The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 40
Chapter XLIX. — Wedding Bells
Chapter XLIX.
Wedding Bells.
Joy bells are ringing in the rising town of Hamilton, sending their music through the streets, and causing the busy citizens to ask each other what could be the matter. Carriages were dashing to and fro, and coachmen, in white gloves and marriage favors pinned to their coats, were carrying the invited guests, first to the Church to see the marriage, and afterwards to the Easthorpes; for to-day, Charley Easthorpe and Kate Goring, Philip Manning and Mary Easthorpe, were to be married.
Crowded was the little edifice as Charley and Philip led their brides up to the altar, followed by a long train of bridesmaids and groomsmen. Hushed was the congregation as the worthy Bishop read the marriage service, and insolubly tied the knot, that made Mary and Kate wedded wives. Gravely looked on Mrs. Easthorpe and Mrs. Goring, while as quietly grave stood by the Doctor and Mr. Easthorpe. Trembled some of the bridesmaids at the thought of their approaching fate, and one imploring look did Eleanor Goring cast at George Tempest, who happened to be standing near her.
They all looked very pretty. Little May Douglas even felt awed, and was glad when the thing was over, and was able to run up to Mary, and throw her arms round her neck, and crush her veil and flowers, which particular diversion Mary accepted as a relief and a change, in spite of her bridal attire, which of course became crushed and put out of shape.
High swelled the organ as the people left the church, and Charley and Philip handed their brides into their respective carriages. Does not the music still linger in their ears even now, and do they not often think over those few moments, when they waited at the church doors until the carriages slowly took them up? Was it not a relief to get out of the people's sight, and find themselves seated by each other, and on the way home to breakfast?
"Oh! please let me go with Mary." May Douglas had asked, but the young lady was firmly conducted into one of the vehicles set apart for the bridesmaids.
Need we relate what occurred at the all-important breakfast, and how the doctor (by this we mean Doctor Goring) shone and beamed in a most benign way on all around, and told amusing anecdotes, and cracked jokes, and smiled, and looked a most happy elderly gentleman, as he was, and publicly called his wife's attention to the day when thay were married "some half-century ago," at which his wife blushed slightly, and denied the date. Nor need we say how quiet Mr. Easthope, and Charley, and Philip were, and how slightly excited Mary and Kate became. Nor of the speeches, and good wishes, and cutting of the great cake, which towered aloft, and had been an object of envy to half the girls in Hamilton for a fortnight previously. All these things are best known to those who were most interested, and who often think of them.
Then, when the breakfast was all over, and Mary and Kate had exchanged their wedding array, and the carriages had driven up the gravelled pathway to the house, did not all the guests crowd the porch and broad verandah; and what further smiles, and nods, and becks occurred, as the wedded couples drove away, followed by a shower of orthodox slippers, ragged, yet withal happiness—wishing. Nor need we say anything of the slight aching pain in Mrs. Easthorpe's heart, as she stood by her husband's side, and saw her daughter depart from her old home, leaving her, indeed, lone and solitary in her declining years. It is enough for you and I, gentle reader, to look on, and to witness these proceedings, and wish Mary and Kate, Philip and Charley, God speed and a fair sum of happiness in their new journey in life. As they drive away from Mary's old home, so they pass from our sight. We may see them again in the course of time, in their new homes (that pleasure is open to any person enquiring for them in Hamilton), and if you are sorry to lose them for the present, so too are we. Perhaps you are not sorry. Mayhap the record of this short tale has already wearied you. If so, farewell. Slightly altering Pope's splendid pastoral let us say :—
"Adieu, ye vales, ye mountains, streams, and groves,
Adieu, ye shepherd's rural lays and loves;
Adieu, my flocks, farewell ye sylvan crew,
Terua farewell, and all the world adieu."
The End.
Jason Smith, of Cairo, called a fellow-townsman "old beeswax," and in a suit for slander he was honey-combed to the tune of $1,200. There is such a thing as being too sweet on a man.
At a State dinner given by an African King last year, some boxes of American sugar-coated pills furnished the dessert. That was when the King was a little green, but he can't be fooled again.
Smoking tobacco is said to colour the bones. We do not know why people should want their bones coloured, but if they do, smoking is probably the cheapest and easiest way to do it.
An American revision of the New Testament is talked of. The next thing we know people will clamor for a State revision, and pretty soon each man and woman will revise the Scriptures to suit him or herself. Then we'll have a temperance revision and an anti-temperance revision; a Democratic revision, a Republican revision and a Greenback-Labor revision that permits fishing on Sunday and a revision that prohibits angling on that day. And so forth.
An Ohio man who pumps the bellows of the organ in his own native town says he can pump any tune into an organ which any musician can play.
Madame Menter is a new expounder, on the piano, of Liszt and Rubenstein's music, and she reminds the London Truth of Wellington's remark to his soldiers at Waterloo :—"Hard pounding this, my lads, hard pounding."
Husbands are not as exact in their statements as they should be. One of them said that he suffered from cold feet, then, looking at his wife, he added, "but they are not mine," leaving the company to suppose that they were his wife's. Again, a Rhode Island husband advertises that his wife has run away and left him, and adds, "caused by rum," but he doesn't say whether it was he or she who drank the rum.