The ways of the hour

by James Fenimore Cooper

CHAPTER XXX.

“Some curate has penn’d this invective,

And you have studied it.”

Massinger.

The day set apart for the nuptials of John Wilmeter and Anna Updyke finally arrived. The ceremony was to take place in a little church that had stood, time out of mind, in the immediate neighbourhood of Timbully. This church was colonial in its origin, and, while so much around it has undergone vital changes, there stands that little temple, reared in honour of God, in its simplicity, unpretending yet solid and durable architecture, resembling, in all these particulars, the faith it was erected to sustain. Among the other ways of the hour that are worthy of our notice, the church itself has sustained many rude shocks of late—shocks from within as well as from without. The Father of Lies has been roving through its flocks with renewed malice, damaging the shepherds, perhaps, quite as much as the sheep, and doing things hitherto unheard of in the brief annals of American Ecclesiastical History. Although we deeply regret this state of things, we feel no alarm. The hand which first reared this moral fabric will be certain to protect it as far as that protection shall be for its good. It has already effected a great reform. The trumpet is no longer blown in Zion in our own honour; to boast of the effects of a particular discipline; to announce the consequences of order, and of the orders; or, in short, to proclaim a superiority that belongs only to the Head of all the churches, let them be farther from, or nearer to, what are considered distinctive principles. What the church is now enduring the country itself most sadly wants,—a lesson in humility; a distrust of self, a greater dependence on that wisdom which comes, not from the voices of the people, not from the ballot-boxes, not from the halls of senates, from heroes, godlikes, or stereotyped opinions, but from above, the throne of the Most High.

In one of those little temples reared by our fathers in the days of the monarchy, when, in truth, greater republican simplicity really reigned among us, in a thousand things, than reigns to-day, the bridal party from Timbully was assembled at an early hour of the morning. The company was not large, though it necessarily included most of the nearest relatives of the bride and groom. Dunscomb was there, as were Millington and his wife; Dr. and Mrs. McBrain, of course, and two or three other relations on the side of the bride’s father, besides Mildred. It was to be a private wedding, a thing that is fast getting to be forgotten. Extravagance and parade have taken such deep root among us that young people scarce consider themselves legally united unless there are six bride’s maids, one, in particular, to “pull off the glove;” as many attendants of the other sex, and some three or four hundred friends in the evening, to bow and curtsy before the young couple, utter a few words of nonsense, and go their way to bow and curtsy somewhere else.

There was nothing of this at Timbully, on that wedding-day. Dunscomb and his nephew drove over from Rattletrap, early in the morning, even while the dew was glittering on the meadows, and Millington and his wife met them at a cross-road, less than a mile from McBrain’s country-house. The place of rendezvous was at the church itself, and thither the several vehicles directed their way. Dunscomb was just in time to hand Mildred from her very complete travelling-carriage, of which the horses were in a foam, having been driven hard all the way from town. Last of all, appeared Stephen Hoof, driving the very respectable looking Rockaway of Mrs. McBrain—we were on the point of writing his “master,” but there are no longer any ‘masters’ in New York. Stephen, himself, who had not a spark of pride, except in his horses, and who was really much attached to the person he served, always spoke of the doctor as his “boss.” Jack Wilmeter, somewhat of a wag, had perplexed the honest coachman, on a certain occasion, by telling him that “boss” was the Latin for “ox,” and that it was beneath his dignity to be using Pill and Pole-us (Bolus) to drag about “oxen.” But Stephen recovered from this shock in due time, and has gone on ever since, calling his master “boss.” We suppose this touch of “republican simplicity” will maintain its ground along with the other sacred principles that certain persons hold on to so tightly that they suffer others, of real importance, to slip through their fingers.

Stephen was proud of his office that day. He liked his new mistress—there are no bossesses—and he particularly liked Miss Anna. His horses were used a good deal more than formerly, it is true; but this he rather liked too, having lived under the régimes of the two first Mrs. McBrain. He was doubly satisfied because his team came in fresh, without having a hair turned, while that of Madam, as all the domestics now called Mildred, were white with foam. Stephen took no account of the difference in the distance, as he conceived that a careful coachman would have had his “boss” up early enough to get over the ground in due season, without all this haste. Little did he understand the bossess that his brother-whip had to humour. She paid high, and had things her own way.

Anna thought Stephen had never driven so fast as he did that morning. The doctor handed her from the carriage, leading her and his wife directly up to the altar. Here the party was met by John and his uncle, the latter of whom facetiously styled himself the “groomsman.” It is a ceremony much more easily done than undone—great as the facilities for the last are getting to be. In about five minutes, John Wilmeter and Anna Updyke were pronounced to be “one flesh.” In five minutes more, Jack had his sweet, smiling, happy, tearful bride, in his own light vehicle, and was trotting away towards a pretty little place in Westchester, that he owns, and which was all ready to receive the young couple. The ponies seemed to understand their duty, and soon carried the bride and bridegroom out of sight.

“Them’s awful trotters, them nags of Mr. Jack Wilmington’s,” said Stephen, as the double phaeton whirled away from the church door, “and if Miss Anny doesn’t disapprove on ’em, afore long, I’m no judge of a team. I’m glad, however, the young gentleman has married into our family, for he does like a hoss, and the gentleman that likes a hoss commonly likes his vife.”