The Washington critic., 1888-05-26
HIS LAST.
BY qrosor ALrmD TOWNSEND in the Amer.

were married for nothing in Pennsyl
vania. OF course, they gave some
thing TO the preacher for his trouble.
The consequence was that all the
preachers on'the Maryland side of
the line became as lean as geese, and
the preachers across the line in Penn
sylvania grew rs fat as turkey COB
blers. But there was one preacher near
Waynesboro' who did not grow fat.
Garrick Howton, who did the largest
business, became leaner and leaner
the faster he married people. He
was too mean, the people said, to en-
Joy life like a good Methodist timer
ant or rubicund priest. No chicken
coops were agitated at his approach.
No little pigs squealed and got under
their anxious mammas when Garrick
leaned over the sty and surveyed
them.
Nobody knew just what sect or
church Garrick belonged to there
where everybody was his own theolo-
gian.
lie called his church the zionskites
and was the only one OF 1.-THE bishop
indeed---except his son, Wesley How
ton, whom he called ''the deacon"
The church building did not exist,
though branches of The Zionskite
body were said to be "furder west"
by both the bishop and the deacon.
lnquisitive people limited that there
never would have been as many as
two Zionskites except for the fat mar
rage fees which were to be had along
Mason and Dixons line; and that
Bishop Garrick Howton only or
dained his son Wesley into the priest
hood reluctantly that he might oc-
casionally take some recreation him
self and not miss any runaway couples
which should arrive between mid
night and morning.
All people, far or near, understood
that the Howtons would marry any
body, the delivery of the certificate
being conditional on the payment of
the fee; and pains were taken to
impress strangers that in The Zion
sixties discipline the certificate was a
part Of the ceremony itself.
A story was started and grew that
old Howton married children for the
sake of his fees
This story came up from sorrowing
and broken-hearted parents in Vi-
ginia and from the rich manors and
hamlets Of Frederick in Maryland
The Pennsylvanians never verified
these reports, because it was none of
their business.
That was the golden age when the
people of every State did to the
people Of every other State Just what
they pleased, and the boundary line
made outrage justice OF simplicity
criminal.
Nobody crossed the line to
call Bishop Howton to account
All licensed clergymen could marry;
the bishop had license signed by the
deacon, his son, and the son had a
license signed by the bishop of "The
Zionskite Purified Order, Garrick
Howton, First Templefungus."
If any preacher of large church
dared to inquire into the subject he
was told that there had been "lay-
ing on of hands," and this sent him
to.the right-about, to be followed by
the cruel insinuation that his sole
motive in questioning "liberty of con-
science" had been envy and covet-
BUSINESS of Bishop Howton's marriage
fees.
Still, that idea of marrying children
to designing men had bad sound.
1t gave superstitious name to Bishop
Howton's parsonage The run
away slaves from the old slave States
knew and avoided that house, for
they remembered how little Missy
This or That had been spirited away
by reckless cousin or a designing
overseer and made wife in her early
teens by "dat bad ole Bishop How
ton"
If we could only get at him p'
was muttered in many proud, awed,
humiliated homestead along the Shen.
andoah or the Monocacy.
But they could not get at him fol
the same reason he could not get al
them nor interfere with their privi
leges and abuses. We had no com
mon country; we were inviolable
States, secure in our own venerable
violations.
AS time advanced Bishop Howtor
became widower, and his mind was
set on marrying again.
1t may have been the example oi
marrying children under age, tori
from their parents by their own dis
obedient impulses or the powerful
sinister influence of man, or it may
have been the childish beauty Of
Eunice Howton, his distant relative
which doomed her to become tht
bishops wife when she should be ole
enough to receive his orders and moi
bring the laws of Pennsylvania dowr
upon his head. The bishop bided hi
time.
Eunice was hardly fifteen, slen
der, gray-eyed blonde, whose feet
touch the ground as they would
turned into lines of grace, and musi,
seemed to be playing as she
walked or moved, to such har
monies did. she bend Will,
in the action of her heaC
upon her delicate neck and even il
the motion of her lips there appeared
to be violin music whistled by he
spirit as the upland zephyrs playeC
upon it and her heart desired I,
dance,
The country people said that thi
was because her mother had been al
actress and dancer.
Somewhere back in the undiscerne'
past and vagueness of larger worl'
il was said that Bishop Howton ha'
been show manager and that hi
orphan cousin had married Frencl
dancer who was in his strolling com
pany.
This cousin had been left to Gar
rick, who had kept him down an
nearly starved him, repressing hi
spirits by an avarice and superstition
which lay across each other, an
finally retired Garrick from the shoN
business q complete failure, willis
his ward, set free by matrimony