“i publish the banns of marriage between amos thorn, 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.”
again there followed a rustle of many curious folk; but a different emotion animated it, a different sound infused it. human nature woke up and buzzed. this was more than merely pleasant; it was interesting. mr. thorn and dinah hannaford were not in the little church to face two hundred pairs of eyes. jonas lethbridge accompanied his father, and while the ancient grave-digger’s head drooped and his mouth trembled, where it fell in over naked gums, the young man gazed unflinchingly before him, and no quiver marked his strong, hard face and dark eyes. he kept them fixed unblinking on a stained glass window that represented christ bidding the waves be still.
again the old-time neighbour of sexton lethbridge stumped along beside him under spring leaves; but p. 173jonas had disappeared as soon as the service was ended.
“very sorry for your son, my dear soul; for i lay the fire in his eye was burning out of his heart if us could have but seen it,” said mr. chugg, the blacksmith. “what a courage he’ve got to come to worship!”
“’tis a very dreadful thing for all of us, chugg.”
mr. lethbridge spoke wearily. of late his natural forces were abated, and jonas did much of the work of the churchyard.
“every maiden in the village be sorry for him,” said the blacksmith.
“an’ well they might be.”
“thorn hadn’t the brass to be there hisself, i see. a chap from princetown ringed tenor bell to-day.”
“god won’t never prosper such treachery, you mark me,” said mr. lethbridge.
“if ’tis god’s business to put down treachery, he’m a thought behind his work—to say it respectful. my experience is that the ungodly do very well ’pon dartymoor. be your sister going to bide with you?”
“yes; she’m stopping. her wouldn’t go in the almshouse when the wedding fell through. but it won’t be for long. i’m getting ripe an’ ready for the grave myself now.”
p. 174“the women of this generation ban’t no better than reptile toads. but your young chap will find a good wife come presently, please god. there’s a tidy maid here an’ there yet.”
“not him. he’ll bide a bachelor for evermore. he’m so bitter as gall to the roots of his being since she wrote that letter. it have turned him away from the almighty’s self.”
“chucked him over with a letter, did her?”
“ess—an’ a very nice fashion of penmanship. yet all written wi’ needles, so to say, as stabbed the poor young youth cruel. he gasped when he read it, as if he’d swallowed his meat wrong way. then he handed it to me. she just said as she’d been wickedly deceived in him, and that she’d rather have trusted the sun not to shine than believe he could have acted so bad to her. an’ she also hoped the lord would forgive him for treating a poor maiden so crooked.”
“that weern’t enough for jonas lethbridge, was it?”
“no, by gor! he went straight to her, an’ there was fiery words; but the truth, or what she thought was truth, he never knowed. her love had turned to hate in a single night. he pressed for reasons; and she said that to ax for reasons was the worst insult of all, seeing she knowed the whole secret truth about him. not a word more could he get, p. 175though he tried, and was patient as job for an hour of talk. then, having his spark o’ passion like any other man, he called her a wanton, wicked jilt an’ left her. an’ no girl ever deserved hard names more than she.”
“’tis a dark story, to be sure. that’s why us never heard the third axing of the banns, then?”
“it happened last spring, afore the last axing. then, come winter, dinah hannaford’s mother died, an’ next thing us heard was that she’d got on wi’ amos thorn again.”
“a very womanly piece of work.”
“i don’t know whether ’tis woman or man be at the bottom. i’d throw blame on thorn if i dared wi’out running danger of violence; but i be old an’ weak, an’ ’tis no good saying things you can’t enforce wi’ your right arm. still, i do think he kindiddled her away from my boy.”
“’tis no libel to think it, anyway,” said mr. chugg, and the sexton nodded.
“there’s parties as ought to be punished wheether or no,” he said, “and i hope the a’mighty won’t let it pass, an’ that i’ll live to see the wicked come by their deserts.”
a mile away amos thorn and dinah walked together where immortal flowers bloomed about them at the dawn of june.
p. 176“oh, but you’ll be true to me, dear heart—i can trust you?” she asked with a pleading voice.
the big blond man turned and hugged her to himself and kissed her.
“for ever an’ ever, amen, my pretty!” he said.
