“You say that whenever we meet. You forget that we are both older, and that it has been almost four years since we were constantly together. It was always our ambition, when we were boys, to become men: we are becoming men very rapidly, and while I am satisfied, you seem to complain of it. But we never become so old that we do not have care and responsibility, and I look like a thoughtful man to you only because in the course of years I have grown to be a thoughtful man. Further than my work there is nothing to make me thoughtful but the age I have accumulated naturally, and I look older because I AM older. Let me assure you once for all, my good old friend, that I am stout as a lion; I am prosperous; I am to be married in a few hours to the woman of my choice, and that there is no reason why I should not live to a ripe old age in the greatest peace. There! Are you satisfied?”
“I enjoyed your friendship so much when you were a boy,” I answered, “that perhaps it is only a fear that it will be less candid when we are men. I have had no other confidant than you, and I dread to see you grow old, for fear that a man’s cares will cause you to forget our boyish friendship.”
“No fear of that,” he said, after he had studied awhile, as if turning it all over in his mind. “No fear of that. I shall never grow too old to confide my sorrows (if I have them) and successes to you. However poorly a man is raised, he always has a pleasant recollection of his youth. It may be only the hut in which he was born, but there is always something, and you are the one pleasant recollection of my boyhood. If I had a great trouble, I should come to you with it; not for help, perhaps, but for your honest sympathy, and for the satisfaction of talking it over freely. So long as I confess nothing to you, you may rest assured that I am very happy. I don’t feel right just now, some way, and I can see that you don’t; but I hope we shall get on better later in the day. I am very sorry, but for some reason the occasion does not promise to be what I expected. Probably one reason is that I have done a very mean thing to-day, and when you discover it, as you are sure to do, remember that I have confessed my humiliation, and say nothing about it.”
I had no idea what it was, but as he said I should discover it, I did not press him further.
“It is very curious,” Jo said, in a confidential and perplexed way, “but the nearer my marriage approaches, the less important it seems; I wonder that I am so cool over it. You remember what I said to you once about it—that I would sell myself to the Devil to be married to Mateel; THEN, not to wait a minute. I felt what I said, but the years of waiting have made a great change in me. Not that I am less fond of her, but I do not feel now about it as I did the night we rode to Barker’s the first year of my apprenticeship. It was never intended, perhaps, for anyone to be as happy as I should have been had my marriage to Mateel that night been possible. Somehow we always have to wait until the pleasure of an event is blunted by familiarity. Imperceptibly, as she became a possibility, I made the discovery that she is not an angel—she would be an angel, I have no doubt, were such a thing possible—for angels do not live in the woods, and they do not marry millers.”
He tried very hard to be cheerful, but he could not, and when he spoke I thought it was an apology for his troubled face:—
“I am very tired of late, for I have worked almost night and day for four years, and I hope you will excuse me if I do not seem glad to see you, for I am; though just at present, for some unaccountable reason, I am unable to show it. I am sure I shall perceptibly revive by reason of your being here, but the mill undertaking was a big one, though I shall speedily recover, now that I have more ease. I can’t just explain myself how it is, but I hope you will believe I am still Jo Erring, and still regard you as my best friend.”
I made some sort of an answer, and we went into the house soon after, both of us more than ever convinced that something was wrong, though we could not tell what it was. Jo immediately disappeared into another room, leaving me alone until Mr. Shepherd came in, who, although he seemed glad to see me, was in such great excitement that he had not time to express it.
“You will excuse me if I am not myself,” he said, as he walked about, putting his hands to his head as though it pained him, a habit I had noticed before. “While I approve of this marriage, our only child leaves us to-day, and we cannot feel very gay about it. She has hardly been out of our sight since she was born, and so far from feeling gay, we are uncomfortable, although we have no objection to her husband. It distresses her poor mother more than it does me; I fear it will be like a funeral. I hope Jo will not mind if she breaks down entirely. I had been hoping we should be very happy to-day, but I have lost all hope of it.”
As Mr. Shepherd walked rapidly round the room with his head down, he almost ran into a door as it opened to admit his respectable wife, followed by Agnes. Mrs. Shepherd bowed to me stiffly, and, walking across the room, seated herself. I had a vague sort of notion that Mrs. Shepherd, hearing of my arrival, had come in to pay her respects, and such a long and awkward silence followed that I began to upbraid myself that, as a young man of the world, I should say something suitable. While debating between a joke and an observation on the weather, however, the door opened again, and Jo and Mateel stood before me. Jo wore the suit in which he had met me at the gate, with the addition of gloves, and Mateel was arrayed as became a bride. Both looked brave and handsome, and while admiring them, and wondering what I had better do (I was impressed with my importance there, someway, but was not certain how), Mr. Shepherd got up from his chair, and, standing before them, pronounced the simple marriage ceremony common in that day, in a low and faltering voice. Then we all knelt, and the good man earnestly and tenderly invoked the blessing of God on the union. By the time Mr. Shepherd had risen to his feet again, his wife was beside him, and, throwing her arms about Mateel, kissed her over and over again, and asked her not to cry, as she had shown evidences of doing. Somehow I thought they had agreed, as though it were brave, not to humiliate my worthy friend by creating a scene, and I wondered that they consented to the marriage at all if they did not approve of it. I had never been entirely cured of a dislike for Mrs. Shepherd, and it came upon me with renewed force that day, for I thought she had every reason to feel gratified at the marriage, instead of sorrowful, for Jo was much the better one of the two; any unprejudiced person would have said so. She paid not the slightest attention to Jo, and I was glad when Mr. Shepherd came up and shook him by the hand, with appropriate words of congratulation, after which Agnes touched me on the arm, and we went up with our greetings. When I took Mateel by the hand Jo said for me to kiss her (which I did very awkwardly, I am afraid); then Agnes kissed Jo, and we were all very happy together. Some one brought up chairs, and Jo and Mateel sat down, and when I looked around Mr. Shepherd and his wife were gone.