"H'm." The priest cocked his head on one side. "You find that an impediment?"
"And a married man, your reverence."
"Then he has the laughing side of you, this time," said his reverence, promptly, and took snuff. "Tut, tut, woman—down with your fists, button up your bodice, and take disappointment with a better grace. Come, no nonsense, or you'll start me asking what's become of the last man I married ye to."
"Sir," interposed my uncle, "I know not the head or tail of this quarrel. But this man Priske is my brother's servant, and if he told the lady what she alleges, for the credit of the family I must correct him. In sober truth he's a bachelor, and no more the father of twelve than I am."
This address, delivered with entire simplicity, set the whole company gasping. Most of all it seemed to astonish the woman, who could not be expected to know that my uncle's chivalry accepted all her sex, the lowest with the highest, in the image in which God made it and without defacement.
The priest was the first to recover himself. "My good sir," said he, "your man may be the father of twelve or the father of lies; but I'll not marry him after stroke of noon, for that's my rule. Moreover"— he swept a hand towards the bridal party behind him—"these turtles have invited me to eat roast duck and green peas with 'em, and I hate my gravy cold."
"Ay, sir?" asked my uncle. "Do you tell me that folks marry and give in marriage within this dreadful place?"
"Now and then, sir; and in the liberties and purlieus thereof with a
proclivity that would astonish you; which, since I cannot hinder it,
I sanctify. My name is Figg, sir—Jonathan Figg; and my office,
Chaplain of the Fleet."
"And if it please you, sir," I put in, "my father has sent me in search of you, to beg that you will come to him at once."
"And you have heard me say, young sir, that I marry no man after stroke of noon; no, nor will visit him sick unless he be in articulo mortis."