George Washingtons Last Duel | Page 5

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 (he observed Miss Jemima's start,)--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.

III.
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?"
"Don't credit him at all," replied the Major. "Don't believe him--don't
listen to him. He is green with envy at my success." And the old fellow
shook with amusement.
"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