"Please, sir, he's gone to fetch it," she said.
At that moment the sound of a fiddle was heard, and the smiling rascal who played it, stopping his melody for an instant, made a low and sweeping bow, which took in the vicar, the squire and the gentry generally. Then he clapped his fiddle under his chin and without more ado struck up "Bobbing Joan."
"That's right, my man," said the vicar, "you couldn't do better. Now men, now girls."
But not one of them stirred.
"Goodness me!" cried the vicar, and then he forgot himself. Could Mrs. Dodd believe her eyes? Her husband seized Jemima Ann Blogg by the hand.
"Come, gentlemen, set them a good example," he said, and he commenced to turn Miss Blogg violently round. Before her father had got through another two bars of "Bobbing Joan," every soul on the green had commenced to gyrate, the frown died off Mrs. Dodd's face, as she too began to turn with slow but majestic movements, her hand clasped by old Warrender's, her virtuous waist encircled by his aged though still vigorous arm. Lord Spunyarn pounced upon Lucy Warrender, Lord Hetton seized another bridesmaid, Justice Haggard somehow got possession of a third; every village Jack gripped his Jill, and all the parish of King's Warren, gentle and simple, twirled with one accord to the fine old tune of "Bobbing Joan." Once started there was no stopping them, the fun became fast and furious, and I fancy that it was with some regret that the wedding party itself, having set the ball a-rolling, retired to the more dignified festivities which awaited them in the great drawing room at The Warren.
It wasn't a large party; they were most of them Warrenders and Haggards, and offshoots and branches of those prolific trees, or people connected with the families from old association or friendship, but there were quite enough of them to fill the big drawing-room. Old Biggs, the family solicitor, who had come down to The Warren the day previously about the settlements, and Blatherwick, of Lincoln's Inn, who had fought him tooth and nail over every item, in the interest of the Haggard family, got their rubber; but both the legal lights had soon declared that it was impossible to play whist with dance music ringing in their ears. The lawyers looked rather sheepishly at each other when they found themselves vis-à-vis in a quadrille, Miss Hood having honoured the one, while Stacey Dodd clung lovingly to the arm of old Mr. Blatherwick. Of course it was most unprofessional, but they probably kept their indiscretions to themselves, and no doubt charged them to their clients under the head of "sundry attendances." As for the Reverend John Dodd he seemed to be everywhere at once, no one refused the Reverend John. When the youngest and best-looking of the bridesmaids told him that she was danced off her feet the clerical Lothario overpersuaded her in a few seconds, and round they went like a couple of dancing dervishes, being the last to hold the floor.
But even wedding parties must come to an end, though it was midnight before they finally broke up, and at last Justice Haggard and Lord Hetton walked over to their rooms at the "Dun Cow."
"It went off wonderfully well," said Hetton to the Justice.
"Capital, capital," assented the bridegroom's father. "It's a great weight off my mind, you know, Hetton. Reginald's been an awful anxiety, but he's a lucky beggar, he manages somehow to always turn up trumps."