Much he marvelled, a knight of pride
Like a book-bosomed priest should ride.
But it may have been that this custom originated at Gretna Green about 1738, on the suppression of the infamous Fleet marriages, though, without doubt, irregular marriage was far from unknown long prior to this time in the Border parishes. At all events, acting on his knowledge that Scotch marriages, where parties accepted each other as man and wife before witnesses, were legal, one Scott opened a place at the Rigg, in the parish of Gretna, and there marriages were celebrated between runaway couples about the year 1753. Scott was succeeded by an old soldier named Gordon, who was wont to officiate in uniform, wearing a huge cocked-hat, and girt about the waist with a ponderous sword.
In 1842 were published by Robert Elliott the Gretna Green Memoirs, wherein we are told how Elliott—a retired stagecoach driver—became acquainted with Joseph Paisley, successor of the veteran Gordon in 1810. Paisley, who had been a tobacconist, fisherman, nay, even, it is more than hinted, a smuggler, became known as ‘the blacksmith,’ from the speed with which he riveted the bonds of runaway couples. Elliott, who married Paisley’s daughter, and eventually succeeded him in his office, continued sole and only ‘parson’ of Gretna Green for twenty-nine years, during which period he is said to have united more than three thousand couples of all ranks and grades in society, the greatest number in any one year (1825) having been one hundred and ninety-eight, and the average from 1829 to 1835 inclusive upwards of one hundred and sixty each year. Although tradition says that Lord Erskine paid as much as eighty guineas on the occasion of his marriage, the average fee at Gretna Green is estimated at fifteen guineas; whence we may at anyrate infer how much more highly paid was the Border ‘parson’ than the majority of the more regular clergy on either side of the Sark.
In a will-case tried some years ago at Liverpool, the plaintiff, Robert Ker, had been married on two occasions at Gretna Green—in 1850, and again in 1853—the first marriage having been solemnised in a beerhouse at Springfield, near Gretna; and the second in an alehouse kept by William Blythe, when Thomas Blythe, in presence of his wife, performed the ceremony, which was thus described: ‘I went in and had some conversation, and asked him [Thomas Blythe] to do this little job. He said he would, and asked me if I was willing to take this lady as my wife, and I said yes. Then he asked her if she was willing to take me for her husband, and she said she was; and I got hold of her hand and put the ring on, and we were declared man and wife; and that was how we were married.’ At this trial, a book containing a register of marriages performed by the Blythes was produced in evidence.
Thomas Blythe was himself examined in the Probate Court at Westminster, and stated that in the May of 1853 he was living at Springfield, Gretna Green, and was in the agricultural line, though he did a small stroke of business in the ‘joining line’ as well. Replying to counsel as to how he performed the ceremony, he gave the following account of the marriage service as by him conducted: ‘I first asked if they were single. They said they were. I then asked the man: “Do you take this woman for your wife?” He said, “Yes.” I then asked the woman: “Do you take this man for your lawful husband?” She said, “Yes.” I then said: “Put on the ring.” The ring was put on. I then said: “The thing is done; the marriage is complete.”’ A certificate of marriage was written out and given to the woman.
We doubt not, however, that many of our readers may learn with surprise that, even now, marriage—provided that one or other of the parties have resided three weeks in Scotland—may be thus speedily and effectually performed at the erstwhile notorious little village of Gretna Green, as well as elsewhere north of the Border.
IN ALL SHADES.
CHAPTER XV.
A fortnight after Nora’s arrival in Trinidad, Mr Tom Dupuy, neatly dressed in all his best, called over one evening at Orange Grove for the express purpose of speaking seriously with his pretty cousin. Mr Tom had been across to see her more than once already, to be sure, and had condescended to observe to many of his men acquaintances, on his return from his call, that Uncle Theodore’s girl, just come out from England, was really in her own way a most elegant and attractive creature. In Mr Tom’s opinion, she would sit splendidly at the head of the table at Pimento Valley. ‘A man in my position in life wants a handsome woman, you know,’ he said, ‘to do the honours, and keep up the dignity of the family, and look after the women-servants, and all that sort of thing; so Uncle Theodore and I have arranged beforehand that it would be a very convenient plan if Nora and I were just to go and make a match of it.’