" For a minute he stopped, coughed, spat and then added: "Mr.
Mullen tied 'em up tight all by heart, without so much as glancin' at
the book. Ah, that young parson may have his faults, an' be unsound on
the doctrine of baptism, but he can lay on matrimony with as pious an
air as if he was conductin' a funeral."
He fell back as Gay nodded pleasantly, and the wheels grated over
the rocky ground by the well. With a slow flick on the long whip, the
carriage crossed the three roads and rolled rapidly into the turnpike.
And while she gazed straight ahead into the flat distance, Molly was
thinking, "All this has happened because I went down the Haunt's Walk
that April afternoon and not over the east meadow."
CHAPTER VII
A NEW BEGINNING TO AN OLD TRAGEDY
The wedding was over. Mr. Mullen had read the service in his melodious
voice, gazing straight over the Prayer-book as though he saw a vision in
the sunbeam above Judy's head. On that solitary occasion his soul, which
revolted from what he described in secret as the "Methodistical low
church atmosphere" of his parish, had adorned the simple word with the
facial solemnity that accompanies an elaborate ritual.
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