At this moment the Vicar slipped the two half-crowns into his hand. The recipient shook his head as he pocketed them.
“That ’ud never do,” he observed, in an access of tipsy morality. And, beckoning mysteriously, he led the way into the street.
“Thatsh shurch,” he said, laying a careful hold upon Mr. Fenton’s coat collar, and pointing to a spire which rose, not a hundred yards away, from a railed graveyard.
The two men hurried on, for they had no wish to be heralded down the street by the staggering figure. They arrived at the gate just as Isoline and Harry were emerging from the porch.
The level of the street was below that of the building, and a flight of steps ran up to the door. Bride and bridegroom stood at the top, arm in arm. On Harry’s face, caught full by the light, was the trace of strong feeling and an infinite tenderness for the woman at his side; it was humble too, for he felt he had not deserved so much. He turned to her, and, in so doing, perceived his father and the Vicar looking up at them from the pavement below. Isoline saw them too, and launched a glance of triumph at them; the hour she had waited for had come, and her only regret lay in the fact that Lady Harriet was not present also. She carried a little silk bag that hung by ribbons to her arm, and she twirled it light-heartedly as she looked down at the two grey-headed men.
The man and wife descended the narrow steps, Harry drawing back to let her pass on in front. She sailed forward and paused at the bottom within a few paces of her uncle and her father-in-law, hesitating whether to speak to them or not; the former’s expression was a study in mortification and pain, of which she took no notice. Catching the Squire’s eye, she made a little curtsey that she hoped might express some of the dignity in which she henceforth intended, as Mrs. Fenton, to wrap herself. But there was something in her which made it a failure.
Harry went straight up to his father, feeling that he could confront any one or anything with calmness in the glad knowledge of what had just occurred, but the Squire waved him off. He met Mr. Lewis’ face of reproach.
“I will take care of her, be assured, sir,” he said. Then, finding that the Vicar made no reply, he turned and followed his wife, who was walking slowly up the street. The two men went into the church to look at the register.
It was midday when the newly-married pair reached the inn where they had left their postchaise, for the wedding had taken place a little later in the morning than they intended. On driving to the church they had found two other people waiting to be married, and, as the first arrivals, the clergyman had taken them before Harry and Isoline. She had looked at the woman who stood before the altar with some interest, for she was beautiful with a beauty unusual in country girls of her class, and her face showed that she felt every word of the service; the man was a young labourer of the massive type, who wore a purple neckcloth with a bird’s-eye spot.