Time rolled on. The Arethusa has sailed. Mr Gordon has returned to Deptford, and resumed his ordinary duties. Has all intercourse ceased between him and Miss Cunningham? Assuredly not. Many a kind letter has passed between them. She has been to England visiting his sister, at that sister's kind invitation, and is come back to Anstruther. Charles has proposed to her, and been accepted, and has obtained a special licence for their marriage. He comes back to Anstruther to claim his bride.
If you, my reader, were at this moment greedily perusing a modern novel, you would here be gratified by a very romantic and touching account, three or four pages long at least, of the meeting of the two ardent lovers after a long separation; smiles and tears, sighs and sobs, broken accents, protestations of eternal love and fidelity, and all that sort of thing. Here you will find nothing of the kind. I very much doubt myself as to whether anything of the kind took place in this instance at all; I rather imagine the meeting was a calm and quietly happy one, without anything strikingly romantic or stage-like about it. But even suppose there had been, and that I had been present to see, (which, by the by, would have been an awkward enough situation for me, or any other third party, to have found himself in) ought we to have disclosed it? Certainly not; such a scene, every one knows, ought to be strictly private and confidential Suffice it then to say, that doubtless both, parties found themselves extremely comfortable and happy.
Let me now convey you, in thought, backwards one hundred and fourteen years, and place you in the street of Pittenweem, opposite the Scottish Episcopal Chapel. We see a crowd; let us inquire what is the occasion of it.
"What is this crowd collecting for, so early this morning?"
"There's going to be a wedding, ma'am."
"Do you know whose wedding it is?"
"No ma'am, I don't; I'm only here to keep order—nothing else to do with it."
It is some time since we have seen a wedding, suppose we go into church. Here we are. We shall have a nice view of them from that front pew in the gallery. How tastefully the chapel is decorated with foliage and flowers! Make haste! I hear the carriages coming, that will do. Wait! here they come, only fancy, it's Christina Cunningham, and—Who? Charles Gordon, I declare. How nicely he looks in his naval uniform. Then the reports were all true. Poor Christina! she's very much agitated. I suppose being married must be rather nervous work. The clergyman who is marrying them is a relation of the bridegroom's—he's rector of a large parish near Deptford—how beautifully he reads. And there is our dear old clergyman, Mr Spence, assisting him, how happy he looks. They say he has known the bride since she was an infant, and the bridegroom for some time. There!—she's no longer Christina Cunningham! I wonder where they are going to after breakfast? Blessings on them both!
FOOTNOTES:
[I] On account of the many accidents which happen almost yearly at the Carr Rock, some plan for marking its dangerous locality has long been an object of deep solicitude. The writer recollects of a round tower of some height having been built on the rock, on the same principle as that on the Bell Rock, but it was soon overthrown by the first winter's storm, because there was not a sufficient surface of rock at the base to admit of a strong enough building being placed upon it. But might not an erection be made of strong bars of iron, and a large bell placed on its summit, with an iron cylinder in the centre, perforated with holes to admit the sea water? Within the cylinder let a powerful floater be placed, which by the perpetual action of the tides' ebb and flow, would cause the bell to ring, and so give timeous warning of danger near. Or, another method might be adopted, viz., Let a steady officer be stationed at Fifeness, whose duty it should be to fire a gun, say a six or eight-pounder, at short intervals in snow storms, or in thick and foggy weather, when neither the land during the day, nor the stars or lights at night, can be seen. In either way the expense would be trifling, and the benefit might be great. Captains of steamers and of other vessels enveloped in the fog would then, on hearing the sound of the bell or gun, know where they were, and would take their bearings from Fifeness accordingly.