POLLY’S WEDDING
Cherry engaged the room in which Polly’s wedding was to be “held up”
a month before the time. The only thing in its favour against the
homeliness of Granny’s cottage was--it would hold a hundred and fifty
folk. The clan was going to be gathered to be merry, at last. Cherry
was very anxious that Polly’s wedding should be no “dry affair.” It was
to be a regular cheerful, northern wedding, with lots of eating, some
drinking, and Granny agreed with him that a “bit o’ musick wouldn’t be
out on it”--that on such occasions a bit o’ summat like that helped
things on.
Nan refused to write out the invitations to the wedding. She had
suddenly discovered that Polly didn’t ought to want to be married,
after all they’d done for her.
As for Granny--she avowed that the age of miracles was not gone by,
since Polly had thus lit, like a cat, on her feet, despite all her
invitations to destiny to ruin her.
Adam kept his head pretty well.
Perhaps the fact that he had deserved neither the half-penny nor the
cake, yet was getting both, humbled him a little, or perhaps he fully
realized the responsibility he was taking with Polly Cherry.
For Uncle Nat, who had lived in what appeared poverty, and accepted
stray half-crowns very graciously, had died and left him eight hundred
pounds. Adam had taken a little farm on the opposite side of the
valley, right away from Sagg Farm. Sarah was coming to help them with
the work. He had bought a little churn for Polly.
The great day arrived at length.
It was a wet morning Cherry saw out of the window--from his bed.
Polly and Nan were making breakfast.
“Changed thy mind about not going?” he queried of Nan, as she helped
him to dress. “After all, I’ve spent five pounds on thy outfit. It’d be
a shame for Mrs. Jay not to see it.”
“Tha’s no nateral feelin’s,” yapped Nan.
But when he was pushed up to the table and observed a gaudy new pair of
stays airing inside the fender--he knew Nan was going.
Polly sat at table, her short hair in “wavers.”
There was a trembling in her manner.
“Cheer up, Polly,” said her Dad.
Whereupon she giggled tremulously.
After breakfast Mrs. Bob Wild arrived--to see the wedding-dress, Adam’s
present. It was one of those foolish things meant to wear once--and
once only.
“I hope you’ll be as happy as we’ve been,” quoth Susan, with the air of
a century-old wife.
“Ooo, Susan!” said Polly, suddenly, “if only I was a bit--wiser.”
“Adam,” said Adam’s sister-in-law, “has sense enough for two.” But
even as she said it, she wondered what Polly would think had she known
that Adam had been out, roaming the moors all night, in the crazy way
some wise men have when once they definitely settle to make fools of
themselves.
“Yes. He’s up,” she told Polly.
Adam was staying with them for nearness to the church.
“I’ll go down to Granny’s with Susan,” said Polly.
Polly was afraid of a scene on her leaving that cottage. So was Cherry.
Polly was being married from Granny’s.
This was the last private appearance of Miss Cherry at Myrtle Cottage.
She got ready. Susan packed the wedding-frock. Polly never could make a
decent parcel.
At last there was no more excuse for lingering.
“Well,” said Polly.
She looked from her mother to her father hesitatingly. Susan went out
and walked slowly along.
“Tooraloo, Polly,” said Cherry, cheerfully.
He had a little of the Cheer-up Party smile.
Polly walked up to his chair, put her hands round his arm.
“I’ve--given you a lot o’ trouble,” said Polly, stumblingly.
“Don’t mention it,” said Cherry, winking.
“An’--I’ve been happy here, too,” said Polly, a dim surprise at the
fact shining in her wet eyes. “I--I don’t think I want to leave you
both.”
It was Polly all over.
She sat down and cried.
The hundreds of times she had wished herself well away--and now--to
find she didn’t want to go. At least, not for five minutes.
“If ever he doesn’t do right by thee, I’ll kill him as dead as a
herring,” said Nan, with her high colouring ebbing, her eyes ablaze.
And--Polly giggled, dabbing her eyes, and said, “Well, I’ll have to go,
I suppose.”
Nan’s good-bye, thought the man in the corner, might have been worse.
Polly only turned back three times before really joining the patient
Susan.
The last time she ran, sobbing openly.
Behind a scented briar-bush Susan put her into apple-pie order, before
they went into the road that ran past the little houses.
“Just an hour to get ready,” said Cherry.
“Chaps doesn’t need much gettin’ ready,” yapped Nan.
He watched her struggle into a twenty-six inch circumference--gave a
victorious hurrah when she got the clasp fastened.
“Here,” he said at length, “what about me?”
Nan proceeded to get him ready.
They set out, a quarter before the time, going down to Granny’s through
the now sunshiny village.
“Th’ weather-clerk knows it’s our Polly an’ is doin’ his best,” he told
Nan.
Nan, in a dress of Irish green, and a blue hat with ears of wheat
(what Cherry called a you-can’t-go-wrong hat), went on with her head
up. Cherry, on his wheels, in blue coat, with yellow jonquils, white
gloves, and white bowler, looked like a tomtit beside a grim paraquet.
“Well, you _do_ look weel,” was Granny’s verdict, as they came through
the door.
She sat on a chair by the open door, dressed in her best, her bonnet on
ready, only the strings wanting tying.
“Out o’ puff, mother?” queried Cherry.
“No--full on it,” she smiled.
Granny was breathing badly. She was more than a little excited.
There was another brand-new geranium in her bonnet. She wore,
corner-wise, a cardinal silk shawl, which Susan admired and did not
recollect having seen her in before.
Granny took a pinch of snuff.
“I were wed in this,” she said, slowly. “When Harker were drunk he used
to talk about this shawl. T’were th’ only thing he ever bought me,
barrin’ th’ ring, an’ I used to wish he’d not bought that. But--but
for me there wouldn’t have been our Polly, would there? We serve our
purpose in this world. An’--she’s goin’ to be happy. So--I put on th’
old shawl, by way o’ lettin’ by-gones be by-gones. It’d suited Harker.
He were soft in some ways. An’--he were a good-lookin’ chap, when he
were washed. Our Polly owes her good looks to him. I reckon him an’ me
came together for summat, an’ has our bit o’ share in this day. I’m
fain to ha’ sin it, Will.”
Cherry was touched.
In all his life Granny Harker had never struck him as a pathetic figure
before. She had been both too droll and too grim.
On Polly’s wedding-day she had squared her account of the “gammy” leg,
had forgiven that Primrose Leaguer who had given her that painful
souvenir to carry to her grave.
“There ought to ha’ bin some fiddlers,” said the cobbler’s wife.
“Oh, them’ll come later,” said Cherry, grinning.
“Polly!” yelled Granny. “Tha’rt goin’ to be late!”
Granny was most impatient this day, for a calm old Calvinist.
Susan went upstairs to help Polly.
There were already a trio of neighbours, quarrelling as to which hook
went to which eye of the puzzling dress, with Polly very pale and
helpless amongst it all.
Susan set the puzzle straight, and they all flocked downstairs.
Polly in a shimmer of satin and soft lace and mock-orange blossom, was
a sight for sore eyes. Even in the upheaval of this her careless life
she enjoyed the sensation she created. The little milk-boy who had come
in to look at her, didn’t really believe it _was_ Polly.
“Eh, ay,” said the cobbler’s wife, “some o’ th’ aristocrats can’t hold
a cannel to poor folk for looks. Now--who’d think to look at her, she’d
ever done a day’s wark in her life?”
“She takes after her dad for bein’ handsome,” said Cherry, which made
the women smile at male conceit.
Polly sneaked into his corner, and gave him her little finger.
“Adam’s here,” said the cobbler’s wife.
Adam was in a grey suit.
His eyes sought for Polly amidst the throng, and found her in that dim
corner--a white satin mouse, whose bright glance asked him if he was
satisfied.
“Well, tha ought to be proud on her,” said a neighbour.
He smiled awkwardly.
The Wilds didn’t wear their hearts on their sleeves.
Even Polly had found him the most silent, undemonstrative lover she had
had.
He looked at the clock.
“There’s Grandma Cherry to come,” said Granny. “An’--I wonder if
that owd musicker as is to give Polly away is _up_ yet. An’ them
cabs--cabbies is th’ carelessest folk born.”
Granny was plainly afraid of any hitch occurring.
“Bob’s gone to see the old man up,” said Adam.
Steps sounded on the cobbles.
A shadow fell across the doorway.
“Becky!” said Polly.
Becky it was, Becky with the fat baby trying to eat her shabby hat,
Becky thinned and humbled out of knowledge, Becky living with a
respectable aunt in Narrowfields, who didn’t forget to let her know how
good she had been to take her in.
“Sit thee down, lass,” quoth Granny.
Adam got her a chair.
Becky had lost a day’s work and carried a fifteen pounds baby six miles
to see her friend in her hour of glory.
“Make her a sup o’ tay, Nan,” said Granny.
So Becky sat eating and drinking tea in the way some people do eat and
drink with others there--nervously, but glad of the tea.
Polly came out of the corner and forgot her self-consciousness and
poured Becky a second cup.
She stared at Polly with eyes that filled with tears--glad, yet
conscious of her forlorn lot.
“Come an’ see us, any time--any time--for weekends--when you like,”
said Polly, and looked towards Adam.
“It’s Polly’s home,” said Adam.
“Oh--here’s _one_ cab,” said Granny, in relief.
Out of it stepped Grandma Cherry and Billy.
Billy had laid out in a new suit for Polly’s wedding. His look
said that Adam had all the luck. Nan was almost gracious with her
mother-in-law.
“Fancy havin’ a chap to give yo’ away as can’t get up!” said Granny.
Bob marshalled in Old Fiddlesticks.
He had helped to dress him.
He sat down near Adam, and hoped Adam would let Polly go on singing,
just as if Adam was shutting her in a cage. Adam answered appropriately.
“I never knew that clock miss cuckooin’,” said Granny, “but--happen
it’s wrong.”
Three folk looked at their watches.
Granny’s clock was “Greenwich, dead,” according to her son-in-law.
They waited for the moment to strike.
“Cuckoo!” sang the clock.
Granny rose up, rustling and relieved.
“I reckon nowt o’ havin’ to push,” she said.
The other cab had come along.
What a business it was.
The cobbler’s wife insisted that the bride ought to enter the cab with
the bridegroom, and quarrelled with all convention because she didn’t,
but went in on the arm of the best man.
“Poor Becky!” whispered Polly to Adam, who cut across.
He was quick to understand.
Becky was “pushed in” the third cab, and shared in the glory. The
Cherry clan was waiting in, and almost filled the little church.
It was all over, as Cherry said, “in no time.” Adam it was who had to
be asked to “speak a little louder, please.” Granny it was who greeted
them as they came out of the vestry with, “Well, you’ve teed a knot
wi’ your tongues you can’t undo wi’ your teeth, an’ I hope you’ll never
rue it!”
Cherry, meanwhile, invited the new parson to the feast. Cherry was
master of the ceremonies now. He had taken a fancy to the parson--who
had a quaint resemblance to a well-fed monk.
Cherry being lifted in and out the cab and set upon the wheels again,
felt it had been a “big job” for him, but that the fun was now
commencing. Bob and Adam carried him up the twenty steps to that long
room. Even yet, he always gritted his teeth a little at having to be
carried. But when once he was wheeling himself about the huge room, as
M. C.--the man who was going to make this feast a success--he had got
over it.
He had sent out a hundred postcards to the clan.
Ninety had been answered--in person. Their ages ranged from ninety down
to nine. There were also “Pontius Pilate,” Jane, the charwoman, Tim,
her husband.
“Well, by gum! There’s enough to eat,” said Uncle Silas, in amaze, as
dish after dish was carried on the table.
Cherry wheeled himself along past that array of chairs, holding the
clan--the clan that was going to eat his stuff in return for that they
had brought long ago.
There was no patronage, pity, nor charity in the eyes of the clan, now.
Nothing succeeds like success.
It was man to man now.
How the great room rang to the singing of the old-fashioned
“grace” started off by Uncle Silas! What a hush was that which
followed, wherein every one was at an awful pause, not liking to
be first to begin, until Uncle Silas broke the ice by saying in a
seriously meditative way, “I think I can’t do better nor start wi’
sausage-rolls.” Whereupon every one fell on sausage-rolls.
“Now, folk,” said Uncle Silas, “don’t be shy.”
He winked across the table at Polly.
Adam handed Polly the dish.
“Get plenty down tha,” advised Jane, the charwoman, sitting by Tim,
who was eating sausage-rolls “wholesale.” Then she said by way of
explanation, “For tha doesn’t know what tha’ll ha’ to go through.”
Whereupon, getting scared or embarrassed, Polly made a grab at the
sausage-roll.
Something slipped.
It had gone on the floor!
Polly, scarlet, looked beseechingly at Adam.
“The sausage rolled,” said a waggish voice.
It was the merry, red-nosed parson.
And everybody laughed.
Adam rescued the sausage-roll from under the table, and it was the
universal opinion that in any case it had lost nothing. Such eating,
such laughing, such talking, with Adam and Polly too delirious to
eat, and so ashamed to be delirious that they must make martyrs of
themselves and appear sane.
Whilst little fragments of conversation crossed each other comically.
“Dinah couldn’t come. She’s morphy in her cheek three times a day, now.
But she’s a rare plucked ’un. She’ll not dee on purpose----”
“Ay. Them were gradely weddin’s, when they had fiddlers walking afore,
an’ posies thrown under their feet.”
“Muvver, can I have a pickle-onion?”
“An’ I said to him, well if I have lived afore--I were a Brussels
sprout.”
“Give me a mongrel dog--wide between the ears----”
“Please, Adam, I can’t eat any more,” in a whisper from Polly.
Round about Cherry was the sound of a bottle clinking.
The parson was a very human man.
Aunt Miriam was about to refuse anything in her tea, but seeing Mr.
Roecome accept, she thought better of it.
Aunt Miriam had watched the door in a way no one could fathom.
“Here’s to my lass,” cried Cherry, proud as Punch, and lifted his cup.
Granny jinked hers with him.
“Hear, hear!” called Bob Wild, tapping the table with his knife-haft.
Only Susan restrained him from another partaking of the bottle.
“Then,” called Uncle Silas, standing up, “to everybody’s lasses.
They’re all somebody’s, aren’t they, exceptin’ them as is nobody’s, an’
they’re somebody’s, too, an’ God bless ’em--every one.”
Which started off a series of applause.
Cherry’s eye missed nothing, as its glance roamed the length of the
table--Becky, letting the infant Saul suck a bit of jam from her
finger, when she thought no one watched; Aggie, flirting madly with
Ned Thorn, whilst her husband raged and lost the flavour of the crab;
Granny, elate and gay; Susan keeping her eye on Bob; Captain Brown,
telling his lovely lies about his army career, and with a manner that
made women believe him; Nan, unbending to Billy Breeze’s amiability
and quite nice with Grandma Cherry, who was talking to Mr. Moss and
cutting up his meat for him--he missed nothing of it all. _This_ was
his day. Jane and Tim. How they ate. It made him a little sad. Pontius
Pilate was on thought forces.
When a little, bald-headed man sneaked in through the door, it was
Cherry who called out, “This way, Jerry,” and saw Aunt Miriam flush and
grow pale--Aunt Miriam dressed in pink, the colour Granny called “old
maid’s last refuge.”
He knew all the tumult of Aunt Miriam’s soul as Jerry Clin sat down,
and began to cut. For a writer of burning love-letters Jerry Clin
was pathetically nervous. Perhaps it was the effect of Aunt Miriam’s
answers, and the threat to have him up for breach of promise.
After Jerry came the five fiddlers, who dined in a little room behind,
and no sooner had they sat down than in came Sandy MacGuir, with his
pipes, and sat down also, in the little room.
Uncle Silas was the last man to cease eating.
They waited patiently for him.
“Any more, Silas?” quoth Granny.
Silas touched his neck with his hand, sideways--to assert that he was
filled to the top.
“Well, then----” said Granny.
There was a great shuffling of chairs.
At the far end sat Jerry Clin, casting glances at the door, now the
feast was over. Cherry, on his wheels again, trundled towards him.
“She’s here,” said Cherry, in a confidential whisper.
Jerry looked like bolting.
“Which is her?” quoth Jerry.
Cherry pointed out Aunt Miriam.
“She’s religious, too,” said Cherry. “Tha might go further an’ fare
worse. Come an’ be introduced.”
But Jerry would not.
Aunt Miriam casting sheep’s-eyes at him had scared him to death.
Cherry conducted him into the little room where the fiddlers were now
tuning up their instruments. The fiddlers and Jerry said they didn’t
mind if they did, and the man with the pipes said that was a fine brand
o’ whiskey, though he’d known a better at two shillings would burn a
man’s guts out.
Jerry was quite courageous when they left the little room.
Half a dozen people were waxing the huge floor; the tables were pushed
back against the wall; everybody was talking; Aunt Miriam was sitting,
heaving great sighs.
Cherry introduced Jerry and left him to Aunt Miriam. He made a
half-move to follow the man on the wheels--but Aunt Miriam was not to
be thrown off.
The five fiddlers sat themselves down, and struck up the lancers. The
big room was suddenly filled with people eager to make up “sets.”
Great was the astonishment of Polly to find that Adam could dance, nay,
that he was one of the best dancers in the room. Here, they were, they
two, in heaven when the dance brought them together, when they touched
hands in the “chain” or went down the middle. Polly’s paleness was
gone, now. It was the dream come true. After all, had Adam not rescued
her? She giggled as some of the dancers missed each other--and at the
face of one man which appeared to be set on another man’s shoulder,
wearing a look of stony horror. It was Jerry Clin--dancing for the
first time.
Uncle Silas was what he called “pushing Granny through the
Lancers”--and that set they danced in laughed too much to dance really,
laughed until everybody got with the wrong partners and “chained” out
of order, and what Granny called “blundered through it,” and found
themselves at it when the five fiddlers had stopped.
But it was when the barn dance came on that Granny shone.
She led off, with Uncle Silas, going down the middle with a broad,
beaming face, and all the others following--whilst the good humour
spread. The dancing only stopped when the five fiddlers went to “wet
their whistles” in that little room. When they came out, and played a
hornpipe the young folk stood abashed. But the older ones danced the
hornpipe and two of the five fiddlers got so excited as they watched
Granny that they yelled “go on, old girl,” “keep it up, mother,”--and
Uncle Silas said he wouldn’t be licked by Betsy, if he knew, but had to
retire after all.
It was Adam and Polly who led off when the waltz music struck up, and
danced so beautifully together no one else got up, and the cobbler’s
wife cried, and they only found they were the cynosure of all eyes
half-way through the waltz, and Polly said “Ooo,” but Adam said,
looking down, “Nay, let’s dance it out, Polly.”
Soon afterwards the little platform was filled with the Concert’s
Committee, Cherry being one.
Unanimously he was elected Chairman, and perched at a table, which held
a glass of beer.
“The next dance,” said Cherry, “will be a song. Mr. Silas Cherry will
oblige. ‘Roses Underneath the Snow.’” Thus began the entertainment,
where people had to sing whether they would or not.
“Sitha--I’ll kill thee, Will,” shouted the first singer on the
programme.
“Eh--we all know tha can sing,” called Betsy.
Four picked men escorted Uncle Silas on to the platform, nay, pushed
him up the four steps, and saw he did not run away. Whilst the piano
player vamped to Uncle Silas trying to get the pitch, and people tried
to look as though they couldn’t hear him.
Uncle Silas fronted the audience.
“If I forget a bit, yo’ mun excuse me,” he said, before beginning.
Cherry could see Adam and Polly sat together--both pair of eyes on
Uncle Silas, and Adam having taken one of Polly’s hands in his.
“Turn around in brave en-dev-hour,
Let your vain rip-pinin’s go--
’Opeful harts will find fur-rever,
Ro--oses underneath th’ snow.”
Uncle Silas managed a verse and the chorus and sang the chorus twice,
and again with the audience, and went down the four steps to a thunder
of applause and a “We don’t know what talents we’ve got!”
Cherry was in his element now.
There sat Uncle Bob Rimmer, unconscious that his was the next name
down, waiting delightedly for the blow to fall on somebody else.
“Mr. Bob Rimmer will oblige with ‘Bite Bigger, Billy,’”--called Cherry.
Mr. Bob Rimmer said he would see Cherry somewhere, first. The whisky
had upset Bob. There was quite a scrimmage before _he_ was hauled upon
the platform. But once having got thereon he recited with a fervour
that surpassed himself, a warmth, and a delightfulness that made his
audience see the little scene of the two urchins in the dimness of a
snowy morning, finding the apple, the faded flower, and sharing.
“If tha has’nt no luck o’ thysel’,
Tha can share all th’ findin’s wi me.”
Which made his audience expand, and grow moist-eyed and shake their
heads as to say what a different world it’d be if that spirit prevailed.
But the star of the entertainment was Grandma Cherry, singing “The
Kerry Dancers.” It was the ghost of a sweet old voice singing a song
of a youth passed away--a thread of a voice, quivering the sad, sweet
words--and Cherry noticed that Adam’s hand gripped Polly’s more
closely. Song after song, piece after piece. The sun was going down,
the room filling with gloom--and the five fiddlers were almost drunk.
It was then that James MacGuire gave his exhibition of the pipes, going
down the aisle between the chairs, coming back again, skirling away.
Then when the lights were lit, Cherry called out “Mr. Adam Wild will
oblige with a song.”
The end was felt to be approaching.
Adam faced the platform, though he had his own ideas on a bridegroom
singing at the bridal feast.
Polly found to her delight that Adam had quite a fine baritone voice.
She sat seeing him through the eyes of the audience--her hands clasped.
It was the man with the pipes who accompanied
“O, wert thou in th’ cauld, cauld blast.”
The tenderest of love-songs rolled through the big room.
“A gradely song,” applauded Uncle Silas. Then he said to Granny,
“Who’s that chap our Miriam’s picked up?”
It was at this moment that there arose sounds of a conflict from the
little room. The five fiddlers were fighting, and with difficulty
disentangled, and set to playing again. After this, it was almost time
for Cherry’s speech.
He knocked upon the table for order with the beer-glass.
“The last song,” said Cherry, almost sadly. Then, turning again, he
said, “_By request._”
Everybody waited.
“Mr. Tim--over there--will oblige with ‘Young Kate,’” he said, pointing
at the sand-hawker, who was almost drunk, so drunk that he wanted to
kiss Jane.
They carried the last singer up on the platform. Jane had said he had a
good voice.
Supported by a man on either side, Tim managed to keep a swaying
sort of balance. Then, he began to sing that old, old song, with its
crooney, monotonous tune that any one could sing, whether they knew it
or not.
Tim realised that it was up to him to “shine,” so began. He had not a
bad voice, but he had taken a lot of whisky.
“Young Kate, she was a flower girl,
Young Kate, she was a flower girl,
Young Kate, she was a flower girl,
And ofttimes she did say--
‘Will you buy, will you buy, will you buy,
Will you buy, will you buy, will you buy,
Will you buy my posies?
I’ve cowslips and primroses,
And I’ve lilies, daffydowndillies,
Daisies, honeysuckle and wild roses.’”
It was one of those songs where the audience sing and the soloist
chips in. In fact, Tim found that they could do very well without him.
“Will you buy, will you buy, will you buy, my posies?” The room rang
with “buy, buy, buy.” Cherry saw Nan singing it! Christopher Columbus!
Nan was singing. But then--everybody was singing.
“Here, come back,” said Tim’s supporters, who had forgotten to support
him, in singing. “There’s another verse.”
Tim wobbled forwards, scratched his head, and saw Jane prompting him
with her lips, and looking happy to see him such a big man.
After some reflection he recalled the second verse.
“And Kate became the squire’s bride,
And Kate became the squire’s bride,
And Kate became the squire’s bride,
And no more will she say--”
Chorus: “Will you buy?”
The chorus was sung, every one applauded their own share, and Tim came
down, in a halo of glory.
Cherry knocked soberly with his beer-glass this time.
When he had succeeded in getting order, which took a little time, he
looked down on the upturned faces.
“Ladies and gentlemen----” he began, smiling.
“Cheese it, Will,” came a voice.
“Well then--Foak----!” he addressed them.
“Ay--that’ll do.”
“Order--order.”
“Shut up!”
“Fill his glass up.”
“Foak--” said Cherry, meditatively, “I’m glad to see you here, and
believe you’ve enjoyed yourselves.”
(Some furious hand-clapping.)
“The merry-makin’ is drawin’ to a close. Everything draws to a
close. Sometimes it’s a good job. But I believe in bein’ happy, if
possible--despite what the parson says. It’s easier bein’ happy wi’
some one to share your happiness, an’ double your sorrows. It’s a bit
hard, sometimes--but is anything easy in this world? I sit here and
lift up this glass----”
He lifted it and eyed it with beneficent look.
“And drink to the health of the bride and bridegroom.”
He drank, amidst a dead silence.
He set the glass down.
“May they be happier nor anybody ever was before,” he said, “though I
don’t think they will--there’s a lot o’ happiness in th’ world--an’
allers will be----
“An’ when they’re not--let em’ stick it----”
“Hear, hear!”
“I’m not in favour of month-old contracts----”
Loud applause.
“You don’t get the best out of friendship in a month. It’s stickin’
does it--just stickin’. Here’s to them ’at has stuck it, an’ kept to
th’ bargain, an’ grinned an’ borne wi’ one another, like a mother bears
wi’ her child, like a dog bears wi’ its master--like the Boss o’ th’
Great Show bears wi’ all on us. Here’s to our Polly again, an’ to our
Adam. An’ now, before we break up, we’ll just push th’ chairs to one
side, an’ sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’--after which I declare this meeting
closed.”
The climax was reached as the clan seized hands in the great room and
sang the immortal song, swinging hands vigorously. Then a travelled
person suggested the outlandish custom of sending up “rockets.” This
was merely a hand movement, coupled with a mouth-noise as of a rocket
bursting, and calling out the name of the person. A “rocket” was sent
up for Cherry, Polly, Adam, this body and that, however, until it began
to feel delicate to leave anybody out, so everybody had a rocket sent
up for them--even Becky--Becky whose baby was asleep in the cloak-room.
Even Nan--Nan, who looked touched to receive this public mark of esteem.
“He ought to have a do like this every week,” avowed Uncle Silas.
There was a great to do in the cloak-room finding garments. They also
found Mr. Roscoe, quite sound asleep, and quoting Scripture when he was
roused--with a whisky bottle in his hand.
Cherry trundled up to Miriam and Jerry Clin.
Granny was talking to them.
“They’re going to be asked out next Sunday,” he said.
Jerry gasped.
“I’ve sin the letters he’s written,” said Cherry, to Aunt Miriam,
“they’d read well in a court o’ law. A hundred poun’ damages it’d be.”
Jerry groaned.
A hundred pounds!
“It’s a forgery,” he said.
Cherry laughed.
He took Jerry off to have another nip in the little room.
“I don’t--mind--if I do,” said Jerry, desperately, and offered to kiss
Aunt Miriam.
“So you’re engaged?” said Cherry.
Jerry looked hopelessly at him.
“Ay, I suppose we are,” he said.
Aunt Miriam and Cherry and the whisky combined were too much for Jerry.
“I hope, Miriam,” said Cherry, “tha’ll fix him up well on Brand from
the Burning stuff. It’d be a pity for owd Nick to get _him_. An’ if I
were thee, I’d never show him them letters. He mightn’t have written
’em.”
Aunt Miriam stared at Cherry.
Then--a light dawned in her eyes.
She took the arm of Jerry Clin--and saw him safely home.
“I suppose there’ll be another weddin’ to dance at, son,” said Granny.
She was peering about.
“Th’ trap came just after I made my speech,” said Cherry. “I saw ’em
go. They’ve gone home.”
He referred to Polly and Adam.
Nan came out of the cloak-room just then.
“Darby and Joan, now,” he said, comically. “Left all alone in the
cottage by the sea!”
Granny looked at him.
“It’s me ’at ’ll feel it,” said Nan, chokily.
But Granny was staring at Cherry.
“All flesh is but grass, Will,” she said. “She’s gone th’ way o’ all
flesh--except that as is hay wi’ havin’ a’ th’ human nature dried out
on it. Well, he has a trap. You’ll see her a lot.”
They took Granny home.
Then went up to Myrtle Cottage with Grandma Cherry, who was staying
overnight And there--waiting “innocent like,” as Cherry said--was a
letter, bringing the great news that Cherry had won his case. He had a
pound per week for life.
Across the valley, in that little white farm, Sarah was waiting, with a
big fire, for Polly and Adam.
“We’re not stayin’ in,” said Adam.
“Eh?” she gasped.
Adam was off to harness the new brown cob, and drove Polly to
Narrowfields, to start her honeymoon week of Grand Opera. “Faust”
was first night--the wonder, the glory of it, with a star company;
“Rigoletto,” “Il Trovatore,” “Maritana,” “Lily of Killarney,” with
Polly scarcely breathing through it all, and afterwards the drive back
under the low moon in a spring night, with the trot of the brown cob
setting itself to music, and Sarah awaiting at the other end to mother
Polly as she had never been able to mother Adam. Polly was in clover.
“We’ll go down to Granny’s to-night,” said Polly.
This was on Sunday.
They called, after chapel.
“I’m fain yo’ called to-neet,” she said, repeating the statement twice.
Granny had not been herself since that jig in which she out-jigged
Silas.
They were glad, too, three days later.
Granny died, sitting in her chair--whilst laughing with the cobbler’s
wife.
She had gone as she wanted to go, “like the crack of a gun”--giving
trouble to no one, and on her own hearthstone.
All that she was possessed of she left to her grand-daughter Polly. It
consisted of the household furniture and some forty pounds. Conditional
on the household furniture was the clause that if ever Belle Harker
came to Cherrydale, she should stay as long as she liked with Polly.
She also begged that the weather-vane should cause no bad feeling--but
that one or other of the two who had asked for it should “give way” if
necessary. She asked that there should be no flowers, a sad waste of
good money, and ended this Grannyish will with the remark that none
should miss any sleep over her going, _as she’d had a good innings_.
The funeral took place just a fortnight after Polly’s wedding--the clan
gathering in the same room.
So genial a ghost had Granny left behind her that no man ate with a
sense of shame.
Only Polly did not eat at all.
And was remonstrated with by the parson. But really comforted by Adam
and her Dad.
“She’s left such a memory behind,” said Cherry, “we shall never believe
she’s right gone from us. An’ it’s not th’ sort of memory you can cry
off.”
Which was perhaps all the flowers Granny needed. It was very
appropriate that the minister forgot his glasses, and, therefore, could
not read the burial service, laying Betsy Harker back into the earth
with a few human words spoken as a friend. Only the cobbler’s wife
thought _she_ wouldn’t like to die _laughing_.
But, as Granny would say, “In this world it’s hard to suit everybody.”
After a life with its full innings of mirth and sorrow, she “ligged low
and said nowt.”
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Typos corrected. However, the author’s original spelling of “blussed”
(page 36) has been left unchanged.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been left unchanged.