There is that in a wedding which appeals to a universal sympathy. No
other event in the lives of their superiors in rank creates an equal
sensation amongst the humbler classes.
From the moment the news had spread throughout the village that Miss
Jemima was to be married, all the old affection for the Squire and his
house burst forth the stronger for its temporary suspension. Who could
think of the stocks in such a season? They were swept out of
fashion--hunted from remembrance as completely as the question of Repeal
or the thought of Rebellion from the warm Irish heart, when the fair
young face of the Royal Wife beamed on the sister isle.
Again cordial courtesies were dropped at the thresholds by which the
Squire passed to his home farm; again the sunburnt brows uncovered--no
more with sullen ceremony--were smoothed into cheerful gladness at his
nod. Nay, the little ones began again to assemble at their ancient
rendezvous by the stocks, as if either familiarized with the phenomenon,
or convinced that, in the general sentiment of good-will, its powers of
evil were annulled.
The Squire tasted once more the sweets of the only popularity which is
much worth having, and the loss of which a wise man would reasonably
deplore; viz., the popularity which arises from a persuasion of our
goodness, and a reluctance to recall our faults. Like all blessings, the
more sensibly felt from previous interruption, the Squire enjoyed this
restored popularity with an exhilarated sense of existence; his stout
heart beat more vigorously, his stalwart step trod more lightly; his
comely English face looked comelier and more English than ever;--you
would have been a merrier man for a week to have come within hearing of
his jovial laugh.
He felt grateful to Jemima and to Riccabocca as the special agents of
Providence in this general _integratio amoris_. To have looked at him,
you would suppose that it was the Squire who was going to be married a
second time to his Harry!
One may well conceive that such would have been an inauspicious moment
for Parson Dale's theological scruples. To have stopped that
marriage--chilled all the sunshine it diffused over the village--seen
himself surrounded again by long, sulky visages,--I verily believe,
though a better friend of Church and State never stood on a hustings,
that, rather than court such a revulsion, the Squire would have found
jesuitical excuses for the marriage if Riccabocca had been discovered to
be the Pope in disguise! As for the stocks, their fate was now
irrevocably sealed. In short, the marriage was concluded--first
privately, according to the bridegroom's creed, by a Roman Catholic
clergyman, who lived in a town some miles off, and next publicly in the
village church of Hazeldean.
It was the heartiest rural wedding! Village girls strewed flowers on the
way;--a booth was placed amidst the prettiest scenery of the park, on
the margin of the lake--for there was to be a dance later in the day; an
ox was roasted whole. Even Mr. Stirn--no, Mr. Stirn was _not_ present,
so much happiness would have been the death of him! And the Papisher
too, who had conjured Lenny out of the stocks; nay, who had himself sat
in the stocks for the very purpose of bringing them into contempt--the
Papisher! he had as lief Miss Jemima had married the devil! Indeed, he
was persuaded that, in point of fact, it was all one and the same.
Therefore Mr. Stirn had asked leave to go and attend his uncle the
pawnbroker, about to undergo a torturing operation for the stone! Frank
was there, summoned from Eton for the occasion--having grown two inches
taller since he left--for the one inch of which nature was to be
thanked, for the other a new pair of resplendent Wellingtons. But the
boy's joy was less apparent than that of others. For Jemima was a
special favorite with him, as she would have been with all boys--for she
was always kind and gentle, and made many pretty presents whenever she
came from the watering-places. And Frank knew that he should miss her
sadly, and thought she had made a very queer choice.
Captain Higginbotham had been invited; but, to the astonishment of
Jemima, he had replied to the invitation by a letter to herself, marked
"_private and confidential_." "She must have long known," said the
letter, "of his devoted attachment to her; motives of delicacy, arising
from the narrowness of his income and the magnanimity of his sentiments,
had alone prevented his formal proposals; but now that he was informed
(he could scarcely believe his senses, or command his passions) that her
relations wished to force her into a BARBAROUS marriage with a foreigner
of MOST FORBIDDING APPEARANCE, and most _abject circumstances_, he lost
not a moment in laying at her feet his own hand and fortune. And he did
this the more confidently, inasmuch as he could not but be aware of Miss
Jemima's SECRET feelings towards him, while he was _proud_ and _happy_
to say, that his dear and distinguished cousin, Mr. Sharpe Currie, had
honored him with a warmth of regard, which justified the most
_brilliant_ EXPECTATIONS--likely to be _soon_ realized--as his eminent
relative had contracted a _very bad liver complaint_ in the service of
his country, and could not last long!"
In all the years they had known each other, Miss Jemima, strange as it
may appear, had never once suspected the Captain of any other feelings
to her than those of a brother. To say that she was not gratified by
learning her mistake, would be to say that she was more than woman.
Indeed, it must have been a source of no ignoble triumph to think that
she could prove her disinterested affection to her dear Riccabocca, by a
prompt rejection of this more brilliant offer. She couched the
rejection, it is true, in the most soothing terms. But the Captain
evidently considered himself ill used; he did not reply to the letter,
and did not come to the wedding.
To let the reader into a secret, never known to Miss Jemima, Captain
Higginbotham was much less influenced by Cupid than by Plutus in the
offer he had made. The Captain was one of that class of gentlemen who
read their accounts by those corpse-lights, or will-o'-the-wisps, called
_expectations_. Ever since the Squire's grandfather had left him--then
in short clothes--a legacy of L500, the Captain had peopled the future
with expectations! He talked of his expectations as a man talks of
shares in a Tontine; they might fluctuate a little--be now up and now
down--but it was morally impossible, if he lived on, but that he should
be a _millionaire_ one of these days. Now, though Miss Jemima was a good
fifteen years younger than himself, yet she always stood for a good
round sum in the ghostly books of the Captain. She was an _expectation_
to the full amount of her L4000, seeing that Frank was an only child,
and it would be carrying coals to Newmarket to leave _him_ any thing.
Rather than see so considerable a cipher suddenly spunged out of his
visionary ledger--rather than so much money should vanish clean out of
the family, Captain Higginbotham had taken what he conceived, if a
desperate, at least a certain, step for the preservation of his
property. If the golden horn could not be had without the heifer, why,
he must take the heifer into the bargain. He had never formed to himself
an idea that a heifer so gentle would toss and fling him over. The blow
was stunning. But no one compassionates the misfortunes of the covetous,
though few perhaps are in greater need of compassion. And leaving poor
Captain Higginbotham to retrieve his illusory fortunes as he best may
among "the expectations" which gathered round the form of Mr. Sharpe
Currie, who was the crossest old tyrant imaginable, and never allowed at
his table any dishes not compounded with rice, which played Old Nick
with the Captain's constitutional functions,--I return to the wedding at
Hazeldean, just in time to see the bridegroom--who looked singularly
well on the occasion--hand the bride (who, between sunshiny tears and
affectionate smiles, was really a very interesting and even a pretty
bride, as brides go) into a carriage which the Squire had presented to
them, and depart on the orthodox nuptial excursion amidst the blessings
of the assembled crowd.
It may be thought strange by the unreflective that these rural
spectators should so have approved and blessed the marriage of a
Hazeldean of Hazeldean with a poor, outlandish, long-haired foreigner;
but, besides that Riccabocca, after all, had become one of the
neighborhood, and was proverbially 'a civil-spoken gentleman,' it is
generally noticeable that on wedding occasions the bride so monopolizes
interest, curiosity, and admiration, that the bridegroom himself goes
for little or nothing. He is merely the passive agent in the affair--the
unregarded cause of the general satisfaction. It was not Riccabocca
himself that they approved and blessed--it was the gentleman in the
white waistcoat who had made Miss Jemima--Madam Rickeybocky!
Leaning on his wife's arm, (for it was a habit of the Squire to lean on
his wife's arm rather than she on his, when he was specially pleased;
and there was something touching in the sight of that strong sturdy
frame thus insensibly, in hours of happiness, seeking dependence on the
frail arm of woman),--leaning, I say, on his wife's arm, the Squire,
about the hour of sunset, walked down to the booth by the lake.
All the parish--young and old, man, woman, and child--were assembled
there, and their faces seemed to bear one family likeness, in the common
emotion which animated all, as they turned to his frank fatherly smile.
Squire Hazeldean stood at the head of the long table: he filled a horn
with ale from the brimming tankard beside him. Then he looked round, and
lifted his hand to request silence; and, ascending the chair, rose in
full view of all. Every one felt that the Squire was about to make a
speech, and the earnestness of the attention was proportioned to the
rarity of the event; for (though he was not unpractised in the oratory
of the hustings), only thrice before had the Squire made what could
fairly be called 'a speech' to the villagers of Hazeldean--once on a
kindred festive occasion, when he had presented to them his bride--once
in a contested election for the shire, in which he took more than
ordinary interest, and was not quite so sober as he ought to have
been--once in a time of great agricultural distress, when, in spite of
reduction of rents, the farmers had been compelled to discard a large
number of their customary laborers; and when the Squire had said,--"I
have given up keeping the hounds, because I want to make a fine piece of
water (that was the origin of the lake), and to drain all the low lands
round the park. Let every man who wants work come to me!" And that sad
year the parish rates of Hazeldean were not a penny the more.
Now, for the fourth time, the Squire rose, and thus he spoke. At his
right hand, Harry; at his left, Frank. At the bottom of the table, as
vice-president, Parson Dale, his little wife behind him, only obscurely
seen. She cried readily, and her handkerchief was already before her
eyes.