"What was his name?"
"Mr. Nettleship."
"Was the marriage ever registered?"
"Sorra one of me knows. He giv us each a bit of paper--our marriage
lines. 'Twas written in pencil. He had no ink in the place, and he
had no books wid him. He tore the sheet of paper and give us each
half, wid the writing on it; his horses got stole and he had to
camp there. He stayed round wid Pike and the blacks till he died."
"And where is the certificate? Have you lost it?"
"I sint mine down to Mick to keep for me--jist a bit of paper
written in pencil it was--and it got lost some ways; but I have a
copy of it I med at the time."
"Where is the copy now?"
"At Mick's place."
"You must tell Mick to bring it in. Now where is this place, Pike's?"
"Out this side of the opal-fields. It's wild and rough now, but
what it was then--well 'twas more like a black's camp nor a white
man's place at all."
Blake thought the story had gone far enough. He did not believe
a word of it. "Look here, Peggy," he said, "You have given the
place, the date, the name of the parson, and everything. Now you
know that if you are telling a lie it will be easily found out.
They will soon find out if there was such a missionary, and if he
was up there at the time, and if Mr. Grant was up there; and if
you are caught out in a lie it may go hard with you. Have you any
witnesses?"
"Martin Doyle was there, Black Martin's son."
"What! Martin Doyle that's out at the nine-mile?"
"Yis. He was up driving the buggy and horses for Grant. He can
swear to the wedding.
"He can."
"Yis."
Blake sat back in his chair and looked at her. "Do you mean to tell
me," he said, "that you can show me a certificate and a witness to
your marriage with William Grant?"
Peggy looked doggedly down at the floor and said, in the tones
of one who is repeating the burial service or some other solemn
function, "I can prove the marriage."
Blake was puzzled. He had known the mountain folk all his life,
and knew that for uneducated people--or perhaps because they were
uneducated people--they were surprisingly clever liars. But he
never dreamt that any of them could hoodwink him; so he put Peggy
once more through the whole story,--made her describe all her actions
on the day of the wedding, where she stood, where the witness stood,
what the parson said, what her husband said. He went through the
whole thing, and could see no flaw in it. He knew that Peggy would
not scruple to lie to him; but, with the contempt of a clever man,
he felt satisfied that he could soon upset any concocted story.
This story seemed to hold water, and the more he cross-examined
her the more sure he was that there was something genuine about it;
at the same time, he was sure that it was not all genuine. Then a
thought occurred to him.