The Doctor seldom transacted business before nine o’clock in the morning, unless, as sometimes happened, a spirited apprentice, a lad of mettle, came with his master’s daughter, both stealing away at seven, before the master and mistress were up, when she was supposed to be attending morning prayers at church, or helping Molly the maid with the mop, and he was expected to be cleaning out the shop and dressing the window. The ceremony over, they would go home again, but separately, young miss carrying her Prayer-book before her as demure as a kitten, looking as if she had never heard of a Fleet marriage, and was ignorant of the great Doctor Shovel, chaplain, yea, bishop of that place; while the boy, with brush and broom and watering-can, would be zealously about his master’s work when that poor man—his morning dish of chocolate or pint of small ale despatched—appeared in the shop for the conduct of the day’s affairs. Afterwards they could choose their own time for declaring what had been done. Thus did the Doctor make or mar the fortunes of many a bold prentice-boy.

This morning the Doctor awoke from sleep at seven or thereabouts, having in four hours slept off the punch and tobacco in his arm-chair. His face became almost benign in its thoughtful kindliness as he remembered the guest lying asleep upstairs, and what he was about to do for him. He rose, shook himself, opened the windows and doors, and went out into the market, still in his nightcap, carrying his wig in one hand and his silk handkerchief in the other.

The market was already crowded with purchasers, principally those who buy a barrowful of fruit and vegetables, and bawl through the streets until all is sold. But there was a good sprinkling of maids and housewives buying provisions for the day. The morning was fresh, with a little autumn fog, and the sun shining through it like a great yellow disk; the waggons stood about with their loads of cabbages, carrots, parsnips, potatoes, apples, plums, and sloes, waiting till they could be discharged; on the heaped-up pile of fruits and vegetables you could see hanging still the slender threads and cobwebs which are spun every night in autumn time by invisible spiders, and appear in the morning strung with beads of dew.

“Stand aside!” cried the stall-keepers, one and all. “Make way for the Doctor! Don’t you see the Doctor? Room for the Doctor!”

He walked magisterially to the pump, under which he held his bare head for a few moments while a boy pumped the cold water over him. This done, he shook his head, mopped his poll with his silk handkerchief, clapped on his wig, and returned to his own house, his robes majestically floating around him.

The market, proud of its Doctor, made way for him with salutations and inquiries after his reverence’s health.

At the house he found his two runners waiting for him, as fresh—if pale cheeks and red noses can look fresh—as if they had not been up until two o’clock in the morning.

He sent for a pint of small ale, and began to consider what next.

“Roger,” he said, “canst thou, at the present moment, lay thy hand upon a woman willing to be a bride, either in the prison or elsewhere?”

Roger hesitated.

“It depends, your reverence, on the bridegroom. About Tower steps, for instance, and down Wapping way, there are brides in plenty to be picked up for the asking.”

“Not brides for me, Roger. Think again. I want a bride who wants a husband, and not a sailor’s money; who will stick to her husband and make him as happy in his wedded life as you and the rest of mankind are or have been.”

Roger grinned. He was himself a widower, and could be tickled with the joke.

“I think I know the very woman,” he said. “A young widow——”

“Good,” said the Doctor.

“She has been extravagant, and is in debt——”

“Very good,” said the Doctor.

“A prisoner in the Fleet; but I can fetch her out in a twinkling, for half-a-crown.”

“Ay—ay,” said the Doctor. “Go on, honest Roger. A widow, extravagant, and in debt. That promises well.”

“Her husband was an honest draper in Gracechurch Street, who lately died of smallpox, leaving her a good business and a thousand pounds in money. She hath already squandered the thousand, wasted the business, and brought herself to ruin. She is comely, and is but thirty years of age; to get out of the Fleet, I think she would marry the——”

“She shall marry better than that, Roger. Go fetch her here: tell her to come and talk with me, and that if she pleases me in her conversation and appearance, she may shortly marry a gentleman.”

“This,” said the Doctor, when his man was gone, “will be a good stroke of business. This shall be his punishment. My lord shall marry this extravagant slut. No paltry common revenge this. Just punishment for the first generation. He will gain a pocketful of debts and a wife who will stick to him like a leech. Aha!—a city wench—none of your proud city madams, grand enough to be a countess—but a plain tradesman’s widow, with no ideas beyond a dish of tea, Bagnigge Wells, strawberries at Bayswater, cakes at Chelsea, or at the best, a night of wonder-gaping at the quality at Vauxhall; a wife of whom he will be ashamed from the very first. This is good business. What a pity! what a thousand pities that his noble father is no more!”

The Doctor laughed and rubbed his hands. Then he mounted the stairs again, and entered his bedroom. The lad was still sound asleep; his cheeks less red, and his breathing lighter.

“His head will ache,” said the Doctor. “I fear he is unaccustomed to punch. When he wakes his limbs will feel like lead: his throat will feel like a limekiln; his tongue will be furred like the back of a squirrel; his eyes will be hot and heavy, as if he had a fever; his hand will shake like the hand of a palsied man; he will totter when he tries to walk. Ah! cursed drink! Time was when I, who am now as seasoned as a port-wine cask, or a keg of Nantz, would feel the same when I awoke after such a night. Age brings its consolations.” He rubbed his hands, thinking that he could now drink without these symptoms. “I will marry him,” he continued, “while he is yet half drunk. When he recovers, it will be time to explain the position of things. Should I explain, or should his wife? Ho! ho! A draper’s widow, of Gracechurch Street, to marry the heir of all the Chudleighs!”

He stood over the bed again, and passed his hand lightly over the sleeping boy’s cheeks. Something in his looks touched the Doctor, and his eyes softened.

“Poor lad! I never had a son. Perhaps, if there had been one, things would have been different. He is a very handsome boy. Pity, after all, that he must marry this jade, this extravagant wench who will waste and scatter his patrimony, and likely bring him to shame, when, being so young, so handsome, and so rich, he might have had the prettiest girl in the country”—here he started—“might have had—might have had—can he not have? Is there a prettier girl or a better-bred girl anywhere in the land than Kitty Pleydell? What more can any man want? she is of gentle blood—on one side at least, for the Shovels, it is very certain, do somewhat smack of the soil. Never a Shovel, except the Reverend Gregory Shovel, Doctor of Divinity, who hath risen to greatness. Clods all. Here is a great chance for such a revenge as would have driven the old lord mad, and will be a blessing and a boon to the young lord. Ho! ho! my Lord Breaker of Promises, my Lord Trampler of Dependents, my Lord Villain and Rogue, how likes your lordship that your son should marry my niece? As for you, young spark, I will give you a bride so sweet, so fair, so fresh, that by heavens! you ought to woo her for a twelvemonth, and then go and hang your foolish neck by a garter because she would not say yea. Well, well! let us return good for evil—let us still be Christians. Yet no Lord Chudleigh hath deserved to have any benefit at my hands.”

He rubbed his hands: he laughed to himself, his shoulders rolling from side to side: he nodded his head pleasantly at his victim, then he went downstairs again, with grave and thoughtful mien. He was thinking how best to bring about his purpose.

He found, however, waiting below, Roger, his man. With him there came a woman dressed in shabby finery. She was a woman of about thirty-two years of age, stout, and still comely; she looked about the room as if in search of some one; her face was eager and anxious. When she saw the Doctor, she put her handkerchief to her eyes and burst, or pretended to burst, into tears.

“Alas, Doctor!” she cried, “I am truly ashamed to come in such a plight. But I have nothing else to put on. And Roger, good man, says that the gentleman will not wait. Who is the gentleman? Surely not Thomas Humpage, the mercer, who always promised to marry me when my husband should die, and now refuses because, although a warm man, he will not take upon him the burden of my poor debts. Alas! men are ever thus towards us poor women. Pray, Doctor, who is the gentleman? Far be it from me to keep the poor man waiting; and indeed, I was ever a pitiful woman, and——”

“You are under a little mistake, madam,” said the Doctor, interrupting her. “There is no gentleman here asking for you. Roger is an ass, and a pig.”

Roger made no reply. Excess of zeal frequently led him into mistakes. He stared straight before him, and modestly edged away in the direction of the door, so as to be out of reach both of the Doctor’s fist, the weight of which he knew already, and the lady’s nails.

The poor woman’s face fell, and real tears crowded into her eyes. Now the Doctor was a man who could not bear the sight of a woman crying, so he hastened to soothe her.

“Your case, madam,” he said, “hath awakened my commiseration. I have sent for you to know whether, should Roger be able to find a suitable husband, you would be willing to take him.”

“O Doctor!” she sobbed; “best of men! If only you can find me a husband, I should be grateful to the end of my days. I would marry any one—any one—even Roger.”

Roger swiftly vanished through the door.

“He may be as old as Methusalem, and as ugly as a foreign Frenchman, but I would marry him—to take my place in the prison and go free once more.”

“Roger,” said the Doctor, “is a great match-maker. He hath persuaded many couples into this room that never thought, when they went out to take the air and see the shops, of coming here. See, now, would the skipper of a merchantman serve your turn?”

“Doctor, I love a sailor. They make confiding husbands, and they bring home money.”

“Once married, you are free. And then your creditors would have to catch your husband, who, if he is the handy tarpaulin that deserves you, will show them a clean pair of heels off the Nore. Madam, I will do my best. Meanwhile, perhaps a guinea would be of use to you.”

She cried in earnest as she took it.

“O Doctor! the debts are not much altogether; a poor two hundred pounds. And a man may always be happy in the prison. There are skittles and beer. But a woman never can. And I would go to see him sometimes—say twice a year.”

She went away weeping. But she stopped when she saw Roger outside the door, and held a few minutes’ eager conversation with him before she returned to her prison. Perhaps he found some simple country lad or sailor who was beguiled into marrying her, only to take upon him her debts, and to lie within four walls instead of her. But indeed I know not.

We had finished our breakfast and were tidying the room: my thoughts were full of the country that morning, because I had dreamed of the old place and the garden with its yellow leaves, the trailing cobwebs, banks covered with branches of mignonette, nasturtium eight feet long, pinks now mostly over, bending their faded heads, and the larkspur, foxglove, Venus’s looking-glass, bachelors’ buttons, mournful widow, boys’ love, stocks, their glory over now, their leaves withering and all run to seed. I was talking about these sweet things with my ladies, when I heard the Doctor’s voice at the bottom of the stairs, bidding me quickly take my hat and hood and run down to him, for that he needed me for half an hour.

I obeyed, little thinking what was to follow. He said nothing, but, by a gesture, bade me follow him.

When we came to his house, Roger and William, his two runners, were waiting outside the door, and the room was set out in the usual fashion, in readiness for any who might chance to call.

“You,” said the Doctor to the men, “wait outside until I call you. Stay, fetch a quart of ale at once.”

The ale brought, the men retired and shut the door.

“Kitty,” said my uncle, “I have long intended to bestow upon thee the greatest good fortune which it is in my power to procure. Thou art a good girl: thou art my sister’s child: thou hast shown a spirit of obedience. I have reflected that it is not well for thee to remain much longer in the Rules, and the only way to provide thee with a home elsewhere, is to provide thee with a husband.”

“But, sir,” I said, beginning to be extremely terrified, “I do not want a husband.”

“So say all young maids. We, child, know what is best for them. I could have found thee a husband among my friends. Sir Miles Lackington, indeed, spoke to me concerning the matter; he is a baronet. The Lackingtons are an old family; but he hath squandered his fortune, and I cannot learn that any more money will come to him. Besides, he drinks more than is befitting even in a gentleman of title.”

“Oh, sir!” I cried, “not Sir Miles.”

“No, Kitty”—the Doctor smiled benevolently upon me—“I regard thy happiness first. No drunkard shall marry my niece. Mr. Stallabras hath also opened his mind upon thee; he is an ingenious man, with a pretty wit, and if verses were guineas, would be a great catch for thee. But alas! he hath no money, so I dismissed him.”

Poor Solomon! That, then, was the reason of a late melancholy which we had remarked in him. Mrs. Esther took it as caused by the wrestling of genius, and said that the soul within him was too great for the bodily strength.

“But, Kitty,” here the Doctor beamed upon me like the sun in splendour, “I have here—yea, even in this house, the husband of my choice, the man who will make thee happy. Start not—it is resolved. Child, obey me.”

I declare that I was so terrified by the Doctor’s words, so amazed by his announcement, so spellbound by his words and manner, that I did not dare resist. Had he told me that I was to be hanged, I could not have made an effort to save myself.

“Obey me,” he repeated, bending his eyebrows, and looking upon me no longer as a sun in splendour, but as an angry judge might look upon a criminal. “Stand here—so—do not move; keep thy face covered with thy hood, all but thine eyes. Give me your hand when I ask it, and be silent, save when I bid thee speak. Be not afraid, girl; I do this for thine own good. I give thee a gentleman for thy husband. Thou shalt not leave this place yet awhile, but needs must that thou be married. I return in five minutes.”

He took the jug of beer and climbed the stairs. I meanwhile stood where he had placed me, my hood over my head, in the most dreadful terror that ever assailed the heart of any girl.

Upstairs the Doctor awakened Lord Chudleigh with some difficulty. He sat up on the bed and looked round him, wondering where he was.

“I know now,” he murmured, “you are Doctor Shovel, and this is——”

“Your lordship is in the Liberties of the Fleet.”

“My head is like a lump of lead,” said the young man.

“Your lordship was very merry last night, as, indeed, befits the happy occasion.”

“Was I merry? Indeed, I think I was very drunk. What occasion?”

“Drink a little small ale,” said the Doctor; “it will revive you.”

He took a long drink of the beer, and tried to stand.

“So,” he said, “I am better already; but my head reels, Doctor, and my legs are unsteady. It serves me right. It is the first time, and it shall be the last.”

“I hope so, since your lordship is about to undertake so important a charge.”

“What charge?” asked Lord Chudleigh, still dazed and unsteady.

“Is it possible that your lordship hath forgotten your mistress of whom you would still be talking last night? ‘The sweetest girl in England—the prettiest girl in all the world—the fairest, kindest nymph’—I quote your lordship.”

Lord Chudleigh stared in amazement.

“The sweetest girl?—what girl?”

“Oh, your lordship is pleased to jest with me.”

“I remember you, Doctor Shovel, whom I came to see last night with Sir Miles Lackington; I remember the punch and the songs; but I remember nothing about any girl.”

“Why, she is downstairs now, waiting for your lordship. You will come downstairs and keep your appointment.”

He spoke in a peremptory manner, as if ordering and expecting obedience.

“My appointment? Have I gone mad? It is this cursed punch of yours. My appointment?”

The Doctor gave him his coat and wig, and helped him to put them on.

“I attend your lordship. She is downstairs. Take a little more ale to clear your head: you will remember then.”

The young man drank again. The beer mounted to his brain, I suppose, because he laughed and straightened himself.

“Why, I am a man again. An appointment? No, Doctor, hang me if all the beer in your cellar will make me remember any appointment! Where is Sir Miles? He might tell me something about it. Curse all punch, I say. Yet, if the lady be downstairs, as you say, I suppose I must have made some sort of appointment. Let me see her, at any rate. It will be easy to—to——” here he reeled, and caught hold of the Doctor’s hand.

What a crime! What a terrible wicked thing was this which we did—my uncle and I! I heard the steps on the stairs; I might have run away; the door was before me; but I was afraid. Yes, I was afraid. My uncle had made me fear him more than I feared the laws of my God; or, since that is hardly true, he made me fear him so much that I forgot the laws of my God, I did not run away, but I waited with a dreadful fluttering of my heart.

I held my hood, drawn over my head, with my left hand, so that only my eyes were visible, and so I kept it all the time.

I saw in the door the most splendid young man I had ever seen; he was richly dressed, though his coat and ruffles showed some disorder, in crimson coat and sash, with flowered silk waistcoat, and sword whose hilt gleamed with jewels. His cheek was flushed and his eyes had a fixed and glassy look; the Doctor led him, or rather half supported him. Was this young man to be my husband?

Roger must have been watching outside, for now he came in and locked the door behind him. Then he drew out his greasy Prayer-book, standing by his lordship, ready to support him if necessary.

“So,” he said, “this is the sweetest girl in all England—hang me if I remember! Look up, my girl: let me see thy face. How can I tell unless I see thy face?”

“Silence!” said the Doctor in a voice of command.

I know not what strange power he possessed, but at the sound of his voice the young man became suddenly silent and looked about the room, as if wondering. For myself, I knew that I was to be married to him; but why? what did it mean?

The Doctor had begun the service. My bridegroom seemed to understand nothing, looking stupidly before him.

Roger read the responses.

The Doctor did not hurry; he read the exhortation, the prayers, the Psalms, through slowly and with reverence; other Fleet parsons scrambled through the service; the Doctor alone knew what was due to the Church; he read the service as a clergyman who respects the service ought to read.

“Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife?”

The man Roger gave the dazed bridegroom a jog in the ribs.

“Say ‘I will,’” he whispered loudly.

“I will,” said the young man.

“Wilt thou,” the Doctor turned to me, “have this man to thy wedded husband?”

Roger nodded to me. “Say ‘I will,’” he admonished me.

I obeyed; yet I knew not what I said, so frightened was I.

“Who giveth,” the Doctor went on, “this woman to be married to this man?”

The dirty, battered rogue, the clerk, took my hand and laid it in that of the Doctor. I was given away by the villain Roger. Then the service went on.

“With this ring”—the man’s hand was holding mine, and it was dry and hot; his face was red and his eyes were staring—“with this ring I thee wed; with my body I thee worship; with all my worldly goods I thee endow.”

Consider—pray consider—that when I took part in this great wickedness, I was but a young girl, not yet seventeen years old; that the thing came upon me so suddenly that I had not the sense to remember what it meant; that my uncle was a man of whom any girl would have been afraid. Yet I knew that I ought to have fled.

When my bridegroom held my hand in his I observed that it was hot and trembling; his eyes did not meet mine; he gazed upon the Doctor as if asking what all this meant. I took him, in my innocence, for a madman, and wondered all the more what this freak of the Doctor’s could mean.

For ring, the Doctor drew from his guest’s little finger a diamond ring, which was full large for my third finger.

When the service was finished, bride and bridegroom stood stupidly staring at each other (only that still I wore my hood drawn over my face), while Roger placed upon the table a great volume bound in parchment with brass clasps.

“This, my lord, is our Register,” said the Doctor, opening it at a clean page. “Sign there, if you please, in your usual hand. I will fill in the page afterwards.”

He took the pen and signed, still looking with wondering eyes.

“Now, child,” said the Doctor, “do you sign here, after your husband. The certificate you shall have later. For the present, I will take care of it. Other practitioners of the Fleet, my lord,” he said, with professional pride, as he looked at his great volume, “would enter your name in a greasy pocket-book and give your wife a certificate on unstamped paper. Here you have a register fit for a cathedral, and a certificate stamped with no less illustrious a name than the Archbishop of Canterbury. Your lordship hath signed your name in a steady and workmanlike fashion, so that none henceforth shall be able to malign your conduct on this day; they shall not say that you were terrified, or bribed, or were in a state of liquor on the day of your marriage; all is free and above suspicion. I congratulate your lordship on this auspicious occasion. Roger, your mark here as witness. So. It is customary, my lord, to present the officiating clergyman, myself, with a fee, from a guinea upwards, proportionate to the rank and station of the happy bridegroom. From your lordship will I take nothing for myself; for the witness I will take a guinea.”

Here the bridegroom pulled out his purse and threw it on the table. He spoke not a word, however; I think his brain was wandering, and he knew not what he did. Yet he obeyed the voice of the Doctor, and fell into the trap that was set for him, like a silly bird allured by the whistle of the fowler. I am certain that he knew not what he did.

The Doctor pulled one guinea from the purse, and handed it back to the owner.

“Roger,” he said, “go drink his lordship’s health; and hark ye—silence. If I hear that you have told of this morning’s doings, it shall be the worst day in all your life. I threaten not in vain. Go!”

Then the Doctor took up the tankard of ale which stood in the window-seat.

“Your health, my lord;” he drank a little and passed it to his lordship, who drained it; and then, with a strange, wild look, he reeled to the Doctor’s arm-chair and instantly fell fast asleep.

“Your husband is not a drunkard, Kitty, though this morning he appears in that light.”

“But am I married?” I asked.

“You are really married. You are no longer Kitty Pleydell; you are Catherine, Lady Chudleigh. I wish your ladyship joy.”

I stared at him.

“But he does not know me; he never saw me,” I remonstrated.

“That he does not know you yet is very true,” replied the Doctor. “When the fitting time comes for him to know you, be sure that I will remind him. For the present he shall not know whom he has married.

“I perceive,” he went on, seeing that I made no reply, “that thou art a good and obedient child. Ask no questions of me. Say not one word to any one of this day’s work. Be silent, and thou shalt have thy reward. Remember—be silent. Now go, child. Go, Lady Chudleigh.”