'Then he's a brute! Go on to something else that's more in our way.'
'Here's a bit that's more in our way: 'Incapacities. If any persons under legal incapacities come together, it is a meretricious, and not a matrimonial union.' (Blackstone's a good one at long words, isn't he? I wonder what he means by meretricious?) 'The first of these legal disabilities is a prior marriage, and having another husband or wife living—''
'Stop!' said Neelie; 'I must make a note of that.' She gravely made her first entry on the page headed 'Good,' as follows: 'I have no husband, and Allan has no wife. We are both entirely unmarried at the present time.'
'All right, so far,' remarked Allan, looking over her shoulder.
'Go on,' said Neelie. 'What next?'
''The next disability,'' proceeded Allan, ''is want of age. The age for consent to matrimony is, fourteen in males, and twelve in females.' Come!' cried Allan, cheerfully, 'Blackstone begins early enough, at any rate!'
Neelie was too business-like to make any other remark, on her side, than the necessary remark in the pocket- book. She made another entry under the head of 'Good': 'I am old enough to consent, and so is Allan too. Go on,' resumed Neelie, looking over the reader's shoulder. 'Never mind all that prosing of Blackstone's, about the husband being of years of discretion, and the wife under twelve. Abominable wretch! the wife under twelve! Skip to the third incapacity, if there is one.'
''The third incapacity,'' Allan went on, ''is want of reason.''
Neelie immediately made a third entry on the side of 'Good': 'Allan and I are both perfectly reasonable. Skip to the next page.'
Allan skipped. ''A fourth incapacity is in respect of proximity of relationship.''
A fourth entry followed instantly on the cheering side of the pocket-book: 'He loves me, and I love him— without our being in the slightest degree related to each other. Any more?' asked Neelie, tapping her chin impatiently with the end of the pencil.
'Plenty more,' rejoined Allan; 'all in hieroglyphics. Look here: 'Marriage Acts, 4 Geo. IV., c. 76, and 6 and 7 Will. IV., c. 85 (
'Wait a little,' said Neelie; 'what's that I see in the middle?' She read for a minute in silence, over Allan's shoulder, and suddenly clasped her hands in despair. 'I knew I was right!' she exclaimed. 'Oh, heavens, here it is!'
'Where?' asked Allan. 'I see nothing about languishing in prison, and cropping a fellow's hair close to his head, unless it's in the hieroglyphics. Is '4 Geo. IV.' short for 'Lock him up'? and does 'c. 85 (
'Pray be serious,' remonstrated Neelie. 'We are both sitting on a volcano. There,' she said pointing to the place. 'Read it! If anything can bring you to a proper sense of our situation,
Allan cleared his throat, and Neelie held the point of her pencil ready on the depressing side of the account— otherwise the 'Bad' page of the pocket-book.
''And as it is the policy of our law,'' Allan began, ''to prevent the marriage of persons under the age of twenty-one, without the consent of parents and guardians''—(Neelie made her first entry on the side of 'Bad!' 'I'm only seventeen next birthday, and circumstances forbid me to confide my attachment to papa')—''it is provided that in the case of the publication of banns of a person under twenty-one, not being a widower or widow, who are deemed emancipated''—(Neelie made another entry on the depressing side: 'Allan is not a widower, and I am not a widow; consequently, we are neither of us emancipated')—''if the parent or guardian openly signifies his dissent at the time the banns are published''—('which papa would be certain to do')—''such publication would be void.' I'll take breath here if you'll allow me,' said Allan. 'Blackstone might put it in shorter sentences, I think, if he can't put it in fewer words. Cheer up, Neelie! there must be other ways of marrying, besides this roundabout way, that ends in a Publication and a Void. Infernal gibberish! I could write better English myself.'
'We are not at the end of it yet,' said Neelie. 'The Void is nothing to what is to come.'
'Whatever it is,' rejoined Allan, 'we'll treat it like a dose of physic—we'll take it at once, and be done with it.' He went on reading: ''And no license to marry without banns shall be granted, unless oath shall be first made by one of the parties that he or she believes that there is no impediment of kindred or alliance'—well, I can take my oath of that with a safe conscience! What next? 'And one of the said parties must, for the space of fifteen days immediately preceding such license, have had his or her usual place of abode within the parish or chapelry within which such marriage is to be solemnized!' Chapelry! I'd live fifteen days in a dog-kennel with the greatest pleasure. I say, Neelie, all this seems like plain sailing enough. What are you shaking your head about? Go on, and I shall see? Oh, all right; I'll go on. Here we are: 'And where one of the said parties, not being a widower or widow, shall be under the age of twenty-one years, oath must first be made that the consent of the person or persons whose consent is required has been obtained, or that there is no person having authority to give such consent. The consent required by this act is that of the father—'' At those last formidable words Allan came to a full stop. 'The consent of the father,' he repeated, with all needful seriousness of look and manner. 'I couldn't exactly swear to that, could I?'
Neelie answered in expressive silence. She handed him the pocket-book, with the final entry completed, on the side of 'Bad,' in these terms: 'Our marriage is impossible, unless Allan commits perjury.'
The lovers looked at each other, across the insuperable obstacle of Blackstone, in speechless dismay.
'Shut up the book,' said Neelie, resignedly. 'I have no doubt we should find the police, and the prison, and the hair-cutting—all punishments for perjury, exactly as I told you!—if we looked at the next page. But we needn't trouble ourselves to look; we have found out quite enough already. It's all over with us. I must go to school on Saturday, and you must manage to forget me as soon as you can. Perhaps we may meet in after-life, and you may be a widower and I may be a widow, and the cruel law may consider us emancipated, when it's too late to be of the slightest use. By that time, no doubt, I shall be old and ugly, and you will naturally have ceased to care about me, and it will all end in the grave, and the sooner the better. Good-by,' concluded Neelie, rising mournfully, with the tears in her eyes. 'It's only prolonging our misery to stop here, unless—unless you have anything to propose?'
'I've got something to propose,' cried the headlong Allan. 'It's an entirely new idea. Would you mind trying the blacksmith at Gretna Green?'
'No earthly consideration,' answered Neelie, indignantly, 'would induce me to be married by a blacksmith!'
