getting rid of fifteen good annual customers—­it was agreed, then, and arranged that the morrow should be a public holiday.  All Sir John’s own tenantry, as well as Squire Ryle’s, and some of other neighbouring magnates, were to have a day’s wages without work, on the easy conditions of attending the procession in their smartest trim, and of banqueting at Hurstley afterwards.  So, then, the town-band was ordered to be in attendance next morning by eleven at the Swan, a lot of old election colours were shaken from their dust and cobwebs, the bell-ringers engaged, vasty preparations of ale and beef made at Hurstley Hall—­an ox to be roasted whole upon the terrace, and a plum-pudding already in the cauldron of two good yards in circumference—­and all that every body hoped for that night, was a fine May-day to-morrow.

CHAPTER LII.

ROGER AT THE SWAN.

MEANWHILE, eventide came on:  the crowd of kindly gentle-folks had gone their several ways; and Roger Acton found himself (through Sir John’s largess) at free quarters in the parlour of the Swan, with Grace by his side, and many of his mates in toil and station round him.

“Grace,” said her father on a sudden, “Grace—­my dear child—­come hither.”  She stood in all her loveliness before him.  Then he took her hand, looked up at her affectionately, and leaned back in the old oak chair.

“Hear me, mates and neighbours; to my own girl, Grace, under God, I owe my poor soul’s welfare.  I have nothing, would I had, to give her in return:”  and the old man (he looked ten years older for his six weeks, luck, and care, and trouble)—­the old man could not get on at all with what he had to say—­something stuck in his throat—­but he recovered, and added cheerily, with an abrupt and rustic archness, “I don’t know, mates, whether after all I can’t give the good girl something:  I can give her—­away!  Come hither, Jonathan Floyd; you are a noble fellow, that stood by us in adversity, and are almost worthy of my angel Grace.”  And he joined their hands.

“Give us thy blessing too, dear father!”

They kneeled at his feet on the sanded floor, in the midst of their kinsfolk and acquaintance, and he, stretching forth his hands like a patriarch, looked piously up to heaven, and blessed them there.

“Grace,” he added, “and Jonathan my son, I need not part with you—­I could not.  I have heard great tidings.  To-morrow you shall know how kind and good Sir John is:  God bless him! and send poor England’s children of the soil many masters like him.