness, he had conceived some prejudice, promised a delightful excitement, more than counterbalanced that objectionable feature. He therefore immediately constituted himself Jeff's ardent champion, and always spoke of the latter's guest as "that fellow Lawrence."

Accordingly, when, one afternoon, on his return from his ride, he found Jeff, who had ridden over to tea, lounging around alone, in a state of mind as miserable as a man should be who, having come with the expectation of basking in the sunshine of Beauty's smile, finds that Beauty is out horseback riding with a rival, he was impelled to give him aid, countenance, and advice. He immediately attacked him, therefore, on his forlorn and woebegone expression, and declared that at his age he would have long ago run the game to earth, and have carried her home across his saddle-bow.

"You are afraid, sir--afraid," he asserted, hotly. "I don't know what you fellows are coming to."

Jeff admitted the accusation. "He feared," he said, "that he could not get a girl to have him." He was looking rather red when the Major cut him short.

Jeff was too dejected to be stung even by this unexpected attack. He merely said, dolorously:

"Well, how the deuce can it be done?"

Jeff admitted dubiously that this sounded like wisdom. The Major burst out, "Wisdom, sir! It is the wisdom of Solomon, who had a thousand wives!"

From this time the Major constituted himself Jeff's ally, and was ready to take the field on his behalf against any and all comers. Therefore, when he came into the hall one day when Rose was at the piano, running her fingers idly over the keys, whilst Lawrence was leaning over her talking, he exclaimed:

"Hello! what treason's this? I'll tell Jeff. He was consulting me only yesterday about--"

Lawrence muttered an objurgation; but Rose wheeled around on the piano-stool and faced him.

--"Only yesterday about the best mode of winning--" He stopped tantalizingly.

"Of winning what? I am so interested." She rose and stood just before him with a cajoling air. The Major shut his mouth tight.

"I'm as dumb as an oyster. Do you think I would betray my friend's confidence--for nothing? I'm as silent as the oracle of Delphi."

Lawrence looked anxious, and Rose followed the old man closely.

"I'll pay you anything."

"I demand payment in coin that buys youth from age." He touched his lips, and catching Rose leaned slowly forward and kissed her.

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