“We understand one another,” he said. “It is agreed, is it not?”
Despite all his attempts, Aymer could but incline his head.
“It is a lovely day—take Violet for a ride to Berbury camp.”
How Aymer managed to convey what had passed to Violet he never knew, but that was the longest ride they ever had together, and it was dark before The Place was reached.
Aymer did not go home after quitting Violet. He walked away upon the Downs until safe from observation, then threw himself upon the sward, and poured out his heart in thanksgiving. When he had grown a little calmer he leant against a beech-trunk and gazed at the stars. In that short hour upon the solitary Downs he lived a whole lifetime of happiness. There are some of us who can remember such hours—they occur but once to any human being.
To do the rough residents of the district justice, so soon as it was understood to be settled that they were to be married, then the tone of the place changed, and they no longer insulted and annoyed him. Some wished him joy and happiness: not without a tinge of envy at his good fortune, expressed in the rude language of the hills, “I wish I had thee luck, lad.”
It was generally agreed that when the marriage took place there should be an arch erected and decorated with flowers, for the bride and bridegroom to pass under; that the path through the churchyard should be strewn with roses, that volleys of firearms should be discharged, and the day kept as a holiday. This was settled at the Shepherd’s Bush over foaming jugs of ale.
“Arter all,” said an old fellow, “he bean’t such a bad sort o’ chap. A’ mind a’ tuk a main bit o’ trouble loike to pull a ewe o’ mine out of a ditch where hur laid on hur back.”
“Ay, ay!” said another; “and a’ drawed my little Kittie on the kitchen wall wi’ a bit o’ charcoal as natural as ever hur walked—zo let’s gie ’un a rouser, chaps, and no mistake!”
This was how it happened that at World’s End Races that fateful year, early in October, a delicate-looking young man, commonly dressed, stood beside the pretty pony-carriage under the hawthorn tree. The marriage was fixed for that day week.