him the license, he was free to marry us with all his heart, ‘but
he asks to see you’; so he asked if I would let him come up.
”Tis time enough,’ said I, ‘in the morning, is it not?’ ‘Why,’
said he, ‘my dear, he seemed to scruple whether it was not
some young girl stolen from her parents, and I assured him we
were both of age to command our own consent; and that made
him ask to see you.’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘do as you please’; so up
they brings the parson, and a merry, good sort of gentleman
he was. He had been told, it seems, that we had met there by
accident, that I came in the Chester coach, and my gentleman
in his own coach to meet me; that we were to have met last
night at Stony-Stratford, but that he could not reach so far.
‘Well, sir,’ says the parson, ‘every ill turn has some good in it.
The disappointment, sir,’ says he to my gentleman, ‘was yours,
and the good turn is mine, for if you had met at Stony-Stratford
I had not had the honour to marry you. Landlord, have you a
Common Prayer Book?’
I started as if I had been frightened. ‘Lord, sir,’ says I, ‘what
do you mean? What, to marry in an inn, and at night too?’
‘Madam,’ says the minister, ‘if you will have it be in the church,
you shall; but I assure you your marriage will be as firm here
as in the church; we are not tied by the canons to marry nowhere
but in the church; and if you will have it in the church, it
will be a public as a county fair; and as for the time of day, it
does not at all weigh in this case; our princes are married in
their chambers, and at eight or ten o’clock at night.’
I was a great while before I could be persuaded, and pretended
not to be willing at all to be married but in the church. But
it was all grimace; so I seemed at last to be prevailed on, and
my landlord and his wife and daughter were called up. My
landlord was father and clerk and all together, and we were
married, and very merry we were; though I confess the
self-reproaches which I had upon me before lay close to me,
and extorted every now and then a deep sigh from me, which
my bridegroom took notice of, and endeavoured to encourage
me, thinking, poor man, that I had some little hesitations at
the step I had taken so hastily.
We enjoyed ourselves that evening completely, and yet all was
kept so private in the inn that not a servant in the house knew
of it, for my landlady and her daughter waited on me, and
would not let any of the maids come upstairs, except while we
were at supper. My landlady’s daughter I called my bridesmaid;
and sending for a shopkeeper the next morning, I gave the young
woman a good suit of knots, as good as the town would afford,
and finding it was a lace-making town, I gave her mother a
piece of bone-lace for a head.
One reason that my landlord was so close was, that he was
unwilling the minister of the parish should hear of it; but for
all that somebody heard of it, so at that we had the bells set
a-ringing the next morning early, and the music, such as the
town would afford, under our window; but my landlord
brazened it out, that we were married before we came thither,
only that, being his former guests, we would have our
wedding-supper at his house.
We could not find in our hearts to stir the next day; for, in
short, having been disturbed by the bells in the morning, and
having perhaps not slept overmuch before, we were so sleepy
afterwards that we lay in bed till almost twelve o’clock.
I begged my landlady that we might not have any more music
in the town, nor ringing of bells, and she managed it so well
that we were very quiet; but an odd passage interrupted all my