“And, True Blue, my boy, how soon is it to come off?” inquired Paul when dinner was over. “Have you asked Mary to fix the day yet?”
“No, godfather; I thought she might rather wish to wait a bit, and so I wasn’t going to ask her for a day or two,” answered True Blue ingenuously.
“Don’t put it off, lad,” said Paul. “When a sailor meets a girl to love, the shorter the wooing and the sooner he weds the better. How does he know what moment he may have to heave up his anchor and make sail round the world again?”
True Blue very willingly promised to follow his godfather’s advice; and Harry, who was listening attentively, thought it excellent. As may be supposed, before the evening was over, the day was settled for True Blue’s wedding with Mary Ogle; and before a week had passed, Harry announced that her sister Susan had fixed the same day to marry him.
Close to Mrs Ogle’s residence was a barn of large dimensions; it was not a picturesque building, but the floor was smooth, and that was all they required. In a wonderfully short space of time, with the aid of flags innumerable, wreaths of flowers, and painted canvas, it was converted into a most elegant edifice, fit for a ball or supper room. The morning of True Blue’s wedding day arrived, and up to Dame Pringle’s door drove a postchaise with four horses, out of which stepped Sir Henry Elmore, now, as his full-dress uniform showed, a Post-Captain. He shook hands right cordially with True Blue and all his friends, and the bells of the parish church at that moment set up so merry and joyous a peal that it was evident the ringers believed that it was an occasion of much happiness.
Carriages sufficient to carry all the party now began to collect in the neighbourhood of Paradise Row; and Sam Smatch and Tom Marline, both of whom had got leave to come on shore, were very busy in fastening huge white favours and bunches of flowers to the coats of the party.
“Come, Freeborn, with me in my carriage,” said Sir Henry. “I have fulfilled my promise in being present at your marriage, and must beg to stand as your best man, and see that you behave properly; but boarding a Frenchman at the head of a dozen daring fellows, though opposed to a hundred or more, is a very different matter to standing before the altar, about to take a wife for better or for worse to the end of life.”
“So I was thinking, Sir Henry,” answered True Blue, smiling. “And do you know, that if it wasn’t Mary Ogle I was going to marry, I shouldn’t like it at all.”
“All right, then, my friend; you’ll do,” said the baronet. “Step into the carriage.”
The favours being distributed, Tom Marline mounted the coach-box of the first carriage, in which were Mary Ogle and her father and mother, carrying in his hands a long pole with a huge flag, on which was inscribed, “True Blue for ever! Hurrah for our own Billy True Blue!”