“Forasmuch as,” began the Reverend Mr. Chizzy, a few minutes later, addressing the chore-girls, “Samuel and Sophronia have consented together in holy wedlock—“
He stopped suddenly. Up through the opening in the floor arose the head of a youthful negro, perhaps fourteen years of age. Mr. Chizzy recognized him as the stable-boy, a jockey of some local fame.
“What you want me to say I done do?” he inquired.
“Mrs.—Mrs.—Bilson!” said Mr. Chizzy, with a tremulous indignation in his voice; “did this negro infant act as your parent or friend, just now?”
“‘E give me away,” replied the unabashed bride.
Mr. Chizzy looked at her, at Bilson, at Jim, and at the chore-girls. Then he opened his book again and finished the ceremony.
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The Tullingworth-Gordons were angry when they heard of the marriage. They missed the two mainstays of their domestic system. But—well, Bilson was growing old, and Sophronia was growing tyrannical. Perhaps it was better as it was. And, after all, they had always wanted a Lodge, and a Lodge-keeper, and the old ice-house stood near the gate—a good two hundred feet from the house.
It was nearly a year before Bilson could walk around with comfort. Indeed, eighteen months later, he did not care to do more than sit in the sun and question Fate, while Mrs. Bilson tried to quiet a noisy baby within the Lodge.
“‘Ere I am laid up, as I should be,” said Bilson; “an there’s an active woman a-goin’ around with a baby, and a-nussin’ of him. If things was as they should be, in the course of nachur, we’d ’ave exchanged jobs, we would.”