Nick had got a special licence, and the wedding took place very early in the morning, and had but few spectators.
“On the morning of Christmas Eve Nick was married to Nan.” (Page [196])
The day was tropical in its heat, but a faint breeze crept up the gully, and there were some misty clouds in the bright blue sky. The grapes were ripening in the Chinamen’s gardens on the gully slope, and we gathered some jasmine flowers for Nan to wear. Strange irony of fate—to use the old penny-a-liner phrase—it was I who gave Nan to her husband.
I went with them to the seaport, and waited with them till the steamer came in.
It was just such a night as this, and the Southern Cross was shining as brightly as it shines on me to-night. And in a garden by the wharf there was a tree of great ghostly strong-scented trumpet flowers.
As I stood on the wharf and watched the steamer going out to sea, taking Nan out of my life for ever, the clock struck, and I knew it was Christmas Day. And it seemed a mockery of my sorrow, when the voices of the children came down to me, from the road above, singing the old carol of frosty nights and ice-bound roads and clear glistening Northern constellations, singing here, under these tropical skies and strange stars, and in the murmurous night laden with rich sickly perfume—
“God bless you, merry gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay,
For Jesus Christ our Saviour