"A wife," says I.
"He's like to go empty-handed there at least," says Cynthia. "What a mercy it was we were married this morning!"
"I doubt whether we were," says I. "I do not know that the ceremony will hold in the sight of the law."
"Then," says Cynthia, "we will be married over again in our real names and with a proper licence at the first church we can."
"Nor will that avail you," says I, "when he hath got me hanged."
Mrs. Cynthia grew thoughtful, but says she after a moment's reflection:
"When he does that I will put an ounce of lead into his heart, then I can be hanged beside you."
At this perforce I had to capitulate before her ingenuity.
We resumed our way somewhat chastened in spirit. We looked keenly ahead of us along the road as we went, for any sign of the vehicle that had lately overtaken us. Any inn or alehouse that happened to lie at the roadside we passed with particular caution, lest our papa and his companion should have broken their journey there. As time went by, and we had begun to forget the excellent repast of boiled mutton and potherbs with which we had been regaled by parson Scriven, we cast our eyes on these wayside places of entertainment with another end in view. We were growing honestly tired and hungry. Coming to one that wore an air of unobtrusive respectability and general cleanliness, we determined to part with half of our fortune in exchange for some bread and cheese and ale.
Having first been at the precaution to convince ourselves that his Grace's curricle lingered nowhere about the house, we went in and called for our modest refreshment. And we were engaged in doing justice to it with a good deal of zest, when to our great fear we heard the sound of wheels on the road, and by the time we could turn round and look out of the inn-window a chaise had come to a stand in front of the door. It needed but a glance to tell us that we might have been spared our alarm, since it was not the one belonging to Mrs. Cynthia's papa. This was a much less imposing carriage, of a prim colour and cast that was designed not to attract any attention. It contained two persons. The first who alighted from it was a middling drab-coated kind of a fellow, smug of countenance, and not to be looked at twice. He was doubtless the unliveried servant of a well-to-do tradesman; an estimate that was borne out by the deferential, not to say obsequious air with which he stood at the side of the vehicle, and assisted the second occupant to get out. This was a vastly more imposing person. He was a great fat, heavy-featured man, with an almost overpowering consequentialness about him. He moved with a slow but dignified strut, spoke in a very loud voice, and yet there was a tone of affable condescension about him too that was very baffling. He might be the mayor or an alderman of some provincial town, some local big-wig, or even a pursy magnate of commerce.