"If it be possible, I will ride over before daybreak to-morrow. Stay, I will write."
Going hastily up to his room above, he wrote a few words in the same sense as those he had just uttered; and, on descending, found the young man quite ready to depart. Parson Thickett, too, was becoming impatient to return to his own dwelling, for it was now past eleven o'clock; and, with a long bleak walk before him, he did not at all relish delay. Smeaton was evidently no less anxious; but still a quarter of an hour elapsed before the man Higham appeared. At the end of that time, however, he entered the cottage, with his gay saucy look, expecting, probably, to find no one except the old fisherman in the lower room; but, as soon as he saw his lord, he said, respectfully--
"They are all gone to bed, my lord, and I dare say will soon be in a comfortable doze; for Sir John and half the servants have ridden hard to-day, and the rest have drunk hard, which comes to much the same thing."
"Now then, my reverend friend," said Smeaton, rising, "we will go, if you please. Van Noost, you must come with us. Higham, go on before to within a yard or two of the place where the small path quits the carriage road to the house. There stop, and make sure that no one comes that way without our having notice by some means."
"I understand," replied the man. "Wrangle, quarrel, talk loud, whistle, shout, or something! I understand. I'll manage it, my lord."
Thus saying, he walked out of the cottage, and Smeaton and the reverend doctor followed.
The young nobleman led his companion round between the two next cottages, desiring Van Noost to go a little in advance, and then said, in a low tone--"There is one question I wish to ask you, Doctor Thickett, which is this:--The marriage you are about to celebrate will be a good and perfect marriage, notwithstanding some slight informalities--is it not so?"
"Just, just," replied the parson. "They may suspend me; but they cannot unmarry you. They may punish you by the statute for a clandestine marriage; but they cannot make the marriage of no effect. Marriage is like a good thrashing; when once inflicted, it cannot be got rid of."
"And now, my good friend," pursued Smeaton, pausing, "you must suffer me, I believe, to tie a handkerchief over your eyes."
"Pooh, pooh! what Is the use of that?" exclaimed the doctor, laughing. "I know where you are taking me, just as well as you do. I would not have gone so quietly if I had thought you were taking me into the lion's den except by a back way. Why, the priest's chamber, and the way in and out, has been a tradition at the rectory ever since those puritanical times when many an honest parson was forced to take refuge from skull-cap and Geneva, broadsword and bandolier. There used to be a key up at the church; but, by Jove, my predecessor was fool enough to give it to Sir John. How you got in, I cannot make out."