Read Ebook: Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature Science and Art fifth series no. 117 vol. III March 27 1886 by Various

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GRETNA GREEN AND ITS MARRIAGES.

A few miles beyond the walls of 'merrie Carlisle,' and only just across the Border on the Scottish side, is a lonely old-world little village, whither, in days not yet remote, frequent couples, in life's bright golden time, hurriedly resorted; no less eager to cross the bridge spanning the river Sark, which here forms the boundary of the two kingdoms, than, with blind trust in the future, to undertake the all-untried responsibilities of forbidden wedlock. The village itself consists of a long straight street of cleanly whitewashed houses, beyond which stretches the solitary tract of Solway moss, scene of many a Border foray, and of one miserable 'rout' in the days of the Scottish Jameses; while, towards England, the landscape is bounded by the 'skyey heads' of the Cumberland mountains, clad in such hues of grayish green as nature uses to modify her distant tints. Curious to view a spot so far renowned, albeit without design of invoking aid from any chance survivor of the 'high-priests of Gretna Green,' we alighted on the platform of its roadside station on the Glasgow and South-Western Railway one summer afternoon, and pursuing our way towards the village in company with a not uncommunicative policeman, quickly found many illusions dispelled, by no means least the widespread legend as to the officiating blacksmith. Our attention was ere long called to the figure of a middle-aged, by no means clerical-looking man, at the time engaged in filling his pipe by the wayside, with whom we entered into conversation. Nowise anxious to magnify his apostleship, our new friend somewhat deprecatingly acknowledged that the priestly mantle had descended upon his too unworthy shoulders, and that, indeed, but a few days prior to our visit, he had been called on to exercise the weighty functions of his office.

This man, by trade a mason, spoke, not without regret, of the good old days when fugitive lovers crowded to the Border village, the poorer sort being most often united at the tollhouse just across the bridge, while the more well-to-do betook themselves to the hotel, which, though no longer devoted to uses hymeneal, still stands at the entrance of the village street. The priestly office, it was said, had been filled, more or less worthily, by many, who, claiming no unbroken descent, had in a somewhat casual sort of way succeeded to it; and amongst others concerned in what certainly appeared to have been the staple trade of the place, the local postman was indicated as custodian of registers reaching back into the palmy days of Border marriage, and containing names no less remarkable for nobility of birth than for the possession of wealth and acres.

Not very long since, a faithless swain, weary prematurely of vows exchanged at Gretna Green, and doubting somewhat, it may be, of the holiness of the estate inaugurated by rites so maimed, betook himself, in the company of another and, to him, doubtless fairer bride, to a Roman Catholic priest in a southern Scottish burgh, who all unwittingly solemnised a marriage between them, destined to work no small evil to the fickle bridegroom; for mark how well the sequel hangs together. The deceiver, a sadder and perchance wiser man, torn from the arms of his too credulous bride, a Niobe all tears, was hauled before the outraged majesty of law, and compelled to undergo the penalties, not trivial, awarded to crimes of perjury and bigamy.

Whatever peculiar popularity as a marriage-resort may have been enjoyed by Gretna Green is doubtless due to the convenience and accessibility of its situation on the Great North Road; for here is no instance of especial virtue residing in local fountains, but merely of such virtue--if, indeed, one may so use the term--as is participated in by every other spot of ground within the whole realm of Scotland; nor, indeed, as a matter of fact, were Coldstream and Lamberton near Berwick without some measure of peculiar advantage, which they offered to those impatient ones who, from the more eastern counties, were minded to avail themselves of the proximity of the Scottish Border.

The origin of these marriages has been sought by some in the wild habits of times far distant, when lack of clergy in the district was to some extent supplied by the ministrations of friars from the adjacent abbeys of Melrose and Jedburgh, who in the course of their perambulations performed the rites of baptism and marriage. The Borderer, nowise forgetful, ere setting forth on expeditions of rapine and plunder, to tell his beads right zealously, was yet grossly ignorant about many things; nor had he access to any other source of enlightenment than the 'Book-a-bosoms,' as the mass-book was called, from the habit of the wandering ecclesiastics carrying it in their bosoms. Thus it was that stout William of Deloraine seemed, to the astonished eyes of the Goblin Page, so strangely to resemble one of these friars, when

As the corselet off he took, The Dwarf espied the mighty Book! 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 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 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.

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.'

Nora was sitting by herself with her cup of tea in the little boudoir that opened out on to the terrace garden, with its big bamboos and yuccas and dracoena trees, when Mr Tom Dupuy was announced by Rosina as waiting to see her.

'Show him in, Rosina,' Nora said with a smile; 'and ask Aunt Clemmy to send me up another teacup.--Good-evening, Tom. I'm afraid you'll find it a little dull here, as it happens, this evening, for papa's gone down to Port-of-Spain on business; and so you'll have nobody to talk with you to-night about the prospects of the year's sugar-crop.'

Tom Dupuy seated himself on the ottoman beside her with cousinly liberty. 'Oh, it don't matter a bit, Nora,' he answered with his own peculiar gallantry. 'I don't mind. In fact, I came over on purpose this evening, knowing Uncle Theodore was out, because I'd got something very particular I wanted to talk over with you in private.'

'In-deed,' Nora answered emphatically. 'I'm surprised to hear it. I assure you, Tom, I'm absolutely ignorant on the subject of cane-culture.'

'Girls brought up in England mostly are,' Tom Dupuy replied with the air of a man who generously makes a great concession. 'They don't appear to feel much interest in sugar, like other people. I suppose in England there's nothing much grown except corn and cattle.--But that wasn't what I came over to talk about to-night, Nora. I've got something on my mind that Uncle Theodore and I have been thinking over, and I want to make a proposition to you about it.'

'Well, Tom?'

'Well, Nora, you see, it's like this. As you know, Orange Grove is Uncle Theodore's to leave; and after his time, he'll leave it to you, of course; but Pimento Valley's entailed on me; and that being so, Uncle Theodore lets me have it on lease during his lifetime, so that, of course, whatever I spend upon it in the way of permanent improvements is really spent in bettering what's practically as good as my own property.'

'I understand. Quite so.--Have a cup of tea?'

'Thank you.--Well, Pimento Valley, you know, is one of the very best sugar-producing estates in the whole island. I've introduced the patent Browning regulators for the centrifugal process; and I've imported some of these new Indian mongooses that everybody's talking about, to kill off the cane-rats; and I've got some splendid stock rattoons over from Mauritius; and altogether, a finer or more creditable irrigated estate I don't think you'll find--though it's me that says it--in the island of Trinidad. Why, Nora, at our last boiling, I assure you the greater part of the liquor turned out to be seventeen over proof; while the molasses stood at twenty-nine specific gravity; giving a yield, you know, of something like one hogshead decimal four on the average to the acre of canes under cultivation.'

Nora held up her fan carelessly to smother a yawn. 'I daresay it did, Tom,' she answered with obvious unconcern; 'but, you know, I told you I didn't understand anything on earth about sugar; and you said it wasn't about that that you wanted to talk to me in private this evening.'

'Yes, yes, Nora; you're quite right; it isn't. It's about a far deeper and more interesting subject than sugar that I'm going to speak to you.' 'I only mentioned these facts, you see, just to show you the sort of yield we're making now at Pimento Valley. Last year, we did five hundred hogsheads, and two hundred and eighty-four puncheons. A man who does a return like that, of course, must naturally be making a very tidy round little income.'

'I'm awfully glad to hear it, I'm sure, for your sake,' Nora answered unconcernedly.

'I thought you would be, Nora; I was sure you would be. Naturally, it's a matter that touches us both very closely. You see, as you're to inherit Orange Grove, and as I'm to inherit Pimento Valley, Uncle Theodore and I think it would be a great pity that the two old estates--the estates bound up so intimately with the name and fame of the fighting Dupuys--should ever be divided or go out of the family. So we've agreed together, Uncle Theodore and I, that I should--well, that I should endeavour to unite them by mutual arrangement.'

'I don't exactly understand,' Nora said, as yet quite unsuspicious of his real meaning.

'Why, you know, Nora, a man can't live upon sugar and rum alone.'

'Certainly not,' Nora interrupted; 'even if he's a confirmed drunkard, it would be quite impossible. He must have something solid occasionally to eat as well.'

'To pour out tea for him,' Nora suggested blandly, filling his cup a second time.

'About the sugar-crop?' Nora put in once more, with provoking calmness.

'Well, Nora, you may smile if you like,' Tom said warmly; 'but this is a very serious subject, I can tell you, for both of us. What I mean to say is that Uncle Theodore and I have settled it would be a very good thing indeed if we two were to get up a match between us.'

'A match between you,' Nora echoed in a puzzled manner--'a match between papa and you, Tom! What at? Billiards? Cricket? Long jumping?'

Tom fairly lost his temper. 'Nonsense, Nora,' he said testily. 'You know as well what I mean as I do. Not a match between Uncle Theodore and me, but a match between you and me--the heir and heiress of Orange Grove and Pimento Valley.'

Nora stared at him with irrepressible laughter twinkling suddenly out of all the corners of her merry little mouth and puckered eyelids. 'Between you and me, Tom,' she repeated incredulously--'between you and me, did you say? Between you and me now? Why, Tom, do you really mean this for a sort of an offhand casual proposal?'

'Oh, you may laugh if you like,' Tom Dupuy replied evasively, at once assuming the defensive, as boors always do by instinct under similar circumstances. 'I know the ways of you girls that have been brought up at highfalutin' schools over in England. You think West Indian gentlemen aren't good enough for you, and you go running after cavalry-officer fellows, or else after some confounded upstart woolly-headed mulatto or other, who come out from England. I know the ways of you. But you may laugh as you like. I see you don't mean to listen to me now; but you'll have to listen to me in the end; for Uncle Theodore and I have made up our minds about it, and what a Dupuy makes up his mind about, he generally sticks to, and there's no turning him. So in the end, I know, Nora, you'll have to marry me.'

'You seem to forget,' Nora said haughtily, 'that I too am a Dupuy, as much as you are.'

'But, Tom,' Nora cried, abashed into seriousness for a moment by his sudden outburst of native vulgarity, 'this is really so unexpected and so ridiculous. We're cousins, you know; I've never thought of you at all in any way except as a cousin. I didn't mean to be rude to you; but your proposal and your way of putting it took me really so much by surprise.'

'Never!' Nora interrupted quickly in a sharp voice of unswerving firmness.

'Never, Nora? Never? Why never?'

'Because, Tom, I don't care for you; I can't care for you; and I never will care for you. Is that plain enough?'

Nora rose to her full height with offended dignity. 'Tom Dupuy,' she said angrily, 'you insult me! Leave the house, sir, this minute, or I shall retire to my room. Get back to your sugar-canes and your centrifugals until you've learned better manners.'

'Upon my word,' Tom said aloud, as if to himself, rising to go, and flicking his boot carelessly with his riding-whip, 'I admire her all the more when she's in a temper. She's one of your high-steppers, she is. She's an uncommon fine girl, too--hanged if she isn't--and, sooner or later, she'll have to marry me.'

Nora swept out of the boudoir without another word, and walked with a stately tread into her own room. But before she got there, the ludicrous side of the thing had once more overcome her, and she flung herself on a couch in uncontrollable fits of childish laughter. 'Oh, Aunt Clemmy,' she cried, 'bring me my tea in here, will you? I really think I shall die of laughing at Mr Tom there!'

For a few days, the Hawthorns had plenty of callers--but all gentlemen. Marian did not go down to receive them. Edward saw them by himself in the drawing-room, accepting their excuses with polite incredulity, and dismissing them as soon as possible by a resolutely quiet and taciturn demeanour. Such a singularly silent man as the new judge, everybody said, had never before been known in the district of Westmoreland.

One afternoon, however, when the two Hawthorns were sitting out under the spreading mango-tree in the back-garden, forgetting their doubts and hesitations in a quiet chat, Thomas came out to inform them duly that two gentlemen and a lady were waiting to see them in the big bare drawing-room. Marian sighed a sigh of profound relief. 'A lady at last,' she said hopefully. 'Perhaps, Edward, they've begun to find out, after all, that they've made some mistake or other. Can--can any wicked person, I wonder, have been spreading around some horrid report about me, that's now discovered to be a mere falsehood?'

'It's incomprehensible,' Edward answered moodily. 'The more I puzzle over it, the less I understand it. But as a lady has called at last, of course, darling, you'd better come in at once and see her.'

They walked together, full of curiosity, into the drawing-room. The two gentlemen rose simultaneously as they entered. To Marian's surprise, it was Dr Whitaker and his father; and with them had come--a brown lady.

Marian was unaffectedly glad to see their late travelling companion; but it was certainly a shock to her, unprejudiced as she was, that the very first and only woman who had called upon her in Trinidad should be a mulatto. However, she tried to bear her disappointment bravely, and sat down to do the honours as well as she was able to her unexpected visitors.

'My daughtah!' the elder brown man said ostentatiously, with an expansive wave of his greasy left hand towards the mulatto lady--'Miss Euphemia Fowell-Buxton Duchess-of-Sutherland Whitaker.'

Marian acknowledged the introduction with a slight bow, and bit her lip. She stole a look at Dr Whitaker, and saw at once upon his face an unwonted expression of profound dejection and disappointment.

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