Page:Life's little ironies (1894).pdf/239

"'I won't be a party to your solemnizing matrimony with a tipsy man,’ says Mr. Toogood. ‘It is not right snd decent. I am sorry for you, my young woman, but you’d better go home again. I wonder how you could think of bringing him here drunk like this,’

"'But if—if he don’t come drunk he won't come at all, sir ? she says, through her sobs.

"'I can’t help that,’ says the pa'son; and plead as she might, it did not move him, Then she tried him another way.

“'Well, then, if you'll go home, sir, and leave us here, and come back te the church in an hour or two, I'll undertake to say that he shal! be as sober as a judge,’ she cries. ‘We'll bide here, with your permission ; for if he once goes out of this here church unmarried, all Van Amburgh’s horses won't drag him back again!'

“Very well, says the pa’son, ‘I'll give you two hours, and then I'll return.’

“ 'And please, sir, lock the door, so that we can’t escape !’ says she.

"'Yes, says the pa’son.

"'And let nobody know that we are here.’

“The pa'son then took off his clane white surplice, and went away; and the others consulted upon the ' best means for keeping the matter a secret, which it waa not a very hard thing to do, the place being so lonely, and the hour so early. The witnesses—Andrey’s brother and brother's wife, neither ope o' which eared about Andrey’s marrying Jane, and had come rather against their will—said they couldn’t wait two hours in that hole of a place, wishing to get home te Longpuddle before dinner-time. They were altogether go crusty that the clerk said there was no difficulty in their doing as they wished. They could go