Tummus had been twice married. His first wife was called Peggy-Anne, and only lived a year after her marriage. I try to persuade myself and him that this was the romance of his life, but it is up-hill work. The present Mrs. Thomas, who has been his wife for five-and-twenty-years, he always speaks of as “Thon widdy wumman.” She was the relict of one John M‘Adam, whose simple annal in this world seems to be, that he was the first husband of Tummus’s second wife; for the other world, his successor considers that, owing to his theological views, he is certainly—well—not in heaven.
“Do I no believe in love? Why, wumman, dear, have I no seen it mesel? Sure, and I had an uncle o’ me own, me own mother’s brother, that was tuk that way, and what did he do? but went and got the whole o’ Paul’s wickedest Epistle off, so he did, and offered for te tell it till her, all at the wan sitting. Boys, oh! but he was the quare poet! And she got marriet on a boy out o’ Ballinahone on him, and do ye know what I’m goin’ te tell ye? he tuk to the hills and never did a hand’s turn after.”
“Surely, Thomas, you have been in love yourself, too, now, with Peggy-Anne, and your present wife? When you asked them to marry you, you had to pretend it anyhow. What did you say to them?”
“Is it me? Well it was this way; me and Peggy-Anne, we went the pair of us to Scarva on the twelfth. Did ever ye hear tell of the battle o’ Scarva? I mind it well. I had a wheen o’ cloves in me pocket, and Peggy-Anne she had a wee screw o’ pepperment sweeties. Says I te her:
“‘Peggy-Anne, wud ye conceit a clove?’
“And says she te me:
“‘Tak a sweetie, Tummus!’
“And I went in the mornin’ and giv in the names till the Reverend Crampsey; so I did.”
After all, there are many worse ways of concluding the business, and few that would be more full of symbol. There is the mutual help; the inevitable “give and take” of married life; the strength and pungency of the manly clove; the melting sweetness of the maidenly peppermint; two souls united in the savour of both scents combined rising to heaven on the summer air.
I could not recall in the tale or history, or the varied reminiscences of married friends on this interesting topic, any manner of “proposal” more delicate and less ostentatious. Tummus graciously accepted my congratulations on his elegant good taste, but when I inquired about the preliminaries of his second alliance, he only shook his head and muttered, “Them widdies! Them widdies!”