"You meddlesome, know-naught, gert fool!" she said. "How do you dare to
lift your beastly voice in the House of God, and defy your Maker, and
disgrace your family and come between me and the man I be going to marry?
You're an insult to the parish and to the nation," she screamed out, "and
'tis enough to make father and mother turn in their graves."
"I didn't know you was to church," I answered her, "and of course if
you're pleased--"
"Pleased!" she cried. "Very like I am pleased! 'Tis a pleasing sort of
thing for a woman to wait for marriage till she's in sight of seventy and
then hear her banns defied by her own brother! Of course I'm
pleased--quite delighted, I'm sure! Who wouldn't be?"
Well, we was three men to one woman, and little by little we calmed her
down with a glass of cold water and words of wisdom from his Reverence.
Then I apologised to all of them--to Mary first for mistaking her meaning,
and to Bob next for being too busy, and to his holiness most of all for
brawling under the Sacred Roof. But he was an understanding man and
thought nothing of it; and as to Battle, he had meant to come up that very
afternoon, along with his betrothed wife, to see us. And it had been
Mary's maidenly idea to let us hear tell about it in church first--to
break the news and spare her blushes.
Well, I went home with my tail a good bit between my legs, in a manner of
speaking; and my sister so far forgave me as to come to tea that day
fortnight, though not sooner.
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