“Oh, yes—and the sheriffs looked on, but they couldn’t cross the street. And the colonel, he allowed he was shot accidentally by a bullet from another State. The case went up to the Supreme Court, but they allowed they couldn’t say any duel was fought in Tennessee, and the Constitution does not disqualify a man for shooting, but only just for duelling.”
At this point a prolonged whistling recalled us to the station. Here we found an elegant Pullman car added to the train for our accommodation, “with the superintendent’s compliments to Mr. Raoul.” The darky porters in it were smiling broadly, and on the table was a huge bouquet of orange-blossoms.
In the morning we woke up—or Raoul woke me up—at the station for White Sulphur. He had a telegram signed “Emily Pennoyer,” which warned him to lose no time, that Kirk Bruce was on the night express.
“May and I have decided to go to the county Judge and get married directly,” said he. Our Pullman car had been shunted on a side track at the little station; the rest of the train had gone on, and the little village was quiet and fragrant as a bank of wild flowers. “Fortunately, he is a friend of my father’s.”
We found the Judge, I think, before his breakfast, smoking on his piazza, which was covered with jasmine and magnolia. He led us directly across the road to a little brick court-house, where he found another couple waiting already, more sheepish than ourselves, who had driven all night in a buggy, with an old white horse. The groom was awkward and embarrassed, with his trousers tucked in his boots; the bride was buxom and blushing, but seemed hardly more than a child.
“First come, first served,” said the Judge, and we all went into the court-house, where the clerk unlocked his register, and the blushing pair stood up before us, the groom having first hitched the old white horse to the fence outside. We four were accommodated with seats upon the bench.
“Do you think she’s twenty-one?” whispered the Judge to Raoul, while the rustic bride shuffled uneasily upon her new shoes.
“Twenty-one? She’s not eighteen,” said Raoul.
“Dear me,” whispered the Judge. “Guess she’ll have to be—reckon I’ll forget to ask her.”
The pair were married with us as witnesses; Jeanie gave the bride her parasol for a wedding present, and the old white horse and buggy scrambled away. “And now,” said the Judge, turning to Jeanie, “how old are you?”