'I verily believe, saucebox, that you think your father fit to be Governor-General; or, at least, a triton among the minnows.'
'Papa, the fun is, you'll have to marry people now, whenever you're asked. It is part of a magistrate's duty in out-of-the-way places, Mr. Holt says.'
'Then I am to consider my services bespoke by the young ladies present, eh?' said Mr. Wynn, making a courtly inclination to Edith and Jay. 'With the greatest pleasure.'
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE PINK MIST.
Wynn became his magisterial functions well, though exercised after a primitive fashion, without court-house or bench whence to issue his decisions, without clerk to record them, or police force to back them, or any other customary paraphernalia of justice to render his office imposing. To be sure, his fine presence was worth a great deal, and his sonorous voice. As Linda predicted, he was obliged to perform clerical duty at times, in so far as to marry folk who lived beyond reach of a clergyman, and had thrice published their intention in the most public part of the township. The earliest of these transactions affianced one of Davidson's lads to a braw sonsie lass, daughter of Benson, the Shropshire settler beyond the 'Corner.' The bridegroom, a tall strapping young fellow of about twenty-three, had a nice cottage ready for his wife, and a partially cleared farm of a hundred acres, on which he had been working with this homestead in view for the last year and a half. The prudent Scotsman would portion off his other sons in similar respectability as they came of age.
'And yer mither and I cam' here wi' an axe and a cradle,' he was wont to say, 'eh, Jeanie Davidson?'