A QUAKER WEDDING, AND ANOTHER WEDDING.
“Well, Frank Leroy is not only back again,” said Thorsby, at the
Grange on Sunday after the trial of Hopcraft, “but he is amazing
jolly. I think some little bird must have whistled to him out in
India there, and sent him home so nimbly; don’t you think so, Letty?”
“Likelier things have happened,” said Letty, with a merry smile in
her eyes.
“And unlikelier too,” added Thorsby. “Frank has taken the very
largest and handsomest house in the Park, too, with a charming large
garden and pleasure-grounds running down to the little river, and
looking across to Rockville; and, really, I could fancy we could see
it from here. What does that mean, Letty? Do young bachelors require
now-a-days such great houses?”
Letty laughed. “Young men are rather ambitious now-a-days, it must be
confessed. Perhaps Dr. Leroy thinks he will secure thy little bird,
which lured him back, in a fine cage before long.”
“That is just what I was thinking,” said Thorsby; “and somehow I have
been continually meeting Mrs. Heritage and Millicent going about the
town amongst the shops, and Millicent looks as spry as ever,—quite
killing with those dark eyes and eyelashes of hers. It is really
delightful.”
“They are buying up remnants and bargains, I dare say,” said Letty,
archly, “for making up for the poor against winter.”
“I dare say,” said Thorsby. “However, I am charmed above everything
to have Frank back.”
“He must be astonished,” said Mr. Woodburn, “at the exact truth of
his dream. I shall be for ever obliged to him for the effect of it.”
“Oh,” said Thorsby, “you should have seen him blush the other day in
court, where we were sitting together, when the judge began asking
about it. And when he asked whether the gentleman was called Bunyan!
Frank is rather afraid that _sobriquet_ may stick to him; but no
matter, I can see he will have his consolations. I don’t know when I
have enjoyed myself so much as the other evening when, after dinner
with us, he, I, and Letty put our feet on the fender, and got into a
great talk on old times. The doctor gave us some touches out of his
apprentice days, that were regular fun. You know that great fellow,
Surgeon Green, who rides this way sometimes on a great dark bay
horse. Frank was apprentice to him, and of all the precious cowards,
he is the primest. One night, Frank said he came to his chamber-door,
and said in a whisper, ‘Get up, Frank, directly; there are thieves
in the house! they are in the garret—come in through the skylight, no
doubt. Up in a minute!’ Frank tumbled out all in a tremble, got his
clothes on in the dark, after putting his arm first into one pocket
and then into another, instead of into the sleeves, shaking all over
like a man with an ague. When he got into the passage, there stood
Green, and said, in a scared whisper, ‘Hark! they are in the garret
amongst the bottles!’—(they kept all their stock of physic-bottles
there)—‘Don’t you hear them? There! down goes a lot more! Run up,
Frank, and see how many of them there are.’
“‘No, sir,’ said Frank, ‘you had better go. They would not make a
mouthful of me; but you’re so strong.’
“‘No,’ said Green, ‘go this instant, and I’ll stop them here if they
offer to come down.’
“He struck a light, and gave Frank a candle, and said, ‘Just look
in, and see who is there, and then lock the door outside, if you can.’
“Frank went trembling up; the candle wagged about in his hand as if
he had been switching about a whip. His heart was in his mouth every
time he heard a fresh crash amongst the bottles. At length, he was at
the door, but he was too much afraid to open it. ‘Quick! Quick!’ said
his master from below, in a wild, loud whisper. Frank pushed open the
door. Out went his candle with a strong wind, but not before he saw
the cause of all the alarm—their great tom-cat, who had been shut up
in the room, and was trying to find a way out, dart out of the door,
and down the stairs.
“‘There! he is coming!’ shouted Frank, and the next moment he heard
Dr. Green’s chamber-door slammed to, and the key turned inside. Frank
sat down on the top step of the stairs, and laughed outrageously.”
“What a coward must that Green be!” said Mr. Woodburn.
“Another time, Green called up Frank, and said he was sure thieves
were not only in the house this time, but they were murdering the old
cook; he could hear her groans. ‘Run, then!’ said Frank; ‘my dear
sir, don’t let her be murdered!’
“‘No,’ said Green, ‘do you run up, Frank. You’re much less than I am.
If they fired at me, they could not possibly miss me. There, run up,
there’s a good fellow. And here’s a pistol for you. Shoot the first
rogue you see, without mercy.’
“He thrust a pistol into Frank’s trembling hand, and pushed him
up-stairs. This time it appeared really awful. At the next floor he
distinctly heard frightful groans from the cook’s chamber. The door
stood partly open, and, by the dim light from a window beyond her
bed, he could see something moving to and fro near the bed. ‘They are
murdering the old woman, and no mistake!’ said Frank to himself; and
in a voice so strange with fear that it doubly frightened him to hear
it, he cried out, ‘Who are you, there?’
“A shriek from the cook made the blood run through him with an icy
shiver, and a start.
“‘What is it?’ cried Frank.
“‘O Lor’, sir,’ said the cook, in a tone of terror, ‘it is only
me, sir! I have such a nasty pain in my—my—stomach, and I’ve been
downstairs for a little peppermint-water.’
“‘But what are you doing out of bed now, with a pain in your stomach?
That will only make it worse,’ said Frank.
“‘Oh, Mr. Frank!’ said the cook, ‘I am only holding on to the
bed-post a little, to help me to abide the pain.’
“‘I’ll fetch you something,’ said Frank; but, first of all, he
shouted downstairs to his master. ‘Come hither, directly, master,
for I think it’s all up with the cook.’ Whereupon Green, as he
expected, banged to his chamber-door, and locked it inside, to
Frank’s infinite delight. Presently Frank came up with a good dose of
compound tincture of cardamoms for the cook, which soon set her all
right; and he tumbled into his bed again, to laugh himself asleep.”
“What an arrant coward,” said Mr. Woodburn again, “is that Green!”
“When Frank was nearly out of his time,” Thorsby went on, “Green’s
brother—a doctor in a country place in Yorkshire—wanted to go to the
sea-side for a month. And then, the country people being too busy
with their harvests to be sick, he got this valiant Mr. Green of ours
to send Frank Leroy to look after any casual patient that should turn
up. Frank enjoyed it wonderfully. It was a very fine country, and
he had a good horse to ride, and it was quite a treat for him to go
cantering about amongst the jolly farmers there.
“One day he was sent for to a farm-house, to see some one, and
said he would make up the physic, and they could send a boy for it.
He made it up, and set it in the surgery properly addressed. The
boy came when he was just gone into a neighbour’s, and the servant
sent the lad into the surgery to wait for him. When he came home,
soon after, the servant said the boy had bolted out of the house
as if his head was on fire, and gone away without the medicine.
Frank was a little astonished; but on looking round the surgery, he
soon perceived the cause. The lad, with a lad’s curiosity, had been
looking into things; and, amongst others, had opened a cupboard-door
where hung a skeleton. He had evidently had such a fright, that he
did not stop to shut the door again, or the door of the surgery, or
of the house after him. The medicine had to be sent.
“A day or two after, as Frank was riding towards the farm to see his
patient again, in a deep, narrow lane, he met the boy coming towards
him. Now, he thought, I shall hear all about it. But he was mistaken;
for the moment the lad recognised the tall, slender figure of the
young doctor, he scrambled up the lofty bank, like a cat or a monkey,
and bolted through the hedge into the field above.
“‘Hillo, hillo, there, boy!’ cried Frank, ‘I want to speak to you.’
“‘Nay, nay,’ cried the boy, ‘I’ll na come near thee. I knaw thee,
I knaw thee! though thou’s got thy claiths on. I seed thee i’ th’
cupboard!’”
After a hearty laugh of the whole company, Thorsby said, “Well, take
my word for it, the man who tells such stories, and enjoys them, is
no despairing swain.”
“Not a bit of it,” said George Woodburn.
One fine May morning that spring, the sun was shining over the dewy
landscape as genially as it used to shine before the dark days fell
on Woodburn Grange. The larks were caroling as high and inspiringly
in the blue air. The young corn was growing as greenly, and the
weeders were in the midst of it with their spuds, rooting up the
thistles, and with their hands pulling the bright yellow charlock out
of it. From tree to tree rung the notes of the thrush and blackbird,
and the cuckoo shouted her musical, quaint monotone from the new
amber-coloured foliage of the spreading oak. The brooks rippled and
tinkled so sweetly down the shadowy glens to the river, and the river
glid along as fair and as peacefully as if it had never seen a winter
or a crime. There was a glow of flowers along the luxuriant hedge-row
banks. There was a golden fire of flowers all over the pastures, and
a spirit of tranquil joy lay over all the scene, the outward image
of the peace and joy which had once more returned to that pleasant
neighbourhood.
All at once the bells of Hillmartin burst out with a merry peal, as
if they had caught the contagion of happy nature, and sent their
musical cadences over wood and valley, giving them the voice of
delight, which seemed only wanting to communicate their full tide
of new-born pleasure to the hearts of men. The next instant, the
three old jangling bells of Cotmanhaye broke out into the best music
that they could make, which was but indifferent, but yet had a note
of gladness in it, like the voice of some uncouth labourer, whom
nature never meant for a musician, but who goes homeward over the
dusky slopes of evening, chanting discordantly some rude country
song,—there was a happy heart in its limping clangour, which made
it welcome. The discord mingling with the harmony of the bells of
Hillmartin was toned down into a symphony which was familiar to the
ears of the people of the neighbourhood, who knew that it meant, at
least, rejoicing. At once the weeders in the corn, and the cottagers
in the villages of Hillmartin and Woodburn, stood still, and said,
“What is that for?” And presently, from one quarter or another came
the answer, “It is a peal of welcome for Mr. George Woodburn, who
last night brought home his wife to Bilts’ Farm.”
“Wife to Bilts’ Farm! Why, what wife?”
“Why, Miss Drury, to be sure!” was the answer of women’s unerring
instincts. “Who else should it be?”
“And all forgotten and forgiven?” said the simple people,
thoughtfully.
“There was nothing to forgive,” said one clear-headed village woman.
“But there are things, no doubt, which can never be forgotten; and
Miss Drury must have a stout heart to come back after what has passed
here.”
“There’s that in the case,” said an old, grey-headed fellow, “that
has the stoutest heart of all—and that is, true love for a true man;
and if there be a true man, it is our sober, steady, sensible George
Woodburn. May God bless him as he deserves; and He has surely begun
it in giving him such a sweet, brave-hearted wife as Elizabeth Drury.
You may see it in her face, the very first time you look in it, that
she’s one of nature’s true women—loving, and kind, and sensible.
Thank God, for sending another such a lady here.”
The event was a holiday in Woodburn, and Hillmartin, and Cotmanhaye,
though nobody stopped their work for it; but there was a talking,
and a burst of good wishes, and a flush of pleasure in the women’s
eyes, and a bright, hearty look about the men, that showed that by
everybody’s consent George Woodburn had made the right choice.
Soon there were seen horsemen, and carriages full of ladies, driving
up towards Bilts’ Farm—Claverings and Woodburns, Heritages and
Thorsbys, Degges and Fairfaxes. Coming and going they were, and
all looking as if some good thing had happened to them all. “Who
could have thought it,” said the villagers, “only two years ago?”
Soon were seen George Woodburn and his tall, buxom, cheery-looking
wife, walking soberly down towards the Grange, and all the heads of
Woodburn Green put out to have a look after the handsome couple. And
to see Letty Thorsby spring out of the porch of the Grange, and fly
half down towards the garden-gate to meet her new sister, and such
an embracing and kissing. And then, little Leonard Thorsby, with his
flaxen locks, like a little burst of sunshine, scampering after his
mother, and snatched up and kissed, and held out at arm’s-length,
and admired, heavy as he was, by George! And then, Mr. and Mrs.
Woodburn hurrying out, and then such hugging and kissing again, and
all hurrying into the house, for George says, laughing, “Do just
look! all the Green is out watching you!” So in they pop in a crowd.
“Well!” say the villagers, “there never was a woman welcome to a
house, if that one is not.”
But in the midst of Elizabeth Woodburn’s joy, there was a dark spot
from which she shrunk, as it ever and anon came into her mind. There
was somewhere down below the Grange a dreadful place, called Wink’s
Ferry, which she and everyone wished could be obliterated from the
country. All that could be done, George Woodburn had done. He had had
put up a board by the river, with the large words WOODBURN FERRY upon
it; and all the people both there and at Rockville and at Cotmanhaye
were requested never more to utter the hateful word Wink’s. It was to
be buried in deepest oblivion, so that it should never fall like a
sudden knell on the heart of his beloved bride.
Yet mighty as is the power which says in the heart of woman, “Whither
thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy
people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest,
will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and
more also, if aught but death part thee and me,”—yet it was many a
long day, yea, long year, before Elizabeth Woodburn could descend to
the river-side below the Grange. There was a spot of horror there
that made her whole nature shrink. There was a dark shadow which hung
over that spot, which was a spectre lurking beneath the otherwise
sunny pleasantness of her fate, which she would have given some years
of her life to have banished.
Her mother remained in Yorkshire, and would never come near the fatal
neighbourhood.
But one fine summer’s evening, as Elizabeth and George were wandering
in the orchard of the Grange, Elizabeth said, with a sad seriousness,
to him, “George, I have a mind to go down to the ferry—it haunts
me continually. I cannot get rid of it. I dream of it as dark and
dreadful; and I think, if I could see it on such an evening as this,
I should be less affected by it afterwards.”
George looked anxiously at her, and then said—“My dear Elizabeth,
weigh well your strength; if you _could_ bear it, I think, too, it
might have a good effect.” He gave her his arm, and they proceeded
down the orchard; he opened the little gate, of which each member
of the family carried a key, and they passed out to the river side.
Without a word, they walked down to the ferry; a more tranquil scene
it was impossible for the human eye to look upon; the river ran
full and peacefully, gliding on, the clear gravel seen through its
translucent waters. On all sides green meadows, and peaceful banks,
overhung with the verdurous trees, the thrush and blackbird chanting
as if the whole were ground hallowed to repose, presented anything
but a revolting aspect.
Notwithstanding George saw Elizabeth’s eye run excitedly from
object to object, he knew she was calculating where everything had
occurred that she had read of. He felt her shudder by his side; and
he said,—“Let us go back, my dear Elizabeth.”
“No, no,” said she, in a voice firm, but full of deep feeling; “let
us go on, let us cross, it will do me good.” They went on, George
pulled the boat across, and Elizabeth looked around over those
expansive meadows. She then proposed to return, and in the same
silence they retraced their steps, and went up the orchard to the
summer-house in the garden. Elizabeth sat down, and looked pale and
faint.
“I will run for some wine,” said George.
“No, no wine, George; bring me Letty’s Eau-de-Cologne.”
George was quickly back. Elizabeth bathed her forehead and inhaled
the odour, and then faintly smiling, said,—“I am better, and I shall
be better; I am glad I have forced myself to cross that ferry, it
has given me a different picture in my mind. I shall gradually get to
see that only, and I shall be so much happier.”
And this eventually became the case. The ferry was not a place that
Elizabeth ever desired to see; there was indeed scarcely any reason
that she should go near it; but in her mind the horrible images of
the fatal event, as she had read them, had now been softened and
concealed, to a certain degree, by the summer evening tranquillity
which she had seen, and in the ordinary life at home, the most
painful sensations had disappeared on any mention of Woodburn Ferry.
“In a country which we both love so much,” she said to her husband,
“I would not have a single thing which can cause me a pang or a
regret.”
Not many weeks after the marriage of George Woodburn, one morning
there was grave bustle in the streets of Castleborough. The tide
was observed to be tending towards the Friends’ Meeting, and on
arriving there, a number of handsome carriages were seen drawn
up before the usually so quiet door of that simple tabernacle
of silent worshippers. On entering the somewhat large, but very
simple meeting-house, with its white-washed walls and plain deal
benches, a very different congregation to its usually grave-faced
and gravely-dressed one, was seen assembled. Every part of it was
crowded with people whose gay costume, especially those of the
ladies, made the members of the Society, who were scattered amongst
them, look but like little dottings in a lively picture. The walls
of the meeting-house were panelled with plain unpainted deal about
five feet high, and a raised seat ran along them, on which many of
the best known Friends had taken their places, intermingled with
some of the most distinguished people of the town and neighbourhood.
Along the whole front of the meeting-house ran a gallery raised some
steps above the body of the place, breasted in front by a balustered
railing. In this gallery, which was accessible from both the centre
and each end, sat conspicuous in the costliest but plainest of silks,
Mrs. Heritage, and by her side her sister-in-law, a most silential
and antique-looking personage—Dorothy Qualm, wife of that great
professor of Silence, David Qualm, whose solemn face and exactly
triangular hat were seen under this gallery on a seat fronting the
whole of the assembly. In front of this seat stood a rather large
table, with pens and ink and blotting-paper; and a vacancy was left
on the seat itself of considerable extent.
All was evidently curiosity and expectation. Never had so gay and
crowded a gathering appeared in that house, not even when the most
noted Public Friend, that is, ministering Friend, or preacher, from
London, Ireland, America, or elsewhere, had had the whole town called
together, to hear what he, or she, expected, but was not sure,
that the Spirit would give him or her to say. To-day, the brilliant
assembly appeared pretty certain of something of interest turning
up, and every time that the door behind them opened, there was a
general turning round, and often to a disappointment. At length,
however, there was certainly an unusual bustle in the lobby; the
door was opened with an air of importance by the tall, quaint figure
of William Theobold, the drab three-corner-hatted coachman of the
eccentric Mr. Barthe, dentist and wit; and in walked up the centre
aisle, if it might be so called, no other, arm in arm, than Dr.
Frank Leroy and Miss Millicent Heritage. They were followed by their
immediate relatives, and advanced and seated themselves in the centre
of the seat under the gallery facing the people. There was a general
stir and excitement amongst the whole spectator body, and many bright
smiles and knowing nods to one another amongst the ladies,—soon,
however, subsiding into a deep silence. The bride and bridegroom had
to-day conformed, in a great measure, to the costume of the Society.
Millicent was dressed in a lovely dress of richest white satin,
and a jaunty though Quaker bonnet of the same material. A white
veil covered but did not completely obscure her face, in which her
peculiarly oriental style of beauty appeared the more piquant from
that simple but truly bridal costume. The Doctor had a plain suit of
black, with his coat collarless, certainly, but cut, it might have
been, by a Court tailor, for appearance at a royal levee. He appeared
at once a very handsome, intellectual young man, a gentleman and a
Friend.
“What a lucky fellow!—such a wife, and such a fortune!” was the
thought of most of the spectators; and there was no doubt that Frank
Leroy thought the same. It was clearly enough written on his grave
but happy face. Around and about the young couple might be seen Mr.
Heritage, Mr. Fairfax, the humorous-looking George Barthe, Sir Henry
and Lady Clavering, Thorsby and his Letty, Mr. and Mrs. Woodburn, and
George and Elizabeth, and with them the Degges.
After a little pause Mrs. Heritage took off her bonnet, dropped
softly on her knees in the gallery, and put up a short but fervent
prayer for God’s blessing on the ceremony about to take place. Then
another little pause of expectation, and the bridegroom took the
bride by the hand; they rose, and in the simple formula of words
prescribed by the Society, declared that they took each other as
husband and wife, and promised mutual love and fidelity till death
did them part. On sitting down, there was soon a bustle of unrolling
paper on the table, and the clerk of the meeting laid the certificate
of marriage before the contracting parties for their signatures.
Then the parents and immediate relatives signed it in attestation;
after which there was a crowding and a moving up from all quarters
of those who were desirous of appending their names to so peculiar
a document. Whilst this was doing the newly-married pair, and their
nearest of kin, withdrew, and then was heard a rapid rolling away of
carriages.
After a short time spent amongst the pleasant hills and rocky dales
of Derbyshire, Dr. Leroy and his wife returned to their handsome
house in Castleborough Park. If appearances might be relied on,
Millicent Leroy had, after all, found in Frank Leroy, the man of
her heart. The little season of illusion which had once enwrapped
her had left no traces behind it, but such as time had already very
much obliterated, and which the affection and merits of a most
highly esteemed and popular husband were likely to render ever less
perceptible. A very sunny and velvet path was theirs. Vast wealth, a
married home and a parental one existed for them, for, like Woodburn
Grange, Fair Manor was the resort of the younger branches in almost
daily intercourse. A sphere of great usefulness, as well as of a
splendid future, lay before Dr. and Millicent Leroy; and those who
believe they will show themselves worthy of such superb advantages,
we may venture to prognosticate will not be deceived.