Some of the fishing boats were away, which was disappointing for the crews, although it is a little difficult to imagine how one extra person could have been squeezed into the congregation which later on crowded the store.
Jervis came over the river very early in the morning, and, with the help of Miles and Phil, got the store ready to serve as a church for the occasion. Pails of lard with boards laid across served for seats in the centre of the floor; barrels of pork, of beans, and of flour made a sort of dais or high seat all round the walls, on which the boys and the younger men might be accommodated. Rather a precarious kind of seat this was, as barrel heads were apt to give way, and then the luckless individual would be smothered with flour or bespattered with brine.
Mary also came across early, to help to dress the bride, and her mood was so wildly hilarious that Mrs. Burton felt it necessary to gently reprove her.
"Of course it is right to be happy and cheerful at a wedding, but there is always a strain of sadness somewhere to keep our spirits even. And we can't forget that Katherine is to go to England next week."
"But she will be glad to go, and glad to come back; no one wants to stay in one place all her life, in these gadabout days," Mary answered. Then she produced a box and bade Katherine admire what she had brought her.
"I felt when I bought it that it was shockingly unsuitable," Mary said, laughing, as from the folds of soft white paper she lifted out a square of exquisite lace for a bridal veil, and flung it over Katherine's hair. "But plainly I have the eye of a seer, and I imagined you standing up to be married in a sailor hat, or something equally unsuitable, and it was not to be endured."
"How lovely!" sighed Mrs. Burton, in an ecstasy of admiration. But Katherine said nothing at all; her heart was too full for speech, and she was thinking of last summer, when it had seemed right that she should stand aside to let Mary have the happiness she wanted for herself. Things had changed so much since then that it seemed scarcely possible that she could have had to bear so many heartaches.
At this moment one of the twins burst into the room with the information that the bishop had arrived, and Katherine, walking like one in a dream, went out from her chamber and crossed the homely kitchen to the store.
A murmur went round the crowded place as she entered. Heretofore she had been to them a good, hard-working girl, with pleasant manners and a pretty face. They had seen her staggering along the portage paths laden with heavy burdens; they had seen her struggling to row a boat up river against a strong current; they had met her dripping with wet, or covered with frost, like an Esquimaux: but this stately girl with the beautiful face, clad in her white bridal robe, and with Mary's veil over her shining hair, was a revelation to them, and it was Oily Dave who voiced the opinion of the assembly when he exclaimed in a very audible tone: "My word, but ain't she a stunner!"
He was sitting in the very front row, as if he were the most intimate and faithful friend the family possessed. He held his treasured "top" hat carefully in front of him, as if it were a collecting bag, and he were about to take the offertory. For the rest, his costume was something of a mixture: a football sweater with broad stripes, a Norfolk jacket, dungaree trousers, and a fisherman's long boots made him a striking figure even in that company of mixed costumes. He was as self-satisfied and complacent as if he had never planned evil deeds and tried to carry them out, while the benevolence with which he smiled upon the wedding party might have led one to suppose they had no more tried or trusted friend than he.