“That Farmer man,” she said, “may sputter a little about givin’ you the certificate. It’s past his office hours and he may want to use that as an excuse to put you off. The real trouble is that he will be afraid of what Foster Townsend will say to him to-morrow. Don’t let him scare you a mite. And, if worse comes to worst offer him four or five times his regular fee. That will stiffen his backbone—if I know Ezra.”
She was flying about the sitting-room, trying to untie her apron strings with shaking fingers, and chattering continuously.
“Better not leave your horse and team out here,” she said. “Some of the mail-time crowd will be sure to see it and want to know why. Take it up to the livery stable and leave it there.... No, I tell you what to do. Drive it right through my yard and hitch it out in the dark back of the hen house. You can walk to Farmer’s; it’s only a little way.... I’ll attend to the minister myself.... Now is there anything else? I haven’t had any supper, but never mind that. Before you go you might see to the tea kettle; it’s boilin’ all over the stove.... I’ll shut up the post office at half past eight to-night and I’ll be in a little while after that, minister and all.... I wonder now if— But there, I can’t stop. Don’t let Esther worry or get frightened. Everything will be all right. What a mercy I sent Millard away! I must have had a message from heaven, I guess, when I did that.... Be sure and make Farmer give you that certificate.... If there is anything else.... Well, if there is it will have to wait. I’ll be back just as soon as I can. Don’t worry.”
CHAPTER XXI
AT precisely eight-thirty she turned the key in the side door of the post-office building, and, hurrying to the sidewalk, almost ran along it. Twenty minutes later, when she reëntered the yard, she was not alone. She was shooing before her, as she might have shooed a stray chicken, a thin young man, who wore eyeglasses and whose cheeks were ornamented with a pair of sidewhiskers of the kind much affected at that date by theological students or youths active in the Y. M. C. A. The irreverent laity called such whiskers “fire escapes.”
The young man was the Reverend Mr. Barstow and he was the newly called minister of the Baptist chapel in Harniss. He had lived in the village less than a month. Consequently his acquaintance in the community was limited and his awe of the great Foster Townsend not yet overpowering. Reliance had chosen him with this fact in mind. Mr. Colton, the big mogul’s own parson, would have found some excuse for refusing to marry a niece of that mogul to any one, without being first assured of his patron’s presence or consent. To suggest that he perform a ceremony uniting her to a grandson of Elisha Cook would have been like suggesting that he commit suicide.
But the Reverend Mr. Barstow was not aware that he was being shooed into danger by the bustling, energetic woman behind him. He was young and callow and innocent and, although the haste with which he had been dragged from his study in the parsonage seemed peculiar, the thought of the fee he was to receive was very pleasing. It was his first wedding in Harniss. There had been two funerals, but funerals were not remunerative.
Miss Clark ushered him into the little sitting-room. Bob and Esther were there. Both were rather pale and nervous, Esther especially so. Neither had before met the new minister and Reliance performed the introductions. Then she turned to Griffin.
“Did you get it?” she asked, breathlessly. “Would he give it to you?”
Bob produced from his pocket a folded document.