"I deny it and defy it, Reverend Batson," I said, when he asked if anybody knew 'just cause'; and the people fluttered like a flock of geese, and parson made answer:
"Then you will meet me in the vestry after Divine Service, Farmer Blake," he answered, and so went on with his work.
After that I sat down, and my wife whispered; "Now you've done it, you silly gawk!"
But I was too put about to heed her. In fact I couldn't stand no more religion for the moment, and I rose up and went out, and smoked my pipe behind the family vault of the Lords of the Manor, till the people had all got away after service. And then I came forth and went into the vestry. But I wasn't the first, for who should be waiting for me but my sister, Mary, and Bob Battle himself. Bob was looking out of the window at the graves, thoughtful like, and parson was getting out of his robes; but Mary didn't wait for them. She let on to me like a cat-a-mountain, and I never had such a dressing down from mortal man or woman in all my life as I had from her that Sunday morning.
"You meddlesome, know-naught, gert fool!" she said. "How do you dare to lift your beastly voice in the House of God, and defy your Maker, and disgrace your family and come between me and the man I be going to marry? You're an insult to the parish and to the nation," she screamed out, "and 'tis enough to make father and mother turn in their graves."
"I didn't know you was to church," I answered her, "and of course if you're pleased—"
"Pleased!" she cried. "Very like I am pleased! 'Tis a pleasing sort of thing for a woman to wait for marriage till she's in sight of seventy and then hear her banns defied by her own brother! Of course I'm pleased—quite delighted, I'm sure! Who wouldn't be?"
Well, we was three men to one woman, and little by little we calmed her down with a glass of cold water and words of wisdom from his Reverence. Then I apologised to all of them—to Mary first for mistaking her meaning, and to Bob next for being too busy, and to his holiness most of all for brawling under the Sacred Roof. But he was an understanding man and thought nothing of it; and as to Battle, he had meant to come up that very afternoon, along with his betrothed wife, to see us. And it had been Mary's maidenly idea to let us hear tell about it in church first—to break the news and spare her blushes.
Well, I went home with my tail a good bit between my legs, in a manner of speaking; and my sister so far forgave me as to come to tea that day fortnight, though not sooner. And she was cold and terribly standoffish when she did come. We made it up, however, long before the wedding—thanks to Bob himself; for he bore no malice and confessed to me in strict privacy after all was over that it had been a difficult and dangerous business, and that the Chitral Campaign was a fool to it.
"The thing is to strike the right note in these matters," he said. "And it weren't till the third time that I struck it with your sister. Afore that I talked of being her right hand and protector and so on, and I offered to be a prop to her declining years, and all that. And I knew I'd failed almost before the words were spoken. But the third time I just went for her all ends up, as if we was boy and girl, and told her that I loved her, and wanted her for herself, and wouldn't take 'No' for an answer. Why—God forgive me—I even said I'd throw myself in the river if she refused again! But there it was: she yielded, and I kissed her, and she very near fainted with excitement. And I want you to understand this, Rupert Blake: I'm not after her stuff, nor her farm, nor nothing that's worth a penny to any man. Her will must be made again, but everything goes back to you and yours. I only ask to stop along with her till I'm called: for I'm alone in the world and shouldn't like to be thrust out. And if Mary goes first, then I ordain that you let me bide to my dying day in comfort out of respect to her memory. And that's all I ask or want."