“Thank you, Edwin Sykes will do that,” was the reply.
Wimpenny returned to his siege of the facile heart of the lively Polly, and in time wedded her. But their marriage was not a happy one. Nehemiah’s attachment to the bar of the Rose and Crown survived Polly’s translation to a loftier sphere of life. He became a confirmed tippler, and his clients left him one after the other. He became in time that most pitiable of objects—a pot-house lawyer, and only escaped the last disgrace of a lawyer’s life because no one would trust him with their money.
Ben Garside took to Methodism in his old age, and wore glossy black-cloth o’ Sundays. But he always averred that he had fallen from his best ideals, and suffered the fear for his own soul to deaden his concern for the souls of others. He and Jack smoked many a pipe together in the calm summer months of peaceful and prosperous years, seated on the crumbling walls of Co-op. Mill, and mourning over a vanished dream.
The last sage dictum of Ben to be recorded in this narrative suggested its title. It was uttered on the eve of his friend’s wedding.
“Aw reckon, Tom, as ha’ tha’ll be goin’ to Aenon Chapel after tha’rt wed?”
“Why so?” asked Tom
“Cost tha’rt one o’ th’ elect.”
“I don’t take you, Ben.”
“Why, mon, doesn’t elect mean chossen.”
“I suppose so, Ben.”