Now it happened that the nearest priest in our part of the country
lived a long distance away, and to get to him and his little thatched
chapel one had to cross a swamp two miles wide in which one's horse
would sink belly-deep in miry holes at least a dozen times before one
could get through. In these circumstances the Gandara family could not
go to the priest, but managed to persuade him to come to them, and as
La Tapera was not considered a good enough place in which to hold so
important a ceremony, my parents invited them to have the marriage in
our house. The priest arrived on horseback about noon on a sultry day,
hot and tired and well splashed with dried mud, and in a rather bad
temper. It must also have gone against him to unite these young people
in the house of heretics who were doomed to a dreadful future after
their rebellious lives had ended. However, he got through with the
business, and presently recovered his good temper and grew quite
genial and talkative when he was led into the dining-room and found a
grand wedding-breakfast with wine in plenty on the table. During the
breakfast I looked often and long at the faces of the newly-married
pair, and pitied our nice gentle Demetria, and wished she had not
given herself to that man. He was not a bad-looking young man and was
well-dressed in the gaucho costume, but he was strangely silent and
ill at ease the whole time and did not win our regard.
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