"'Will you take this woman to be thy wedded wife?' arst parson.
"'Such is my desire,' says I, in order; but Joe Banks wouldn't none o' that.
"'Fur better fur worse,' 'e says, 'fur richer fur poorer, domed if a' doan't.'
"So 'e was wedded to the Most Nailin' Bad Shot in creation."
"And was she pretty?" I asked of Craddock.
He shook his head. "I niver set eyes on her, sir, though I was best man. She was wrap up in a white veil, an' 'e kep' her so--said she liked it--they does, sir, when they've got a good 'usband."
"So they lived happy ever after?"
"Not for long, sir--" here Craddock slipped his hands into his pockets as the first step towards slouching off. "That sort o' thing don't somehow last long, sir," here his eyes caught the gold of the setting sun, as they had a trick of doing when they grew soft. "Seems to me--savin' your presence, sir--as if there was too much o' the Noo Jerewsalem about that sort o' thing fur this world; that's 'ow it is. She died, sir, a few years after, when 'e was back in the Canals, in a God-forsaken spot, where there wasn't no one to--to be best man like. An' so they found 'im lying beside 'er with a bullet in 'is brain. So I was a minor prophet after all, an' Joey Banks got nicked at last by the Most Nailin' Bad Shot in creation."