An hour after these words were spoken, the marriage ceremony was concluded.
“Caleb,” said the bridegroom, drawing the clergyman aside as they were about to re-enter the house, “you will keep your promise, I know; and you think I may depend implicitly upon the good faith of the witness you have selected?”
“Upon his good faith?—no,” said Caleb, smiling, “but upon his deafness, his ignorance, and his age. My poor old clerk! He will have forgotten all about it before this day three months. Now I have seen your lady, I no longer wonder that you incur so great a risk. I never beheld so lovely a countenance. You will be happy!” And the village priest sighed, and thought of the coming winter and his own lonely hearth.
“My dear friend, you have only seen her beauty—it is her least charm. Heaven knows how often I have made love; and this is the only woman I have ever really loved. Caleb, there is an excellent living that adjoins my uncle’s house. The rector is old; when the house is mine, you will not be long without the living. We shall be neighbours, Caleb, and then you shall try and find a bride for yourself. Smith,”—and the bridegroom turned to the servant who had accompanied his wife, and served as a second witness to the marriage,—“tell the post-boy to put to the horses immediately.”
“Yes, Sir. May I speak a word with you?”
“Well, what?”
“Your uncle, sir, sent for me to come to him, the day before we left town.”
“Aha!—indeed!”
“And I could just pick up among his servants that he had some suspicion—at least, that he had been making inquiries—and seemed very cross, sir.”
“You went to him?”