In the mean time the Dame called to mind the same ceremonial; and having the like motive for curiosity with her husband, she also put on her cloak and calash, and set out, though by a different path, on the same errand.
The night of the Saint was as dark and chill as the mysteries he was supposed to reveal, the moon throwing but a short occasional glance, as the sluggish masses of cloud were driven slowly across her face. Thus it fell out that our two adventurers were quite unconscious of being in company, till a sudden glimpse of moonlight showed them to each other, only a few yards apart; both, through a natural panic, as pale as Ghosts, and both making eagerly towards the church porch. Much as they had just wished for this vision, they could not help quaking and stopping on the spot, as if turned to a pair of tombstones, and in this position the dark again threw a sudden curtain over them, and they disappeared from each other.
It will be supposed the two came only to one conclusion, each conceiving that St. Mark had marked the other to himself. With this comfortable knowledge, the widow and widower elect hied home again by the roads they came; and as their custom was to sit apart after a quarrel, they repaired, each ignorant of the other’s excursion, to separate chambers.
SECOND SIGHT.
By-and-by, being called to supper, instead of sulking as aforetime, they came down together, each being secretly in the best humour, though mutually suspected of the worst: and amongst other things on the table, there was a calf’s sweetbread, being one of those very dainties that had often set them together by the ears. The Dame looked and longed, but she refrained from its appropriation, thinking within herself that she could give up sweetbreads for one year: and the Farmer made a similar reflection. After pushing the dish to and fro several times, by a common impulse they divided the treat; and then having supped, they retired amicably to rest, whereas until then, they had never gone to bed without falling out. The truth was, each looked upon the other as being already in the church-yard mould, or quite “moulded to their wish.”
On the morrow, which happened to be the Dame’s birthday, the Farmer was the first to wake, and knowing what he knew, and having besides but just roused himself out of a dream strictly confirmatory of the late vigil, he did not scruple to salute his wife, and wish her many happy returns of the day. The wife, who knew as much as he, very readily wished him the same, having in truth but just rubbed out of her eyes the pattern of a widow’s bonnet that had been submitted to her in her sleep. She took care, however, to give the fowl’s liver at dinner to the doomed man, considering that when he was dead and gone, she could have them, if she pleased, seven days in the week; and the Farmer, on his part, took care to help her to many tid-bits. Their feeling towards each other was that of an impatient host with regard to an unwelcome guest, showing scarcely a bare civility while in expectation of his stay, but overloading him with hospitality when made certain of his departure.
In this manner they went on for some six months, and though without any addition of love between them, and as much selfishness as ever, yet living in a subservience to the comforts and inclinations of each other, sometimes not to be found even amongst couples of sincerer affections. There were as many causes for quarrel as ever, but every day it became less worth while to quarrel; so letting by-gones be by-gones, they were indifferent to the present, and thought only of the future, considering each other (to adopt a common phrase) “as good as dead.”
