“My dearest one!” I exclaimed, “you are now mine. By to-morrow morning we shall be over the border, and you will be my wife.”
“An elopement! Gracious heaven! I never thought of such a thing!” she replied.
I might have answered that she had not only thought of such a thing, but talked of it. I refrained, however, knowing a woman’s tongue to be capricious in its utterances, and, instead, assured her that my passion was such I could no longer bear the thought of existing without her.
“And do you mean to marry me, sir, without my guardian’s consent?” she asked with much violence.
“I do, indeed, my angel, and I thought it was agreed between us.”
This was an unfortunate speech, and she again threatened to scream for assistance, but presently remarked that as there was none to come to her assistance, she would refrain. And then, having done what propriety required, she began to relent a little, and at last she lay in my arms, asking me, with tears, if I would promise her never to love another, and I told her, with great sincerity, that I never would, provided I got out of that alive.
Deep in our own happiness,—for at least the dear girl admitted that she was happy to be mine,—we yet thought of Giles and Arabella, and I would have got out of the chaise at each of the three stages, where we made a rapid change of horses, except that Daphne would not let me,—afraid, she said, lest I should be recognized and get into trouble. She afterward told me it was because she feared we might be stopped. We did not forget the precaution, in our brief halts, to pay the hostlers well to do some harm to any pursuing vehicles which might be after us; and our plan seemed to be prospering famously.
So all night we rattled furiously along, and at daybreak we crossed the border, notified by the huzzaing of the postboys. It was a dank, dismal morning, the weather having changed during the night, and we saw that we had passed the other chaise in the darkness. It was some distance behind, and the horses seemed much spent. We continued on our way, to the house of a blacksmith at Gretna Green, who, so our postboy told us, usually united runaway couples. We dashed up to his cottage,—a humble place, surrounded by a willow hedge,—and he, warned by approaching wheels, came out, half dressed, in the murky morning.
“Come to be marrit?” he cried. “Step out then.”
I assisted Daphne out of the chaise, and then, as we stood on the damp ground, in those squalid surroundings, looking at each other, the possible wrong I had done this innocent girl suddenly swept over me. And in her eyes, too, I read the first consciousness of having committed an impropriety. This dirty, unkempt blacksmith, the coarse, laughing postboys—this, a way to make the most solemn and spiritual of all engagements! I felt an uncomfortable sense of guilt and shame.