The sun had just set when the carriage was dragged along the road to the Manor House, the crowds trotting on each side. It was a warm evening, and they were getting into fine form for the beer which they knew was awaiting them. On through the gates and up the avenue the carriage was dragged. The band had been left some distance behind, so they were spared any more suggestions of the “Conquering Hero,” but the full choir of the Framsby Glee and Madrigal Meistersingers now ranged around the Georgian porch, and in response to the beat of Mr. Tutt, struck into “Hail to the Chief that in Triumph Advances,” and the effect was certainly admirable, especially as the blackbirds and the thrushes supplied an effective obbligato from the shrubberies. There are several stanzas to that stirring chorus, and the young couple had ample time to greet Mrs. Wingfield, who had come to the head of the steps of the porch to welcome them, before the strains had come to a legitimate close. Jack had also time to ask the butler if he had made any arrangements about those casks of beer, and to receive a satisfactory reply.
When the last notes of the melody had died away and the cheers began once more, he stood with Priscilla by his side (she was carrying the beautiful bouquet with which she had been presented: every flower had come from the garden before her) at the top of the steps.
“My dear friends,” he began, and then he said the rest of what everyone expected him to say—even his final words, referring exclusively to the drinking of his health and the health of Mrs. Wingfield, were not unexpected—at any rate, they were quite as well received as any part of his speech; and then came the true and legitimate rendering of the anthem which marks the apotheosis of the orator, “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” followed by the “Hip, hip, hip, hooray!” thrice repeated, with one cheer more in case that the enthusiasm had not found an adequate vent by the triplex scheme, though the latter certainly did not seem to be ungenerous in its application.
The butler responded to the sentiment of the cheer.
Priscilla went upstairs to her room to change her travelling-dress, but Jack, with his arm about his mother, went into the dining-room, where some cold eatables had been laid out, with a refreshing “cup” in an old cut-glass jug. No candles had yet been lighted; there was no need for them; the glow of the sunset came through the windows and imparted the show of life to the portraits, each in its own panel along the wall on both sides of the fireplace.
The man glanced round the room with a look of satisfaction on his face.
“Ha, my old friends,” he cried; “how have you all been since I saw you last? Somehow you don’t seem quite so surly as you used to be when I first came among you. You’re not altogether so sneery as you were, my bold ancestors—what? Do you know, mother, I always had a hang-dog feeling from the first day I found myself among these impressive Johnnies—I had a feeling that they were jeering at me; and I was afraid to argue it out with them on the spot. But now I can face them without feeling that I’m like the dirt beneath their feet. I’ve done something—I’ve married the right wife for a chap like me—she has done it all, mother. I never should have had the cheek to try it off my own bat. She made me go in for it, and then she pulled it off for me. And all so quietly and tactfully; no one would fancy that she was doing it When Franklin Forrester was stating the case to me, she sat by and never uttered a single word, and so it was to the very end. I tell you she almost succeeded in inducing me to delude myself into the belief that I was doing the whole thing. Oh, she’s the wife for me!”
“Indeed I feel that she is,” said his mother, still keeping her hand upon his arm. “I am so glad that I have lived to see your happiness, Jack. I am so glad that I loved her from the first.”
“I knew that you would, dearest. That made you doubly my mother. I felt that I was giving you a daughter after your own heart.”
She pressed his arm, and held up her face to him. He kissed her silently on each cheek, and then on the forehead.