In view of the island of Madeira, Jenny noticed that some trouble had come upon Dr. Shrapnel and Beauchamp, both of whom had been hilarious during the gales; but sailing into Summer they began to wear that look which indicated one of their serious deliberations.  She was not taken into their confidence, and after awhile they recovered partially.

The truth was, they had been forced back upon old English ground by a recognition of the absolute necessity, for her sake, of handing themselves over to a parson.  In England, possibly, a civil marriage might have been proposed to the poor girl.  In a foreign island, they would be driven not simply to accept the services of a parson, but to seek him and solicit him:  otherwise the knot, faster than any sailor’s in binding, could not be tied.  Decidedly it could not; and how submit?  Neither Dr. Shrapnel nor Beauchamp were of a temper to deceive the clerical gentleman; only they had to think of Jenny’s feelings.  Alas for us!—­this our awful baggage in the rear of humanity, these women who have not moved on their own feet one step since the primal mother taught them to suckle, are perpetually pulling us backward on the march.  Slaves of custom, forms, shows and superstitions, they are slaves of the priests.  ‘They are so in gratitude perchance, as the matter works,’ Dr. Shrapnel admitted.  For at one period the priests did cherish and protect the weak from animal man.  But we have entered a broader daylight now, when the sun of high heaven has crowned our structure with the flower of brain, like him to scatter mists, and penetrate darkness, and shoot from end to end of earth; and must we still be grinning subserviently to ancient usages and stale forms, because of a baggage that it is, woe to us! too true, we cannot cut ourselves loose from?  Lydiard might say we are compelling the priests to fight, and that they are compact foemen, not always passive.  Battle, then!—­The cry was valiant.  Nevertheless, Jenny would certainly insist upon the presence of a parson, in spite of her bridegroom’s ‘natural repugnance.’  Dr. Shrapnel offered to argue it with her, being of opinion that a British consul could satisfactorily perform the ceremony.  Beauchamp knew her too well.  Moreover, though tongue-tied as to love-making, he was in a hurry to be married.  Jenny’s eyes were lovely, her smiles were soft; the fair promise of her was in bloom on her face and figure.  He could not wait; he must off to the parson.

Then came the question as to whether honesty and honour did not impose it on them to deal openly with that gentle, and on such occasions unobtrusive official, by means of a candid statement to him overnight, to the effect that they were the avowed antagonists of his Church, which would put him on his defence, and lead to an argument that would accomplish his overthrow.  You parsons, whose cause is good, marshal out the poor of the land, that we may see the sort of army your stewardship has gained for you.  What! no army? only women and hoary men?  And in the rear rank, to support you as an institution, none but fanatics, cowards, white-eyeballed dogmatists, timeservers, money-changers, mockers in their sleeves?  What is this?