When, a whole hour after this, they entered the great drawing-room arm in arm, they looked very happy indeed. There was no one there but Richards and the general. “Why, where ever have you two truants been?” said the latter.
“We have been cleaning the moss off the old dial-stone, and rolling back the scroll of time. Father, let me present to you your future daughter-in-law.”
“My own brave boy,” said the general. “Gerty Keane.”
That was all; but I do not know yet which was the happier man of the two—Jack’s father or Mr. Richards.
As for Mary, as soon as she heard the glorious news she must seek out “her boy” at once. She found him in his room, and with the best grace he could muster he had to submit to “luv and sweet kisses” on the spot, Mary assuring him that he had made her the happiest girl in all Norfolk.
There is a good deal of similarity about weddings; but it was generally admitted that the double event that took place at Grantley Hall in the spring of ’99—namely, the marriages of Tom and Flora, and Gerty and Jack—was the gayest wedding, or rather pair of weddings, that had ever taken place in the north. I cannot say that bonfires blazed on every hill, because there are no hills in Norfolk worthy of the name; but the rejoicing far and near was universal, and with all his old Highland hospitality and lavishness, General Grant Mackenzie, ably supported by Richards and the gallant MʻHearty, kept open house for a whole fortnight to all comers.
Meanwhile, in a charming yacht, under blue skies and with favouring winds, the happy couples were sailing round the shores of merry England and green Caledonia.
Ah! there is many a less happy life than that of the sailor, and many worse people than sailors; and had I my time to begin again, I should still be sweeping through the deep.
