Aurora unbarred the East with her rosy fingers, and sent a flood of golden sunshine over the fields. Nothing is so cheering to the heart of man as fine weather, and though Samuel Johnson, of lexicographical memory, doubted the fact, we honestly believe that few inhabitants of this terrestrial ball are altogether uninfluenced by clear air and a fine day.
A ride to Henbury was proposed, accepted, and arranged. Mr. Hartland's groom was sent forward to proclaim approach, and a quartetto, composed of the lovers (for such we may venture already to call them), Sir Roger and Miss Ferret followed quickly after. A narrow part of the road soon afforded opportunity, of which advantage was taken, and a double tête-à-tête was the order of the cavalcade, till the gates of Henbury flew open to receive the visitors. The cork-tree, and every other tree, plant, herb, and flower, was duly displayed and appreciated. The interior was also pronounced to be without a fault, and so complacently did the party feel towards each other, that Mr. Hartland, who thought himself bound as a true Knight to escort his fair guests half way back, was induced to go the other half through pure charity towards Sir Roger, who gave so many solid reasons for wishing to enjoy society while rheumatism would permit, that his neighbour, to say nothing of politeness, would have deemed it unchristian to refuse. So at Colbrook he dined again; again lost at whist, and again, deserted by the "conscious moon," ruminated on his pillow concerning the charms of Miss Robinson's person, mind, and manners.
Dull people must be told every tittle of a tale; but a lively reader, for whom alone we would fain weave the storied web, will anticipate results, and spare us the details of a courtship, brief as it was, which had its rise, progress, and conclusion in three short weeks; terminating a few days before the appointed period of Miss Robinson's visit to Sir Roger and Lady Goodman, in the regular proposals of Mr. Hartland of Henbury Lodge, to that young lady.
CHAPTER III.
"I will dance and eat plums at your wedding."— Shakspeare.
It is said somewhere in the Spectator, that "a woman seldom asks advice before she buys her wedding clothes." Now Miss Robinson neither asked advice before nor after; for, being an orphan, and of full age, there was no necessity to go through any such ceremony; she therefore decided for herself, that having no aversion in the abstract towards the holy state of wedlock, she could not make a particular sacrifice of that liberty which she had not, perhaps, found such a panacea for all the evils of life as Poets and Romancers teach, in a better cause than the present. Mr. Hartland was every thing which a reasonable woman could desire in a spouse, and accordingly his suit was not rejected. No projected alliance ever gave more general satisfaction; and not a single dissentient voice was raised against its prosperous completion, except that of Mrs. Bunn, the house-keeper at Henbury, who, in common with all persons holding the same situation under a bachelor's roof, never could abide the bare idea of "the Master's" marriage, even though it were to a Duchess in her own right.
On the first day, when Trotter the groom rode on with orders to have the best of every thing prepared for luncheon, and the gardener was desired to bring in the finest fruit that could be had, Mrs. Bunn augured ill of the message, which she considered symptomatic; but when it came to her being called upon for a fresh supply of linen, and informed moreover that Mr. Hartland was going back to Colbrook, her heart, as she expressed it, "died within her;" and not being able to find the hartshorn-bottle in a moment of such flurry, she is said to have had recourse to brandy, so completely were her spirits subdued by the prospect too fatally realized of a finished reign. To abdicate was preferable, however, to being deposed; and when Mrs. Bunn's agitation subsided, she came to that conclusion, resolving to avoid the disgrace of a dismissal, and by resigning the seals of office, while affairs of higher interest occupied the mind of our Benedict, prevent too keen a scrutiny into past conduct. Thus ended the dynasty of Bunn; and we must forgive her for casting "a lingering look behind," as she quitted the "flesh pots" of Henbury, for which she seemed to have as decided a taste as ever Sancho discovered.
With this single exception, as has been observed, all was smooth assent; and great was the sensation produced through town and country, when Miss Ferrett, cantering her pony at a quicker gait than usual, suddenly drew up opposite to the post-office door, and communicated to an expectant group of some four or five quidnuncs who were waiting the arrival of the coach, that "everything was settled." She was in her element; and in such a state of stimulus that she could scarcely control the effervescence of her spirits. Finishing her proclamation with "God save the King," she pushed forward to cry another "O yes!" at the milliner's and the apothecary's; after which she hastened home to set in movement sundry preparations in furtherance of the great event, which, with better foundation than is common in general to swelling pretensions, she justly considered as all "her own doing." We are usually partial to whatever owes its existence to ourselves, and therefore Miss Ferret's excitement was nothing extraordinary, and may be excused.
Our readers are by this time sufficiently acquainted with the carte du pays of Colbrook within and Colbrook without, to know in what part of the newspaper to look for the registry of a wedding conducted under the auspices of its goodly possessors and their auxiliaries. The sagacious and informed will not expect a detached paragraph, exhibiting such a host of Lords and Ladies that the happy pair are scarcely distinguishable in the brilliant mob; and which, were it not for the heading of "Marriage in High Life," might be mistaken for the list of arrivals at a London hotel; but the announcement of our nuptial rites will be sought, and found in that column, which, at one comprehensive view, presents a picture of human life, and directs the moral eye from the cradle to the grave.
We must not anticipate, however; for much is to be done before the printer sets his types to the titles of Francis Hartland, Esq. of Henbury-lodge, and Harriet, eldest daughter of a goodly 'Squire, John Robinson by name, and gentleman by degree. Lady Goodman wrote to her friend Mrs. Palmer, to send patterns of all sorts from town; while Sir Roger, who was as much delighted as Miss Ferret with the coming event, set to work with Mr. Points, the Solicitor, who rode off post haste to Colbrook at three several times, as if he was an express; and when arrived, bustled into the breakfast-parlour (for there was no library, there being no readers at Colbrook,) with such stir and importance, and made notes of the intended settlement with such pompous solemnity, that an inhabitant of another planet, suddenly introduced to the scene, might be fully borne out in the supposition, that our "special" was employed in taking depositions against a state prisoner, chargeable, at the very least, with design to overset the Constitution and compass the death of our beloved Sovereign.
Let it not be imagined that Miss Ferret's was a sinecure office, during this season of occupation. On the contrary, her dwelling in the market-place might be styled the very centre, heart, or focus, of these interesting proceedings. Her drawing room was the place of congress for dress-makers, stay-makers, shoe-makers, and plain workers, while her bed-chamber was the repository of boxes and bundles without end or measure, from town and country. These same apartments were likewise the scene of all the putting off, and trying on: the fault-finding and approval; the lively criticism on shapes and colours; fashionable and unfashionable, becoming and unbecoming, which naturally belongs most peculiarly to that period of grand climacteric in a lady's wardrobe, which Miss Robinson's was now to undergo; not to mention that Henbury Lodge, being out of the mail-coach line, Miss Ferret's abode was, moreover, a bank of deposit for innumerable and cumbersome packages from tailors, hatters, hosiers, "et hoc genus," &c. insomuch that the painstaking partisan, to whose official exertions this chapter is principally indebted for its subject, might be justly compared to the supple animal whose name she bore, when, with all its prying energies elate, and with persevering industry prosecuting its vocation in the bowels of the earth, the light crumbling soil falls in on every side, and incloses the ferret's slender form, overwhelmed in the destruction which itself had worked. But as it is not requisite to the appositeness of a simile that the analogy should agree in all its parts, we are happy to think that our Ferret had well grounded prospect of outliving her temporary sepulture, and hailing the bright beam of Hymen's torch to guide her through the lumbering piles of paper parcels by which she was almost suffocated; though it must on the other hand be confessed that, after she had leisure to reflect in the still hour of retirement on that busy crisis, she has been frequently heard to say, that nothing short of the most devoted friendship could possibly have sustained her; and in after times Mr. and Mrs. Hartland were often reminded of all they owed to her unwearied zeal.