“Happy as birds, they be,” said Chris, referring to the young pair at Newtake. “It do make me long for us to be man an’ wife, Clem, when I see ’em.”
“We’re that now, save for the hocus-pocus of the parsons you set such store by.”
“No, I’ll never believe it makes no difference.”
“A cumbrous, stupid, human contrivance like marriage! Was ever man and woman happier for being bound that way? Can free things feel their hearts beat closer because they are chained to one another by an effete dogma?”
“I doan’t onderstand all that talk, sweetheart, an’ you knaw I don’t; but till some wise body invents a better-fashion way of joining man an’ maid than marriage, us must taake it as ’tis.”
“There is a better way—Nature’s.”
She shook her head.
“If us could dwell in a hole at a tree-root, an’ eat roots an’ berries; but we’m thinking creatures in a Christian land.”
She stretched herself out comfortably and smiled up at him where he sat with his chin in his hands. Then, looking down, he saw the delicious outline of her and his eyes grew hot.
“God’s love! How long must it be?” he cried; then, before she could speak, he clipped her passionately to him and hugged her closely.