It is a beautiful morning in Easter week. The sun is shining on the
gilded weathercock, which flashes every time it veers from south to west;
the snowdrops are getting quite out of date, and the buttercups and
primroses have it all their own way; the grass is making a start, and
getting quite long upon the graves in Friarswood churchyard.
'Really, I should have sent in the Saxon monarch to tidy us up!' says to
himself the tall young Rector, as he stepped over the stile with one long
stride; 'but I suppose he is better engaged.'
That tall young Rector is the Reverend Marcus Cope, six years older, but
young still. The poor old Rector, Mr. John Selby, died four years ago
abroad; and Lady Jane and Miss Selby's other guardians gave the living to
Mr. Cope, to the great joy of all the parish, except the Shepherds, who
have never forgiven him for their own usage of their farming boy, nor for
the sermon he neither wrote nor preached.
The Saxon monarch means one Harold King, who looks after the Rectory
garden and horse, as well as the post-office and other small matters.
The clerk is unlocking the church, and shaking out the surplice, and Mr.
Cope goes into the vestry, takes out two big books covered with green
parchment, and sees to the pen. It is a very good one, judging by the
writing of the last names in that book. They are Francis Mowbray and
Jane Arabella Selby.
'Captain and Mrs. Mowbray will be a great blessing to the place, if they
go on as they have begun,' thinks Mr. Cope. 'How happy they are making
old Lady Jane, and how much more Mrs. Mowbray goes among the cottages now
that she does more as she pleases.'
Then Mr. Cope goes to the porch and looks out. He sees two men getting
over the stile. One is a small slight person, in very good black
clothes, not at all as if they were meant to ape a gentleman, and
therefore thoroughly respectable. He has a thin face, rather pointed as
to the chin and nose, and the eyes dark and keen, so that it would be
over-sharp but that the mouth looks so gentle and subdued, and the whole
countenance is grave and thoughtful. You could not feel half so sure
that he is a certificated school-master, as you can that his very brisk-
looking companion is so.
'Good morning, Mr. Brown.--Good morning, Paul,' said Mr. Cope. 'I did
not expect to see you arrive in this way.'
The grave face glitters up in a merry look of amusement, while, with a
little colouring, he answers:
'Why, Sir, Matilda said it was the proper thing, and so we supposed she
knew best.'
There are not so many people who _do_ talk of Paul now. Most people know
him as Mr. Blackthorn, late school-master at Berryton, where the boys
liked him for his bright and gentle yet very firm ways; the parents, for
getting their children on, and helping them to be steady; and the
clergyman, for being so perfectly to be trusted, so anxious to do right,
and, while efficient and well informed, perfectly humble and free from
conceit. Now he has just got an appointment to Hazleford school, in
another diocese, with a salary of fifty pounds a year; but, as Charles
Hayward would tell you, 'he hasn't got one bit of pride, no more than
when he lived up in the hay-loft.'
There is not long to wait. There is another party getting over the
stile. There is a very fine tall youth first. As Betsey Hardman tells
her mother, 'she never saw such a one for being fine-growed and stately
to look at, since poor Charles King when he wore his best wig.' A very
nice open honest face, and as merry a pair of blue eyes as any in the
parish, does Harold wear, nearly enough to tell you that, if in these six
years it would be too much to say he has never done _anything_ to vex his
mother, yet in the main his heart is in the right place--he is a very
good son, very tender to her, and steady and right-minded.
Whom is he helping over the stile? Oh, that is Mrs. Mowbray's pretty
little maid! a very good young thing, whom she has read with and taught;
and here, lady-like and delicate-looking as ever, is Matilda. Bridemaids
before the bride! that's quite wrong; but the bride has a shy fit, and
would not get over first, and Matilda and Harold are, the one encouraging
her, the other laughing at her; and Mr. Blackthorn turns very red, and
goes down the path to meet her, and she takes his arm, and Harold takes
Lucy, and Mr. Brown Miss King.
Very nice that bride looks, with her hair so glossy under her straw
bonnet trimmed with white, her pretty white shawl, and quiet purple silk
dress, her face rather flushed, but quiet-looking, as if she were growing
more like her mother, with something of her sense and calmness.
How Mr. Blackthorn ever came to ask her that question, nobody can guess,
and Harold believes he does not know himself. However, it got an answer
two years ago, and Mrs. King gave her consent with all her heart, though
she knew Betsey Hardman would talk of picking a husband up out of the
gutter, and that my Lady would look severe, and say something of silly
girls. Yes--and though the rich widower bailiff had said sundry civil
things of Miss Ellen being well brought up and notable--'For,' as Mrs.
King wrote to Matilda, 'I had rather see Ellen married to a good
religious man than to any one, and I do not know one I can be so sure of
as Paul, nor one that is so like a son to me; and if he has no friends
belonging to him, that is better than bad friends.' And Ellen herself,
from looking on him as a mere boy, as she had done at their first
acquaintance, had come to thinking no one ever had been so wise or so
clever, far less so good, certainly not so fond of her--so her answer was
no great wonder. Then they were to be prudent, and wait for some
dependence; and so they did till Mr. Shaw recommended Paul Blackthorn for
Hazleford school, where there is a beautiful new house for the master, so
that he will have no longer to live in lodgings, and be 'done for,' as
the saying is. Harold tells Ellen that he is afraid that without her he
won't wash above once in four months; but however that may be, she is
convinced that the new school-house will be lost on him, and that in
spite of all his fine arithmetic, his fifty pounds will never go so far
for one as for two; and so she did not turn a deaf ear to his entreaties
that she would not send him alone to Hazleford.
They wanted very much to get 'Mother' to come and live with them, give up
the post-office, and let Harold live in Mr. Cope's house; but Mother has
a certain notion that Harold's stately looks and perfect health might not
last, if she were not always on the watch to put him into dry clothes if
he comes in damp, and such like 'little fidgets,' as he calls them, which
he would not attend to from any one but Mother. So she will keep on the
shop and the post-office, and try to break in that uncouth girl of John
Farden's to be a tidy little maid; and Mr. and Mrs. Blackthorn will spend
their holidays with her and Harold. She may come to them yet in time,
if, as Paul predicts, Master Harold takes up with Lucy at the Grange--but
there's time enough to think of that; and even if he should, it would
take many years to make Lucy into such a Mrs. King as she who is now very
busy over the dinner at home, but thinking about a good deal besides the
dinner.
There! Paul and Ellen have stood and knelt in an earnest reverent
spirit, making their vows to one another and before God, and His blessing
has been spoken upon them to keep them all their lives through.
It is with a good heart of hope that Mr. Cope speaks that blessing,
knowing that, as far as human eye can judge, here stands a man who truly
feareth the Lord, and beside him a woman with the ornament of a meek and
quiet spirit.
They are leaving the church now, the bridegroom and his bride, arm in
arm, but they turn from the path to the wicket, and Harold will not let
even Matilda follow them. Just by the south wall of the church there are
three graves, one a very long one, one quite short, one of middle length.
The large one has a head-stone, with the names of Charles King, aged
forty years, and Charles King, aged seven years. The middle-sized one
has a stone cross, and below it 'Alfred King, aged sixteen years,' and
the words, 'In all their afflictions He was afflicted.'
It was Matilda who paid the cost of that stone, Miss Selby who drew the
pattern of it, and 'Mother' who chose the words, as what Alfred himself
loved best. At the bottom of Ellen's best work-box is a copy of verses
about that very cross. She thinks they ought to have been carved out
upon it, but Paul knows a great deal better, so all she could do was to
write them out on a sheet of note-paper with a wide lace border, and keep
them as her greatest treasure. Perhaps she prizes them even more than
the handsome watch that Mr. Shaw gave Paul, though less, of course, than
the great Bible and Prayer-book, in which Mr. Cope has waited till this
morning to write the names of Paul and Ellen Blackthorn.
So they stand beside the cross, and read the words, and they neither of
them can say anything, though the white sweet face is before the eyes of
their mind at the same time, and Ellen thinks she loves Paul twice as
much for having been one of his great comforts.
'Good-bye, Alfred dear,' she whispers at last.
'No, not good-bye,' says Paul. 'He is as much with us as ever, wherever
we are. Remember how we were together, Ellen. I have always thought of
him at every Holy Communion since, and have felt that if till now, no one
living--at least one at rest, were mine by right.'
Ellen pressed his arm.
'Yes,' said Paul; 'the months I spent with Alfred were the great help and
blessing of my life. I don't believe any recollection has so assisted to
guard me in all the frets and temptations there are in a life like mine.'