The grass was green, so were their memories of what had been, and their thoughts of the future. The sky was bright, so was their horizon of expected bliss. The birds sang gaily, so did their hearts with pent-up happiness. Time, the great arbitrator, ruled propitiously.
On the day Tom Hartshorne came of age, he and Lizzie were married in the gaily-decked chapel at Hartwood. It was a very quiet little wedding though; quite a contrast to the gorgeous ceremony which had taken place so many months previously at Bigton, under the campaigner’s auspices, and that worthy lady turned up her nose at the whole affair, and would not grace it with her presence. Indeed, quite a little disagreement had arisen between herself and her son-in-law, the young incumbent, in consequence, the upshot of which was that the campaigner removed her bag and baggage from the parsonage, shaking off the metaphorical dust from her feet, and wondering how “they would get on without her.”
They did get on, however, much more satisfactorily. With the era of a mother’s abdication, the languid Laura became much more bustling and busy, and the parsonage more like home to its occupants, Pringle appearing again quite in his old colours, and preaching far better sermons now than he had since he entered the bonds of matrimony: he had been quite weighted down by the campaigner’s metal.
Lady Inskip, it is believed, husbanded her anger against Carry, and offered to go and conduct the household of the other son-in-law, but the wily Captain Miles having politely declined the offer, the campaigner retreated to a boarding house at Southsea, where she lorded it over the other boarders and watched over the education of her young hopeful, that imp “Morti-mer,” who was being instructed in the elements of navigation, at a naval academy, at the well-known watering place, contiguous to the old port of Portsmouth: there we leave her.
Tom Hartshorne was married by the Reverend Jabez, of Bigton, that divine having ceased to regard the young incumbent so unfairly, ever since the Bishop of Chumpchopster had recognised him; and besides, the offices of the Reverend Herbert Pringle were required to give away the bride, the charming little Lizzie.
The solitary bell of the old church rang out as joyfully as it could, and seemed to be a peal all in itself: the affair went off most satisfactorily, the old dowager being wheeled down in a bath chair, in order to be present; and then Tom and Lizzie went off for a three weeks’ honeymoon to the Isle of Wight, that blessed spot for novitiates in matrimony.
They then returned, and settled down at The Poplars, and long may they live there happily. Why, it was only the other day they were married, so much cannot be said of their after life. Knowing the fair-haired Saxon Tom, however, and sweet violet eyes so well, you may be pretty certain that you would search long and widely to find a happier couple in the country round.
It was apparently rather young for Tom to marry and settle down, but he was, with his twenty-one years and experience, older than a good many people of nearly ten years advance in age. Some people look and are older than the calendar puts them down. I shall never forget a well-known military friend, who got into the army under age, in consequence of his old looks. He had a magnificent beard at sixteen, and looked as old as thirty. His brother officers in the mess used to swear that poor — was “born” with whiskers!
Poor fellow! He afterwards fell at Lucknow.
Susan still lives at the old doctor’s house in Bigton, with the cheery Damon and the austere virgin, “Pythiasina,” as she ought to be called. Perhaps when the cycle of cradles and pap and babydom once more come round at The Poplars, and little voices are heard in the grim old house—grim now no longer, but lighted up by Lizzie’s presence—the daughter of the house may return again to their old home, and “Garge” be charmed once more with the presence of his dearly loved “Leetle Mees.”