"I wish to know when you could perform the marriage rite, father," I asked, noting the friendly and unsuspicious way with which his eyes rested on me.
"Ha," he said kindly, "then you are one of the few faithful ones yet to be found in the country. You look on marriage as a sacrament, and not a mere legal business like the heretics of these parts."
"I trust so, father. When could you wed us?"
"Is the maid here in Padstow?" he asked.
"Nay," I replied. "She is at present with heretics, but she is of the true faith."
"What is her name, my son?"
Then I told him a tale I had been weaving through the day, and which was so plausible that he did not appear to doubt it.
"I could wed you to-morrow," he said at length, for it will be remembered that this took place in 1745, eight years before the famous law passed by Lord Hardwicke, through whose influence it was decreed that banns of marriage must be publicly announced in the parish church in order for the ceremony to be legal.
"I do not think I could bring her here to-morrow," I said cautiously.