to rest the mortal remains of some half dozen
generations of the Burwells. Though the grass was green and the sky
above was of the deep steely hue which the late afternoon brings; yet
the thick shrubbery which secluded the place gave it an air of wildness,
and the tops of the tall monuments gleaming white over the old wall
against the dark cedars, added an impression of ghostliness which had
long caused the locality to be generally avoided by the negroes from the
time that the afternoon shadows began to lengthen.

George Washington, indeed, as he made his way stealthily down towards
the rendezvous glanced behind him once or twice as if he were not at
all certain that some impalpable pursuer were not following him, and he
almost jumped out of his shoes when the Major, who had for ten minutes
been pacing up and down the grass-plat in a fume of impatience, caught
sight of him and suddenly shouted, "Why don't you come on, you--rascal?"

As soon as George Washington recognized that the voice was not
supernatural, he recovered his courage and at once disarmed the Major,
who, watch in hand, was demanding if he supposed he had nothing else
to do than to wait for him all night, by falling into his vein and
acquiescing in all that he said in abuse of the yet absent duellists, or
at least of one of them.

He spoke in terms of the severest reprobation of Mr. Lawrence, declaring
that he had never had a high opinion of his courage, or, indeed, of any
quality which he possessed. He was, perhaps, not quite prepared to join
in an attack on Jeff, of whose frequent benefactions he entertained a
lively recollection amounting to gratitude, at least in the accepted
French idea of that virtue, and as he had constituted himself Jeff's
especial representative for this "solemn recasion," he felt a personal
interest in defending him to some extent.

At last the Major ordered him to take out the weapons and some little
time was spent in handling them, George Washington examining them with
the air of a connoisseur. The Major asserted that he had never seen a
prettier spot, and George Washington, immediately striking an attitude,
echoed the sentiment. He was, indeed, so transported with its beauty
that he declared it reminded him of the duel he and the Major fought
with Judge Carrington, which he positively declared, was "a jewel like
you been read about," and he ended with the emphatic assertion, "Ef dese
gent'mens jes plump each urr like we di