WEDDING RAIMENT
Philip and Sylvia were engaged. It was not so happy a state of
things as Philip had imagined. He had already found that out,
although it was not twenty-four hours since Sylvia had promised to
be his. He could not have defined why he was dissatisfied; if he had
been compelled to account for his feeling, he would probably have
alleged as a reason that Sylvia's manner was so unchanged by her new
position towards him. She was quiet and gentle; but no shyer, no
brighter, no coyer, no happier, than she had been for months before.
When she joined him at the field-gate, his heart was beating fast,
his eyes were beaming out love at her approach. She neither blushed
nor smiled, but seemed absorbed in thought of some kind. But she
resisted his silent effort to draw her away from the path leading to
the house, and turned her face steadily homewards. He murmured soft
words, which she scarcely heard. Right in their way was the stone
trough for the fresh bubbling water, that, issuing from a roadside
spring, served for all the household purposes of Haytersbank Farm.
By it were the milk-cans, glittering and clean. Sylvia knew she
should have to stop for these, and carry them back home in readiness
for the evening's milking; and at this time, during this action, she
resolved to say what was on her mind.
They were there. Sylvia spoke.
'Philip, Kester has been saying as how it might ha' been----'
'Well!' said Philip.
Sylvia sate down on the edge of the trough, and dipped her hot
little hand in the water. Then she went on quickly, and lifting her
beautiful eyes to Philip's face, with a look of inquiry--'He thinks
as Charley Kinraid may ha' been took by t' press-gang.'
It was the first time she had named the name of her former lover to
her present one since the day, long ago now, when they had
quarrelled about him; and the rosy colour flushed her all over; but
her sweet, trustful eyes never flinched from their steady,
unconscious gaze.
Philip's heart stopped beating; literally, as if he had come to a
sudden precipice, while he had thought himself securely walking on
sunny greensward. He went purple all over from dismay; he dared not
take his eyes away from that sad, earnest look of hers, but he was
thankful that a mist came before them and drew a veil before his
brain. He heard his own voice saying words he did not seem to have
framed in his own mind.
'Kester's a d--d fool,' he growled.
'He says there's mebbe but one chance i' a hundred,' said Sylvia,
pleading, as it were, for Kester; 'but oh! Philip, think yo' there's
just that one chance?'
'Ay, there's a chance, sure enough,' said Philip, in a kind of
fierce despair that made him reckless what he said or did. 'There's
a chance, I suppose, for iverything i' life as we have not seen with
our own eyes as it may not ha' happened. Kester may say next as
there's a chance as your father is not dead, because we none on us
saw him----'
'Hung,' he was going to have said, but a touch of humanity came back
into his stony heart. Sylvia sent up a little sharp cry at his
words. He longed at the sound to take her in his arms and hush her
up, as a mother hushes her weeping child. But the very longing,
having to be repressed, only made him more beside himself with
guilt, anxiety, and rage. They were quite still now. Sylvia looking
sadly down into the bubbling, merry, flowing water: Philip glaring
at her, wishing that the next word were spoken, though it might stab
him to the heart. But she did not speak.
At length, unable to bear it any longer, he said, 'Thou sets a deal
o' store on that man, Sylvie.'
If 'that man' had been there at the moment, Philip would have
grappled with him, and not let go his hold till one or the other
were dead. Sylvia caught some of the passionate meaning of the
gloomy, miserable tone of Philip's voice as he said these words. She
looked up at him.
'I thought yo' knowed that I cared a deal for him.'
There was something so pleading and innocent in her pale, troubled
face, so pathetic in her tone, that Philip's anger, which had been
excited against her, as well as against all the rest of the world,
melted away into love; and once more he felt that have her for his
own he must, at any cost. He sate down by her, and spoke to her in
quite a different manner to that which he had used before, with a
ready tact and art which some strange instinct or tempter 'close at
his ear' supplied.
'Yes, darling, I knew yo' cared for him. I'll not say ill of him
that is--dead--ay, dead and drowned--whativer Kester may
say--before now; but if I chose I could tell tales.'
'No! tell no tales; I'll not hear them,' said she, wrenching herself
out of Philip's clasping arm. 'They may misca' him for iver, and
I'll not believe 'em.'
'I'll niver miscall one who is dead,' said Philip; each new
unconscious sign of the strength of Sylvia's love for her former
lover only making him the more anxious to convince her that he was
dead, only rendering him more keen at deceiving his own conscience
by repeating to it the lie that long ere this Kinraid was in all
probability dead--killed by either the chances of war or tempestuous
sea; that, even if not, he was as good as dead to her; so that the
word 'dead' might be used in all honest certainty, as in one of its
meanings Kinraid was dead for sure.
'Think yo' that if he were not dead he wouldn't ha' written ere this
to some one of his kin, if not to thee? Yet none of his folk
Newcassel-way but believe him dead.'
'So Kester says,' sighed Sylvia.
Philip took heart. He put his arm softly round her again, and
murmured--
'My lassie, try not to think on them as is gone, as is dead, but t'
think a bit more on him as loves yo' wi' heart, and soul, and might,
and has done iver sin' he first set eyes on yo'. Oh, Sylvie, my love
for thee is just terrible.'
At this moment Dolly Reid was seen at the back-door of the
farmhouse, and catching sight of Sylvia, she called out--
'Sylvia, thy mother is axing for thee, and I cannot make her mind
easy.'
In a moment Sylvia had sprung up from her seat, and was running in
to soothe and comfort her mother's troubled fancies.
Philip sate on by the well-side, his face buried in his two hands.
Presently he lifted himself up, drank some water eagerly out of his
hollowed palm, sighed, and shook himself, and followed his cousin
into the house. Sometimes he came unexpectedly to the limits of his
influence over her. In general she obeyed his expressed wishes with
gentle indifference, as if she had no preferences of her own; once
or twice he found that she was doing what he desired out of the
spirit of obedience, which, as her mother's daughter, she believed
to be her duty towards her affianced husband. And this last motive
for action depressed her lover more than anything. He wanted the old
Sylvia back again; captious, capricious, wilful, haughty, merry,
charming. Alas! that Sylvia was gone for ever.
But once especially his power, arising from whatever cause, was
stopped entirely short--was utterly of no avail.
It was on the occasion of Dick Simpson's mortal illness. Sylvia and
her mother kept aloof from every one. They had never been intimate
with any family but the Corneys, and even this friendship had
considerably cooled since Molly's marriage, and most especially
since Kinraid's supposed death, when Bessy Corney and Sylvia had
been, as it were, rival mourners. But many people, both in
Monkshaven and the country round about, held the Robson family in
great respect, although Mrs. Robson herself was accounted 'high' and
'distant;' and poor little Sylvia, in her heyday of beautiful youth
and high spirits, had been spoken of as 'a bit flighty,' and 'a
set-up lassie.' Still, when their great sorrow fell upon them, there
were plenty of friends to sympathize deeply with them; and, as
Daniel had suffered in a popular cause, there were even more who,
scarcely knowing them personally, were ready to give them all the
marks of respect and friendly feeling in their power. But neither
Bell nor Sylvia were aware of this. The former had lost all
perception of what was not immediately before her; the latter shrank
from all encounters of any kind with a sore heart, and sensitive
avoidance of everything that could make her a subject of remark. So
the poor afflicted people at Haytersbank knew little of Monkshaven
news. What little did come to their ears came through Dolly Reid,
when she returned from selling the farm produce of the week; and
often, indeed, even then she found Sylvia too much absorbed in other
cares or thoughts to listen to her gossip. So no one had ever named
that Simpson was supposed to be dying till Philip began on the
subject one evening. Sylvia's face suddenly flashed into glow and
life.
'He's dying, is he? t' earth is well rid on such a fellow!'
'Eh, Sylvie, that's a hard speech o' thine!' said Philip; 'it gives
me but poor heart to ask a favour of thee!'
'If it's aught about Simpson,' replied she, and then she interrupted
herself. 'But say on; it were ill-mannered in me for t' interrupt
yo'.'
'Thou would be sorry to see him, I think, Sylvie. He cannot get over
the way, t' folk met him, and pelted him when he came back fra'
York,--and he's weak and faint, and beside himself at times; and
he'll lie a dreaming, and a-fancying they're all at him again,
hooting, and yelling, and pelting him.'
'I'm glad on 't,' said Sylvia; 'it's t' best news I've heered for
many a day,--he, to turn again' feyther, who gave him money fo t'
get a lodging that night, when he'd no place to go to. It were his
evidence as hung feyther; and he's rightly punished for it now.'
'For a' that,--and he's done a vast o' wrong beside, he's dying now,
Sylvie!'
'Well! let him die--it's t' best thing he could do!'
'But he's lying i' such dree poverty,--and niver a friend to go near
him,--niver a person to speak a kind word t' him.'
'It seems as yo've been speaking wi' him, at any rate,' said Sylvia,
turning round on Philip.
'Ay. He sent for me by Nell Manning, th' old beggar-woman, who
sometimes goes in and makes his bed for him, poor wretch,--he's
lying in t' ruins of th' cow-house of th' Mariners' Arms, Sylvie.'
'Well!' said she, in the same hard, dry tone.
'And I went and fetched th' parish doctor, for I thought he'd ha'
died before my face,--he was so wan, and ashen-grey, so thin, too,
his eyes seem pushed out of his bony face.'
'That last time--feyther's eyes were starting, wild-like, and as if
he couldn't meet ours, or bear the sight on our weeping.'
It was a bad look-out for Philip's purpose; but after a pause he
went bravely on.
'He's a poor dying creature, anyhow. T' doctor said so, and told him
he hadn't many hours, let alone days, to live.'
'And he'd shrink fra' dying wi' a' his sins on his head?' said
Sylvia, almost exultingly.
Philip shook his head. 'He said this world had been too strong for
him, and men too hard upon him; he could niver do any good here, and
he thought he should, maybe, find folks i' t' next place more
merciful.'
'He'll meet feyther theere,' said Sylvia, still hard and bitter.
'He's a poor ignorant creature, and doesn't seem to know rightly who
he's like to meet; only he seems glad to get away fra' Monkshaven
folks; he were really hurt, I am afeared, that night, Sylvie,--and
he speaks as if he'd had hard times of it ever since he were a
child,--and he talks as if he were really grieved for t' part t'
lawyers made him take at th' trial,--they made him speak, against
his will, he says.'
'Couldn't he ha' bitten his tongue out?' asked Sylvia. 'It's fine
talking o' sorrow when the thing is done!'
'Well, anyhow he's sorry now; and he's not long for to live. And,
Sylvie, he bid me ask thee, if, for the sake of all that is dear to
thee both here, and i' th' world to come, thou'd go wi' me, and just
say to him that thou forgives him his part that day.'
'He sent thee on that errand, did he? And thou could come and ask
me? I've a mind to break it off for iver wi' thee, Philip.' She kept
gasping, as if she could not say any more. Philip watched and waited
till her breath came, his own half choked.
'Thee and me was niver meant to go together. It's not in me to
forgive,--I sometimes think it's not in me to forget. I wonder,
Philip, if thy feyther had done a kind deed--and a right deed--and a
merciful deed--and some one as he'd been good to, even i' t' midst
of his just anger, had gone and let on about him to th' judge, as
was trying to hang him,--and had getten him hanged,--hanged dead, so
that his wife were a widow, and his child fatherless for
ivermore,--I wonder if thy veins would run milk and water, so that
thou could go and make friends, and speak soft wi' him as had caused
thy feyther's death?'
'It's said in t' Bible, Sylvie, that we're to forgive.'
'Ay, there's some things as I know I niver forgive; and there's
others as I can't--and I won't, either.'
'But, Sylvie, yo' pray to be forgiven your trespasses, as you
forgive them as trespass against you.'
'Well, if I'm to be taken at my word, I'll noane pray at all, that's
all. It's well enough for them as has but little to forgive to use
them words; and I don't reckon it's kind, or pretty behaved in yo',
Philip, to bring up Scripture again' me. Thou may go about thy
business.'
'Thou'rt vexed with me, Sylvie; and I'm not meaning but that it
would go hard with thee to forgive him; but I think it would be
right and Christian-like i' thee, and that thou'd find thy comfort
in thinking on it after. If thou'd only go, and see his wistful
eyes--I think they'd plead wi' thee more than his words, or mine
either.'
'I tell thee my flesh and blood wasn't made for forgiving and
forgetting. Once for all, thou must take my word. When I love I
love, and when I hate I hate; and him as has done hard to me, or to
mine, I may keep fra' striking or murdering, but I'll niver forgive.
I should be just a monster, fit to be shown at a fair, if I could
forgive him as got feyther hanged.'
Philip was silent, thinking what more he could urge.
'Yo'd better be off,' said Sylvia, in a minute or two. 'Yo' and me
has got wrong, and it'll take a night's sleep to set us right. Yo've
said all yo' can for him; and perhaps it's not yo' as is to blame,
but yo'r nature. But I'm put out wi' thee, and want thee out o' my
sight for awhile.'
One or two more speeches of this kind convinced him that it would be
wise in him to take her at her word. He went back to Simpson, and
found him, though still alive, past the understanding of any words
of human forgiveness. Philip had almost wished he had not troubled
or irritated Sylvia by urging the dying man's request: the
performance of this duty seemed now to have been such a useless
office.
After all, the performance of a duty is never a useless office,
though we may not see the consequences, or they may be quite
different to what we expected or calculated on. In the pause of
active work, when daylight was done, and the evening shades came on,
Sylvia had time to think; and her heart grew sad and soft, in
comparison to what it had been when Philip's urgency had called out
all her angry opposition. She thought of her father--his sharp
passions, his frequent forgiveness, or rather his forgetfulness that
he had even been injured. All Sylvia's persistent or enduring
qualities were derived from her mother, her impulses from her
father. It was her dead father whose example filled her mind this
evening in the soft and tender twilight. She did not say to herself
that she would go and tell Simpson that she forgave him; but she
thought that if Philip asked her again that she should do so.
But when she saw Philip again he told her that Simpson was dead; and
passed on from what he had reason to think would be an unpleasant
subject to her. Thus he never learnt how her conduct might have been
more gentle and relenting than her words--words which came up into
his memory at a future time, with full measure of miserable
significance.
In general, Sylvia was gentle and good enough; but Philip wanted her
to be shy and tender with him, and this she was not. She spoke to
him, her pretty eyes looking straight and composedly at him. She
consulted him like the family friend that he was: she met him
quietly in all the arrangements for the time of their marriage,
which she looked upon more as a change of home, as the leaving of
Haytersbank, as it would affect her mother, than in any more
directly personal way. Philip was beginning to feel, though not as
yet to acknowledge, that the fruit he had so inordinately longed for
was but of the nature of an apple of Sodom.
Long ago, lodging in widow Rose's garret, he had been in the habit
of watching some pigeons that were kept by a neighbour; the flock
disported themselves on the steep tiled roofs just opposite to the
attic window, and insensibly Philip grew to know their ways, and one
pretty, soft little dove was somehow perpetually associated in his
mind with his idea of his cousin Sylvia. The pigeon would sit in one
particular place, sunning herself, and puffing out her feathered
breast, with all the blue and rose-coloured lights gleaming in the
morning rays, cooing softly to herself as she dressed her plumage.
Philip fancied that he saw the same colours in a certain piece of
shot silk--now in the shop; and none other seemed to him so suitable
for his darling's wedding-dress. He carried enough to make a gown,
and gave it to her one evening, as she sate on the grass just
outside the house, half attending to her mother, half engaged in
knitting stockings for her scanty marriage outfit. He was glad that
the sun was not gone down, thus allowing him to display the changing
colours in fuller light. Sylvia admired it duly; even Mrs. Robson was
pleased and attracted by the soft yet brilliant hues. Philip
whispered to Sylvia--(he took delight in whispers,--she, on the
contrary, always spoke to him in her usual tone of voice)--
'Thou'lt look so pretty in it, sweetheart,--o' Thursday fortnight!'
'Thursday fortnight. On the fourth yo're thinking on. But I cannot
wear it then,--I shall be i' black.'
'Not on that day, sure!' said Philip.
'Why not? There's nought t' happen on that day for t' make me forget
feyther. I couldn't put off my black, Philip,--no, not to save my
life! Yon silk is just lovely, far too good for the likes of
me,--and I'm sure I'm much beholden to yo'; and I'll have it made up
first of any gown after last April come two years,--but, oh, Philip,
I cannot put off my mourning!'
'Not for our wedding-day!' said Philip, sadly.
'No, lad, I really cannot. I'm just sorry about it, for I see
thou'rt set upon it; and thou'rt so kind and good, I sometimes think
I can niver be thankful enough to thee. When I think on what would
ha' become of mother and me if we hadn't had thee for a friend i'
need, I'm noane ungrateful, Philip; tho' I sometimes fancy thou'rt
thinking I am.'
'I don't want yo' to be grateful, Sylvie,' said poor Philip,
dissatisfied, yet unable to explain what he did want; only knowing
that there was something he lacked, yet fain would have had.
As the marriage-day drew near, all Sylvia's care seemed to be for
her mother; all her anxiety was regarding the appurtenances of the
home she was leaving. In vain Philip tried to interest her in
details of his improvements or contrivances in the new home to which
he was going to take her. She did not tell him; but the idea of the
house behind the shop was associated in her mind with two times of
discomfort and misery. The first time she had gone into the parlour
about which Philip spoke so much was at the time of the press-gang
riot, when she had fainted from terror and excitement; the second
was on that night of misery when she and her mother had gone in to
Monkshaven, to bid her father farewell before he was taken to York;
in that room, on that night, she had first learnt something of the
fatal peril in which he stood. She could not show the bright shy
curiosity about her future dwelling that is common enough with girls
who are going to be married. All she could do was to restrain
herself from sighing, and listen patiently, when he talked on the
subject. In time he saw that she shrank from it; so he held his
peace, and planned and worked for her in silence,--smiling to
himself as he looked on each completed arrangement for her pleasure
or comfort; and knowing well that her happiness was involved in what
fragments of peace and material comfort might remain to her mother.
The wedding-day drew near apace. It was Philip's plan that after
they had been married in Kirk Moorside church, he and his Sylvia,
his cousin, his love, his wife, should go for the day to Robin
Hood's Bay, returning in the evening to the house behind the shop in
the market-place. There they were to find Bell Robson installed in
her future home; for Haytersbank Farm was to be given up to the new
tenant on the very day of the wedding. Sylvia would not be married
any sooner; she said that she must stay there till the very last;
and had said it with such determination that Philip had desisted
from all urgency at once.
He had told her that all should be settled for her mother's comfort
during their few hours' absence; otherwise Sylvia would not have
gone at all. He told her he should ask Hester, who was always so
good and kind--who never yet had said him nay, to go to church with
them as bridesmaid--for Sylvia would give no thought or care to
anything but her mother--and that they would leave her at
Haytersbank as they returned from church; she would manage Mrs
Robson's removal--she would do this--do that--do everything. Such
friendly confidence had Philip in Hester's willingness and tender
skill. Sylvia acquiesced at length, and Philip took upon himself to
speak to Hester on the subject.
'Hester,' said he, one day when he was preparing to go home after
the shop was closed; 'would yo' mind stopping a bit? I should like
to show yo' the place now it's done up; and I've a favour to ask on
yo' besides.' He was so happy he did not see her shiver all over.
She hesitated just a moment before she answered,--
'I'll stay, if thou wishes it, Philip. But I'm no judge o' fashions
and such like.'
'Thou'rt a judge o' comfort, and that's what I've been aiming at. I
were niver so comfortable in a' my life as when I were a lodger at
thy house,' said he, with brotherly tenderness in his tone. 'If my
mind had been at ease I could ha' said I niver were happier in all
my days than under thy roof; and I know it were thy doing for the
most part. So come along, Hester, and tell me if there's aught more
I can put in for Sylvie.'
It might not have been a very appropriate text, but such as it was
the words, 'From him that would ask of thee turn not thou away,'
seemed the only source of strength that could have enabled her to go
patiently through the next half-hour. As it was, she unselfishly
brought all her mind to bear upon the subject; admired this, thought
and decided upon that, as one by one Philip showed her all his
alterations and improvements. Never was such a quiet little bit of
unconscious and unrecognized heroism. She really ended by such a
conquest of self that she could absolutely sympathize with the proud
expectant lover, and had quenched all envy of the beloved, in
sympathy with the delight she imagined Sylvia must experience when
she discovered all these proofs of Philip's fond consideration and
care. But it was a great strain on the heart, that source of life;
and when Hester returned into the parlour, after her deliberate
survey of the house, she felt as weary and depressed in bodily
strength as if she had gone through an illness of many days. She
sate down on the nearest chair, and felt as though she never could
rise again. Philip, joyous and content, stood near her talking.
'And, Hester,' said he, 'Sylvie has given me a message for thee--she
says thou must be her bridesmaid--she'll have none other.'
'I cannot,' said Hester, with sudden sharpness.
'Oh, yes, but yo' must. It wouldn't be like my wedding if thou
wasn't there: why I've looked upon thee as a sister iver since I
came to lodge with thy mother.'
Hester shook her head. Did her duty require her not to turn away
from this asking, too? Philip saw her reluctance, and, by intuition
rather than reason, he knew that what she would not do for gaiety or
pleasure she would consent to, if by so doing she could render any
service to another. So he went on.
'Besides, Sylvie and me has planned to go for our wedding jaunt to
Robin Hood's Bay. I ha' been to engage a shandry this very morn,
before t' shop was opened; and there's no one to leave wi' my aunt.
Th' poor old body is sore crushed with sorrow; and is, as one may
say, childish at times; she's to come down here, that we may find
her when we come back at night; and there's niver a one she'll come
with so willing and so happy as with thee, Hester. Sylvie and me has
both said so.'
Hester looked up in his face with her grave honest eyes.
'I cannot go to church wi' thee, Philip; and thou must not ask me
any further. But I'll go betimes to Haytersbank Farm, and I'll do my
best to make the old lady happy, and to follow out thy directions in
bringing her here before nightfall.'
Philip was on the point of urging her afresh to go with them to
church; but something in her eyes brought a thought across his mind,
as transitory as a breath passes over a looking-glass, and he
desisted from his entreaty, and put away his thought as a piece of
vain coxcombry, insulting to Hester. He passed rapidly on to all the
careful directions rendered necessary by her compliance with the
latter part of his request, coupling Sylvia's name with his
perpetually; so that Hester looked upon her as a happy girl, as
eager in planning all the details of her marriage as though no heavy
shameful sorrow had passed over her head not many months ago.
Hester did not see Sylvia's white, dreamy, resolute face, that
answered the solemn questions of the marriage service in a voice
that did not seem her own. Hester was not with them to notice the
heavy abstraction that made the bride as if unconscious of her
husband's loving words, and then start and smile, and reply with a
sad gentleness of tone. No! Hester's duty lay in conveying the poor
widow and mother down from Haytersbank to the new home in
Monkshaven; and for all Hester's assistance and thoughtfulness, it
was a dreary, painful piece of work--the poor old woman crying like
a child, with bewilderment at the confused bustle which, in spite of
all Sylvia's careful forethought, could not be avoided on this final
day, when her mother had to be carried away from the homestead over
which she had so long presided. But all this was as nothing to the
distress which overwhelmed poor Bell Robson when she entered
Philip's house; the parlour--the whole place so associated with the
keen agony she had undergone there, that the stab of memory
penetrated through her deadened senses, and brought her back to
misery. In vain Hester tried to console her by telling her the fact
of Sylvia's marriage with Philip in every form of words that
occurred to her. Bell only remembered her husband's fate, which
filled up her poor wandering mind, and coloured everything; insomuch
that Sylvia not being at hand to reply to her mother's cry for her,
the latter imagined that her child, as well as her husband, was in
danger of trial and death, and refused to be comforted by any
endeavour of the patient sympathizing Hester. In a pause of Mrs
Robson's sobs, Hester heard the welcome sound of the wheels of the
returning shandry, bearing the bride and bridegroom home. It stopped
at the door--an instant, and Sylvia, white as a sheet at the sound
of her mother's wailings, which she had caught while yet at a
distance, with the quick ears of love, came running in; her mother
feebly rose and tottered towards her, and fell into her arms,
saying, 'Oh! Sylvie, Sylvie, take me home, and away from this cruel
place!'
Hester could not but be touched with the young girl's manner to her
mother--as tender, as protecting as if their relation to each other
had been reversed, and she was lulling and tenderly soothing a
wayward, frightened child. She had neither eyes nor ears for any one
till her mother was sitting in trembling peace, holding her
daughter's hand tight in both of hers, as if afraid of losing sight
of her: then Sylvia turned to Hester, and, with the sweet grace
which is a natural gift to some happy people, thanked her; in common
words enough she thanked her, but in that nameless manner, and with
that strange, rare charm which made Hester feel as if she had never
been thanked in all her life before; and from that time forth she
understood, if she did not always yield to, the unconscious
fascination which Sylvia could exercise over others at times.
Did it enter into Philip's heart to perceive that he had wedded his
long-sought bride in mourning raiment, and that the first sounds
which greeted them as they approached their home were those of
weeping and wailing?