“These notes will make sure. Give one
to the farmer, and one to Ruby, as they stand by the
chancel rails. But mainly it rests with you.
Take no denial. Say you’ve come to make
her your wife, and won’t leave the church till
you’ve done it. She’s still the same
woman as when she threw you over. Ah, sir, we
men change our natures; but woman is always Eve.
I suppose you know a short cut to the church?
Very well. I shall take your cart and mare,
and drive to meet the press-gang, who won’t
be in the sweetest of tempers just now. Come,
what are you waiting for? You’re ten minutes
late as it is, and you can’t be married after
noon.”
“Sir,” said Zeb, with a white face; “it’s
a liberty, but will ’ee let me shake your hand?”
“I’ll be cursed if I do. But I’ll
wish you good luck and a hard heart, and maybe ye’ll
thank me some day.”
So Zeb, with a sob, turned and ran from him out of
the fosse and towards a gap in the hedge, where lay
a short cut through the fields. In the gap he
turned and looked back. The stranger stood on
the lip of the fosse, and waved a hand to him to hurry.
[1] Camp.
THE THIRD SHIP.
We return to Ruan church, whence this history started.
The parson was there in his surplice, by the altar;
the bride was there in her white frock, by the chancel
rails; her father, by her side, was looking at his
watch; and the parishioners thronged the nave, shuffling
their feet and loudly speculating. For the bridegroom
had not appeared.
Ruby’s face was white as her frock. Parson
Babbage kept picking up the heavy Prayer-book, opening
it, and laying it down impatiently. Occasionally,
as one of the congregation scraped an impatient foot,
a metallic sound made itself heard, and the buzz of
conversation would sink for a moment, as if by magic.
For beneath the seats, and behind the women’s
gowns, the whole pavement of the church was covered
with a fairly representative collection of cast-off
kitchen utensils—old kettles, broken cake-tins,
frying-pans, saucepans—all calculated to
emit dismal sounds under percussion. Scattered
among these were ox-bells, rook-rattles, a fog-horn
or two, and a tin trumpet from Liskeard fair.
Explanation is simple: the outraged feelings
of the parish were to be avenged by a shal-lal as
bride and bridegroom left the church. Ruby knew
nothing of the storm brewing for her, but Mary Jane,
whose ears had been twice boxed that morning, had
heard a whisper of it on her way down to the church,
and was confirmed in her fears by observing the few
members of the congregation who entered after her.
Men and women alike suffered from an unwonted corpulence
and tightness of raiment that morning, and each and
all seemed to have cast the affliction off as they
arose from their knees. It was too late to interfere,
so she sat still and trembled.
