to the language of a judicial authority. Lord Deas delivered a recent
judgment of marriage in Scotland, from the bench, in these words:
'Consent makes marriage. No form or ceremony, civil or religious; no
notice before, or publication after; no cohabitation, no writing, no
witnesses even, are essential to the constitution of this, the most
important contract which two persons can enter into.'--There is a Scotch
judge's own statement of the law that he administers! Observe, at the
same time, if you please, that we make full legal provision in Scotland
for contracts affecting the sale of houses and lands, horses and dogs.
The only contract which we leave without safeguards or precautions of
any sort is the contract that unites a man and a woman for life. As
for the authority of parents, and the innocence of children, our law
recognizes no claim on it either in the one case or in the other. A
girl of twelve and a boy of fourteen have nothing to do but to cross the
Border, and to be married--without the interposition of the slightest
delay or restraint, and without the slightest attempt to inform their
parents on the part of the Scotch law. As to the marriages of men and
women, even the mere interchange of consent which, as you have just
heard, makes them man and wife, is not required to be directly proved:
it may be proved by inference. And, more even than that, whatever the
law for its consistency may presume, men and women are, in point of
fact, held to be married in Scotland where consent has never been
interchanged, and where the parties do not even know that they are
legally held to be married persons. Are you sufficiently confused about
the law of Irregular Marriages in Scotland by this time, Mr. Delamayn?
And have I said enough to justify the strong language I used when I
undertook to describe it to you?"

"Who's that 'authority' you talked of just now?" inquired Geoffrey.
"Couldn't I ask _him?_"