In the first place, we are very safe
in questioning Mr. Williamson's right to solemnize a marriage."
"I have been ordained," cried the old rascal.
"And also unfrocked."
"Once a clergyman, always a clergyman."
"I think not. How about the license?"
"We had a license for the marriage. I have it here in my pocket."
"Then you got it by a trick. But in any case a forced marriage
is no marriage, but it is a very serious felony, as you will
discover before you have finished. You'll have time to think
the point out during the next ten years or so, unless I am
mistaken. As to you, Carruthers, you would have done better
to keep your pistol in your pocket."
"I begin to think so, Mr. Holmes; but when I thought of all the
precaution I had taken to shield this girl -- for I loved her,
Mr. Holmes, and it is the only time that ever I knew what love
was -- it fairly drove me mad to think that she was in the power
of the greatest brute and bully in South Africa, a man whose
name is a holy terror from Kimberley to Johannesburg. Why, Mr.
Holmes, you'll hardly believe it, but ever since that girl has
been in my employment I never once let her go past this house,
where I knew these rascals were lurking, without following her
on my bicycle just to see that she came to no harm.
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