Under the Greenwood Tree Part 30

"O, so natural and elegant, didn't they, Reuben!" she cried, through the c.h.i.n.ks of the unceiled floor, to the tranter downstairs.

"What's that?" said the tranter, looking up inquiringly at the floor above him for an answer.

"Didn't d.i.c.k and Fancy sound well when they were called home in church last Sunday?" came downwards again in Mrs. Penny's voice.

"Ay, that they did, my sonnies!--especially the first time. There was a terrible whispering piece of work in the congregation, wasn't there, neighbour Penny?" said the tranter, taking up the thread of conversation on his own account and, in order to be heard in the room above, speaking very loud to Mr. Penny, who sat at the distance of three feet from him, or rather less.

"I never can mind seeing such a whispering as there was," said Mr. Penny, also loudly, to the room above. "And such sorrowful envy on the maidens'

faces; really, I never did see such envy as there was!"

Fancy's lineaments varied in innumerable little flushes, and her heart palpitated innumerable little tremors of pleasure. "But perhaps," she said, with a.s.sumed indifference, "it was only because no religion was going on just then?"

"O, no; nothing to do with that. 'Twas because of your high standing in the parish. It was just as if they had one and all caught d.i.c.k kissing and coling ye to death, wasn't it, Mrs. Dewy?"

"Ay; that 'twas."

"How people will talk about one's doings!" Fancy exclaimed.

"Well, if you make songs about yourself, my dear, you can't blame other people for singing 'em."

"Mercy me! how shall I go through it?" said the young lady again, but merely to those in the bedroom, with a breathing of a kind between a sigh and a pant, round s.h.i.+ning eyes, and warm face.

"O, you'll get through it well enough, child," said Mrs. Dewy placidly.

"The edge of the performance is took off at the calling home; and when once you get up to the chancel end o' the church, you feel as saucy as you please. I'm sure I felt as brave as a sodger all through the deed--though of course I dropped my face and looked modest, as was becoming to a maid. Mind you do that, Fancy."

"And I walked into the church as quiet as a lamb, I'm sure," subjoined Mrs. Penny. "There, you see Penny is such a little small man. But certainly, I was flurried in the inside o' me. Well, thinks I, 'tis to be, and here goes! And do you do the same: say, ''Tis to be, and here goes!'"

"Is there such wonderful virtue in ''Tis to be, and here goes!'" inquired Fancy.

"Wonderful! 'Twill carry a body through it all from wedding to churching, if you only let it out with spirit enough."

"Very well, then," said Fancy, blus.h.i.+ng. "'Tis to be, and here goes!"

"That's a girl for a husband!" said Mrs. Dewy.

"I do hope he'll come in time!" continued the bride-elect, inventing a new cause of affright, now that the other was demolished.

"'Twould be a thousand pities if he didn't come, now you be so brave,"

said Mrs. Penny.

Grandfather James, having overheard some of these remarks, said downstairs with mischievous loudness--

"I've known some would-be weddings when the men didn't come."

"They've happened not to come, before now, certainly," said Mr. Penny, cleaning one of the gla.s.ses of his spectacles.

"O, do hear what they are saying downstairs," whispered Fancy. "Hush, hus.h.!.+"

She listened.

"They have, haven't they, Geoffrey?" continued grandfather James, as Geoffrey entered.

"Have what?" said Geoffrey.

"The men have been known not to come."

"That they have," said the keeper.

"Ay; I've knowed times when the wedding had to be put off through his not appearing, being tired of the woman. And another case I knowed was when the man was catched in a man-trap crossing Oaker's Wood, and the three months had run out before he got well, and the banns had to be published over again."

"How horrible!" said Fancy.

"They only say it on purpose to tease 'ee, my dear," said Mrs. Dewy.

"'Tis quite sad to think what wretched s.h.i.+fts poor maids have been put to," came again from downstairs. "Ye should hear Clerk Wilkins, my brother-law, tell his experiences in marrying couples these last thirty year: sometimes one thing, sometimes another--'tis quite heart-rending--enough to make your hair stand on end."

"Those things don't happen very often, I know," said Fancy, with smouldering uneasiness.

"Well, really 'tis time d.i.c.k was here," said the tranter.

"Don't keep on at me so, grandfather James and Mr. Dewy, and all you down there!" Fancy broke out, unable to endure any longer. "I am sure I shall die, or do something, if you do!"

"Never you hearken to these old chaps, Miss Day!" cried Nat Callcome, the best man, who had just entered, and threw his voice upward through the c.h.i.n.ks of the floor as the others had done. "'Tis all right; d.i.c.k's coming on like a wild feller; he'll be here in a minute. The hive o'

bees his mother gie'd en for his new garden swarmed jist as he was starting, and he said, 'I can't afford to lose a stock o' bees; no, that I can't, though I fain would; and Fancy wouldn't wish it on any account.'

So he jist stopped to ting to 'em and shake 'em."

"A genuine wise man," said Geoffrey.

"To be sure, what a day's work we had yesterday!" Mr. Callcome continued, lowering his voice as if it were not necessary any longer to include those in the room above among his audience, and selecting a remote corner of his best clean handkerchief for wiping his face. "To be sure!"

"Things so heavy, I suppose," said Geoffrey, as if reading through the chimney-window from the far end of the vista.

"Ay," said Nat, looking round the room at points from which furniture had been removed. "And so awkward to carry, too. 'Twas ath'art and across d.i.c.k's garden; in and out d.i.c.k's door; up and down d.i.c.k's stairs; round and round d.i.c.k's chammers till legs were worn to stumps: and d.i.c.k is so particular, too. And the stores of victuals and drink that lad has laid in: why, 'tis enough for Noah's ark! I'm sure I never wish to see a choicer half-dozen of hams than he's got there in his chimley; and the cider I tasted was a very pretty drop, indeed;--none could desire a prettier cider."

"They be for the love and the stalled ox both. Ah, the greedy martels!"

said grandfather James.

"Well, may-be they be. Surely," says I, "that couple between 'em have heaped up so much furniture and victuals, that anybody would think they were going to take hold the big end of married life first, and begin wi'

a grown-up family. Ah, what a bath of heat we two chaps were in, to be sure, a-getting that furniture in order!"

"I do so wish the room below was ceiled," said Fancy, as the dressing went on; "we can hear all they say and do down there."

"Hark! Who's that?" exclaimed a small pupil-teacher, who also a.s.sisted this morning, to her great delight. She ran half-way down the stairs, and peeped round the banister. "O, you should, you should, you should!"

she exclaimed, scrambling up to the room again.

"What?" said Fancy.

"See the bridesmaids! They've just a come! 'Tis wonderful, really! 'tis wonderful how muslin can be brought to it. There, they don't look a bit like themselves, but like some very rich sisters o' theirs that n.o.body knew they had!"