tell ye I will not risk the scandal for less than half-a-dozen
kegs--all the best Hollands--cheap at the price. Think of the
Presbytery!"

"Minister, the thing is done and in your presence. I will promise no
such quantity. But three of Hollands and three of Isle of Man brandy, as
was agreed upon. Consider, it will be worse, for you to be denounced as
art and part in an irregular marriage--a laird's daughter, too--a
pretty-like thing to come before the Presbytery and you the moderator!"

"Let it be as you will, Godfrey McCulloch, but if ye have a spark of
human kindness in your hard heart let it be Hollands! Your Isle of Man
brandy agrees but ill with my stammack, and if I dee o't my ghost will
haunt ye. I will preach to ye, one by one, all my forty sermons on the
King's birthday!"

Godfrey McCulloch threw up his hands.

"Hollands let it be--six kegs at the next run, only lift the interdict.
I would rather be hanged at once and be done with it."

"You are not polite, young man," said the minister. "The sermons have
been pronounced excellent by the very best judges, but I was right in
supposing that you would not care to listen to forty of the best sermons
ever preached! Six of Hollands be it then, lad, and put in the auld
place--I shall see that the clerk is duly paid to hold his tongue! _Whom
God hath joined, let no man put asunder!_ I nearly forgot, and indeed it
is in nowise necessary, being but a Popish formula. Guid nicht to ye,
and mind the Hollands!"

CHAPTER XXXVI

STIFF-NECKED AND REBELLIOUS

The breeze quickened from the south. The lugger sped through the water,
and Stair Garland still sat dazed. Never had any man felt such a fool.
Here he was firmly and legally wedded, and he dare not even address a
word to his bride. He had spoken no syllable of gladness or
affection--triple dolt--quadruple fool--prize-winner among idiots! He
had nothing to say--he could say nothing. Nor was it the presence of a
third person which prevented him. Perhaps, rather, something in Patsy's
eye, and, though that he would not acknowledge, a lurking grimness in
the smile about the wicks of Godfrey's mouth.

It was not courage that Stair lacked--only everything about Patsy awed
him. He did not yet understand her. The whys and the wherefores of her
actions were still completely dark to him.

But Patsy was not a young woman to wrap up her mind. When she had
anything to say, she said it. So after they had turned about