Confessions of Aleister Crowley

218 I went to the local authorities about the practical programme; but they were like Ball on a celebrated occasion. The only available deity was the parish sexton; and, after all, could anything have been more appropriate? He told me that I could have the banns published and get married in three weeks. That wouldn't do at all; it would give Howell time to arrive from America and put pressure on the Kellys. I asked him if there was not some less drawn-out form of execution. "Well," he said, after scratching his head, "you can be expoased on a bnoorrrd along o' yer young 'ooman for a week." Not in vain had I been studying The Golden Bough, but I had no idea that these obscene forms of torture still lingered --- even in the Scottish Highlands. "Come, come," I said, "There must be a simpler and quicker way to get married than that." Surely, I said to myself, all that stuff about Gretna Green must have some basis in fact. He shook his head sorrowfully, a discomfortable which I checked by slipping him a half-crown. He then admitted {364} that it was only necessary to go to the sheriff of the county and declare the intention to get married, in which case the marriage would take place there and then. "There and then?" I echoed in a hollow voice, for I had the instinctive feeling natural to a young man, that he is somehow or other putting his foot in it, that he is invoking unknown gods. "Then and there," he answered heavily and the syllables fell as if he had been throwing the sods upon my coffin. Armed with this satisfactory information, I returned to the hotel and had a short conference with my betrothed. We were to get up in time to catch the first train to Dingwall, call on the sheriff and get it over before breakfast. We carried out this design. We had to go quietly for fear of awakening Gerald. The idea was that he might interfere, though I had no reason for supposing that he would do so. But apparently she had. {365} 46 So we stole out in the dim grey of the morning. I remember her furtive passage under his window, and how I murmured Wake Duncan with thy knocking? ....I would thou could'st recalling --- too late! --- the theatrical superstition that it is very unlucky to quote Macbeth at the beginning of an enterprise. We jogged along in the little train in a state of curious constraint. Of course our relations "were" rather peculiar, when all was said and done. Anyhow, there was nothing to say. Rose was a charming woman, but far from an intellectual companion. Her brother's friends being for the most part addicted to art or literature, it was her custom to carry a volume of Browning in her dressing- case, and she would ask people to fetch it for her, which impressed them. She didn't have to read it. Again, whenever a conversation flagged, she would remark thoughtfully: Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art! "Twas all she knew. However, I wasn't going to have to live with her. All I had to do was to emancipate her. So there was no reason for trying to talk to her. We reached Dingwall in the clod damp dawn; we disinterred the sheriff's address from a sleepy policeman and arrived at his house only to be told by a dishevelled maid that we couldn't get at him till eight or nine or ten o'clock. I was piqued. The hint of obstacles roused me. I wasn't going to elope, whatever my reasons might be, and make a mess of it. I demanded the address of a lawyer and excavated him. He promised to be at his office at eight o'clock. With that we had to be content. There was no reason for apprehension. It wasn't likely that our disappearance would be