But there was no room for speech in Johnnie's mouth just then. He winked one black eye solemnly and devoted himself to the business in hand.
And Punch and Scamp, accepted favourites of the host and hostess, tore to and fro in vain attempt to keep pace with all the attentions lavished upon them by the guests as soon as their own desires had been satisfied. They devoured everything that was offered and attainable before it was withdrawn, and had no need to ask for more unless in the matter of storage-room.
Everybody was very happy and very excited, for no such feast had been in Sark within the memory of the oldest child present. And if Charles Svendt's Stock-Exchange friends could have seen him—merrily circling the tables and exhorting already distent youngsters to still greater and greater exertions; poking them in the ribs to prove, against their own better judgment, but in accordance with their inclinations, that there was assuredly still room for more; bidding them "Mangez! Mangez!" in the one word of French he could recall as specially applicable at the moment—it is certain they would not have known him.
And Miss Penny, too, looked as if she had never enjoyed herself so much in her life, and backed him up in all his endeavours right heartily. And now and again, when Charles Svendt looked at her, he said to himself, "By Jove, she's as good-looking a girl as I know, and as clever as they make 'em!"
For there is no greater beautifier in the world than happiness, and Hennie Penny was completely and quite unusually happy.
To the actual wedding-feast, Graeme had asked the Vicar and his wife, and such of the neighbours as he had come to know personally, especially not forgetting his very first friend in the island, whom he still always called Count Tolstoi, and Mrs. De Carteret. For the rest, he had given Mrs. Carré carte-blanche to invite whom she deemed well among her friends, and she had exercised her privilege with judgment and enjoyment.
The Sénéchal was there, and the Greffier, and the Prévôt and the members of the Court, ex officio, so to speak, and the Wesleyan minister who was on excellent terms with the Vicar, and the Post-Master and his jovial white-haired father, who built the boats and coffins for the community, and had supplied the tables for the feast; and many more—a right goodly company of stalwart, weather-browned men and pleasant-faced women, all vastly happy to be assisting at so unusual an event as an English wedding.
They drank the health of the bride and bridegroom in the special mulled wine thereto ordained by custom and prepared according to the laws of the Medes and Persians. And Graeme, on behalf of himself and his wife, assured them that there was no place in the world like Sark, and that they had never enjoyed a wedding so much in all their lives, and that if they had to be married a hundred times they could wish no happier wedding than Sark had given them.
And of all that company, none beamed more brightly, nor enjoyed himself more, than Charles Pixley, who, having come to curse, had, in most approved fashion, stayed to bless, and had even beaten the prophet's record by giving away to another the treasure he had desired for himself.
In the usual course of things, after the feasting would have come games and songs until dark. But that had been adjudged too much of an ordeal by the ladies, and the onus of it was laid upon the youngsters outside. While Margaret and Miss Penny rested from their labours, and Mrs. Carré and her helpers cleared the rooms for the festivities of the evening, and prepared the milder and more intermittent refections necessary thereto, Graeme and Pixley and the Vicar and others set the children to games and races, for which indeed their previous exertions at the tables had not best fitted them, but which nevertheless, or perhaps on that very account, were provocative of much laughter and merriment.