‘And you shall,’ said he, drawing forth a long document from a pocket in his cassock. ‘Here it is.’ He handed me the paper, of which the following is a transcript:-- NOCES DE MI LORD O’LEARY ET MADEMOISELLE MI LADY DE MUDDLETON. FRANCS. Two conversations--preliminary, admonitory, and consolatory 10 0 Advice to the young couple, with moral maxims interspersed 3 0 Soirée, and society at wine 5 0 Guide to the château, with details, artistic and antiquarian 12 0 Eight children with flowers, at half a franc each 4 0 Fees at the château 2 0 Chorus of virgins, at one franc per virgin 10 0 Roses for virgins 2 10 M. le Maire et Madame ‘en grande tenue’ 1 0 Book of Registry, setting forth the date of the marriage----- ‘The devil take it!’ said I; ‘it was no marriage at all.’ ‘Yes, but it was, though,’ said he. ‘It’s your own fault if you can’t take care of your wife.’ The noise of his reply brought the host and hostess to the scene of action; and though I resisted manfully for a time, there was no use in prolonging a hopeless contest, and, with a melancholy sigh, I disbursed my wedding expenses, and with a hearty malediction on Bouvigne--its château, its inn, its _père_, its _maire_, and its virgins--I took the road towards Namur, and never lifted my head till I had left the place miles behind me. CHAPTER XVI. A MOUNTAIN ADVENTURE It was growing late on a fine evening in autumn, as I, a solitary pedestrian, drew near the little town of Spa. From the time of my leaving Chaude Fontaine, I lingered along the road, enjoying to the utmost the beautiful valley of the Vesdre, and sometimes half hesitating whether I would not loiter away some days in one of the little villages I passed, and see if the trout, whose circling eddies marked the stream, might not rise as favourably to my fly as to the vagrant insect that now flitted across the water. In good sooth I wished for rest, and I wished for solitude; too much of my life latterly had been passed in salons and soirées; the peaceful habit of my soul, the fruit of my own lonely hours, had suffered grievous inroads by my partnership with the world, and I deemed it essential to be once more apart from the jarring influences and distracting casualties which every step in life is beset by, were it only to recover again my habitual tranquillity--to refit the craft ere she took the sea once more.