_ PART III. MAN AND WOMAN
CHAPTER XIV
The last hymn was sung, Caesar came home from chapel, changed back from his best to his work-day clothes, and then there was talking and laughing in the kitchen amid the jingling of plates and the vigorous rattling of knives and forks.
"Phil must be my best man," said Pete. "He'll be back to Douglas now, but I'll get you to write me a line, Caesar, and ask him."
"Do you hold with long engagements, Pete?" said Grannie.
"A week," said Pete, with the air of a judge; "not much less anyway--not of a rule, you know."
"You goose," cried Nancy, "it must be three Sundays for the banns."
"Then John the Clerk shall get them going this evening," said Pete. "Nancy had the pull of me there, Grannie. Not being in the habit of getting married, I clane forgot about the banns."
John the Clerk came in the afternoon, and there was some lusty disputation.
"We must have bridesmaids and wedding-cakes, Pete--it's only proper," said Nancy.
"Aw, yes, and tobacco and rum, and everything respectable," said Pete.
"And the parson--mind it's the parson now," said Grannie; "none of their nasty high-bailiffs. I don't know in the world how a dacent woman can rest in her bed----"
"Aw, the parson, of coorse--and the parson's wife, maybe," said Pete.
"I think I can manage it for you for to-morrow fortnight," said John the Clerk impressively, and there was some clapping of hands, quickly suppressed by Caesar, with mutterings of--
"Popery! clane Popery, sir! Can't a person commit matrimony without a parson bothering a man?"
Then Caesar squared his elbows across the table and wrote the letter to Philip. Pete never stood sponsor for anything so pious.
"Respected and Honoured Sir,--I write first to thee that it hath been borne in on my mind (strong to believe the Lord hath spoken) to marry on Katherine Cregeen, only beloved daughter of Caesar Cregeen, a respectable man and a local preacher, in whose house I tarry, being free to use all his means of grace. Wedding to-morrow fortnight at Kirk Christ, Lezayre, eleven o'clock forenoon, and the Lord make it profitable to my soul.--With love and-reverence, thy servant, and I trust the Lord's, Peter Quilliam."
Having written this, Caesar read it aloud with proper elevation of pitch. Grannie wiped her eyes, and Pete said, "Indited beautiful, sir--only you haven't asked him."
"My pen's getting crosslegs," said Caesar, "but that'll do for an N.B."
"N. B.--Will you come for my best man?"
Then there was more talk and more laughter. "You're a lucky fellow, Pete," said Pete himself. "My sailor, you are, though. She's as sweet as clover with the bumbees humming over it, and as warm as a gorse bush when the summer's gone."
And then, affection being infectious beyond all maladies known to mortals, Nancy Joe was heard to say, "I believe in my heart I must be having a man myself before long, or I'll be losing the notion."
"D'ye hear that, boys?" shouted Pete. "Don't all spake at once."
"Too late--I've lost it," said Nancy, and there was yet more laughter.
To put an end to this frivolity, Caesar raised a hymn, and they sang it together with cheerful voices. Then Caesar prayed appropriately, John the Clerk improvised responses, and Pete went out and sat on the bottom step in the lobby and smoked up the stairs, so that Kate in the bedroom should not feel too lonely. _