The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-08-04

astonishment, and while taking a hug,
 pinch of snuff. croaked triumphantly:
 Yesterday. the postman. Tn day
 tn Bishop O Gretna, ye ken!'
 nodded as the truth flashed over me
 and looked about the bishops palac,
 wonderingly.
 It comprised but one room and a gar
 ret. The little street door was at q
 corner of the house front. Behind this
 was a recess and bed. A back door
 opened upon tiny walled kaii-yard
 Opposite the bed was a wide fireplace
 where food was cooked upon and
 against peat fire as in ancient times Opening upon the street was one win. dow. wide and low. Against this stood deal table. and underneath this was a stout oaken iron-bound chest.
 The unique character, who I after. ward learned had performed more than thousand Gretna. or civil-contract marriages--simply consisting of an agreement by man and woman to be- come husband and wife. in the presence of witnesses, with subsequent official registration of the same-sat in sac- erdotal state beside the deal table, one arm resting upon pile of ancient leather-covered record books; his whole manner ones of impatient reckoning as to how much "siller" there might be "ahint" any possible transaction be- tween us.
 But. like all members of the legal pro- fession, I was not to be hurried. An other person, one who singularly and pathetically impressed me, stood or teetered. about the middle of the room. This was the old mans wife; deaf for more than forty years; her voice faded into touching falsetto gurgle; and her face and thin old form suggesting some ghostly, white field flower trembling feebly in the wind whipped autumn of its passing life.
 The old man was flercely grave and dignified. The old woman was all fee ble smiles, swaying salaams and soft and piteous cacklings. For days, sub ject to the most conscienceless petty blackmail of which was ever. cogniz- ant. I was busy delving among the rusty records of this strange marital curiosity shop.
 First. after the doors and windows were made fast. the iron-bound oaken chest was opened. This contained the records of nearly ten thousand qretna marriages, now scarcely more than a mass of shreds, but still quite legible, and on innumerable occasions worth in Scottish and English courts. far more than their weight in gold. Then the transcript records were examined. These place at glance in chronologi- cal order every marriage recorded as performed by old Paisley and the three Laings, down to the present time.
 Entirely aside from my professional zeal in our clients cause, what an in- terest and fascination were there in these silent reminders of romances, the tragedies, of the past! And besides. what momentous pages were here written in the lives of not only the lowly but of the proud aristocracy of England and Scotland!
 From the first romantic Gretna mar riage of the lovelorn Cumberland cou- pie, John Edgar and Jean Scott, who barely escaped with their lives, from their ferocious pursuers across the tenn pest tossed Solway, in 1771, down to the Cumberland couple who had been by the old rascal before me on- ly the day preceding my visit, there danced before my eyes the names of the noble and great, in their own handr Urff{nO aaf xI,ha fho1y Io5 5 ly sealed the fates of such as Thomas, Lord Erskine, with Sarah Busk; Ed ward Conroy with Lady Alicia Par sons. daughter of the Earl of Ross; John George Hampton, grandfather of the present Lord Durham, with Miss Cholmundley; Edward Gibbon, Lord with Ellen Turner, for which Lord Wakefield suffered two years inn his hasty-made spouse be- Ing a ward of the chancery court, which brought the noble wooer within punishable contempt; Lord George Will liam Coventry with Mary Beauclaire, and hundreds of other couples, ances- tors of the best blood of Britain to-day.
 I soon found I was dealing with the WI J AhSNAAANSAOA OA LII u11hCIl lNIlIl Sd W. age ignorance, aggressive avarice and nsensate brutality: all in the person of one who never permitted eyes to rest on those records save for both 'siller" and gold; who was cunning it. self in all conceivable mean expedienc- s to make my investigation the source of utmost delay and profit, and who added to the unbearableness of ny situation by compelling me to wit ness such bullyings and exquisitely outrageous tormentings of his poor 'ld helpmeet as rendered the memora- 'le Quilp a model of propriety in com- 3arison.
 In the first instance, I met cunning with cunning, and eventually trimmed he spurs of his venality by insisting hat the desired names were others han they really were that the marriage whose record sought, had probably at Coldstream or some other border town, and that there could be no urther object in taxing his episcopal patience and my own purse
 This threw the old orge into a fever # fear lest further profit should be ost. Making oaths that he had seen he alleged names among the records.
 thus cast upon him the burden of 'nxiety and leisurely followed him in lis excited searchings, until my own uccess had been secretly established,
 My resentment became more and nore intense. Besides, my compassion or the victim of his endless brutalities vas fast taking on the nature of 'ersonal cause. .......-. 4
 Her pitiful hopelessness sickened me. What, this side of death. could change he wretched husbands nature, orsive