When they were gone, the vicar spoke once more.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "we have thought it best to court the greatest publicity possible in this matter. The people whom we have exposed will not again trouble this company by their presence. I know not what the law may decide in this case, supposing his lordship so ill-advised as to go to law. But the truth, which is above the law, remains, that an imposture of the most daring kind has been attempted, and that some woman has been found to personate Miss Molly. I have to express her sorrow for keeping you so long from your pleasures."
And with these words he offered his hand to Molly, and we withdrew, and the music struck up a lively country dance.
CHAPTER XXXVII
THE BUBBLE AND THE SKY ROCKET
This was Molly's last appearance at the assembly.
Next day we heard that our distinguished visitors, the Prince of Purity—or the Prince of Darkness, which you please—the Lady of the Green Cloth, Sir Harry Decoy-Duck, and Colonel Bully Barabbas, with the Reverend Ananias and the ingenious Sam, first favourite of the Muses, had all gone away—whether they went away together or separately I never heard.
The opinion of the company as to the exposure and the marriage was divided. For some thought that Molly was nothing better than a woman who did not know her own mind; that she was first dazzled and carried off her head by the brilliant offer that was dangled before her; that, on Lord Fylingdale's request she consented to the private marriage; that she became afterwards afraid of the greatness for which she was not fitted either by birth or education, and thought to escape by hard lying and a strenuous denial of the fact. I fear that this opinion was that of the majority. For, they added, there was without any doubt a marriage; it was performed by the clergyman who by his learning, eloquence, and piety had made so many friends during his short stay, and it was witnessed by the parish clerk. If Molly was not the bride who could be found so closely to resemble her as to deceive the parish clerk?
When it was objected that the private character both of his lordship and his late tutor was of the kind publicly alleged, these philosophers asked for proof—as if proof could be adduced in a public assembly. And they asked further if it was reasonable to suppose that an eloquent divine, whose discourses had edified so many could possibly be the reprobate and profligate as stated by the vicar? As for his lordship there is, as everybody knows, an offence called scandalum magnatum, which renders a person who defames a peer or attacks his honour liable to prosecution, fine, and imprisonment.
"We shall presently," they said, "find this presumptuous vicar haled before the courts and fined, or imprisoned, for scandalum magnatum."