“i publish the banns of marriage between jonas lethbridge, bachelor, and dinah mary hannaford, spinster, both of this parish. if any of you know cause, or just impediment, why these two persons should not be joined together in holy matrimony, ye are to declare it. this is for the first time of asking.”
a pleasant rustle ran through the little congregation—an amiable and friendly sound. jonas and dinah sat together through the ordeal of the banns, and, out of sight, he squeezed her hand to support her.
“the maiden went so red as a rose, an’ the man pale as a dog’s tooth. did ’e note it?” asked blacksmith chugg of sexton lethbridge, after service was at an end and the village folk had vanished.
“i noted that, and more than that. old as i am, and so round in the back as a beetle with a lifetime o’ burying, yet my eyes be gimlets o’ sharpness still, p. 170thank god! ’tis a trick my son jonas have gotten from his mother. the red never comed in her cheek at high moments—blood all rushed to her heart, an’ her growed so white you might have thought as her was going to die on the spot. when i axed her to marry me, she went fainty-like, an’ her lips turned blue. but a good wife she was as ever a man lost an’ mourned. they wondered how i could find nature enough in me to dig her pit myself. the fools! to think that a grave-digger like me could have rested easy in my bed if another had done it!”
“i hope as dinah hannaford will be such a wife an’ mother as your missis an’ mine,” said the blacksmith. “but why for did tenor bell—that chap, amos thorn, the woodman—get up an’ leave the church when they was axed out? a very unseasonable think to do.”
“i marked it,” answered mr. lethbridge. “jonas says that dinah kept company two years back with thorn. but they falled out, because he have such a surly habit of mind an’ her couldn’t put up with his tantrums no more. if her so much as looked at another man or gived a chap ‘good-day,’ thorn would go crazy; an’ as life promised to be a burdensome business wi’ such a touchy fashion o’ man, she took courage to break off.”
“a very sensible maid, they say.”
p. 171“so she is, then; never seed any young woman with more sense. they be coming to live along wi’ me. then my old sister, as does for me now, can go off comfortable into that empty almshouse offered her to tavistock.”
elsewhere the lovers walked and talked in a devon lane. her arm rested upon his, and grim exultation marked his features. stern and hard was his countenance, yet his eyes glowed kindly and flashed with love as he looked down at her face. ferns in all the glory of new green hung fronds about the way; seeding grasses softened the verdant banks, and flowers brightened them with red and purple. field-roses and dog-roses trailed their beauty above, and in the air was scent of eglantine and song of bird. speedwells and cinquefoil made blue-and-gold lace-work in the vernal walls of the lane; hawthorn turned to roseal harmonies in death, and the last bluebells faded.
“you’ll love me for ever, my own dear?” she said.
“till my heart be done wi’ beating, dinah,” he answered. “no trouble as was ever hatched by man or the devil will come betwixt you an’ me.”
