The Broken Font. Moyle Sherer
forth. “Dear heart,” said she, “how pretty Bessy does look in that lilac gown with brave red guardings and the golden cawl on her fair hair, and what a beautiful lace rochet she has.”—“Ah, fine feathers make fine birds,” said a spinster standing near.—“He’s a proper man is young Hargood, and should have known better than choose a wife by the eye.”—“She had rather kiss than spin, I’ll warrant.”—“Better be half hanged than ill wed.”—“You may know a fool by her finery.”—“A precious stone should be well set,” said the young wife, sharply, “and Bessy’s blue eyes and her blushing cheeks are small matters to her ways and words.” But envy and ill will were low-voiced, and confined to few, for old Blount and all his house were well loved by the people; and with many a word of cheerful greeting they made way for the party, and the most of them followed it to the church.
The procession was led by a few youths and maidens, with whom were all the musicians of the village; while others, walking immediately before the bride and her two bride maidens, strewed the ground, as they went, with rushes and herbs. The bridegroom, in a suit of violet-coloured cloth, guarded with velvet of the deepest crimson, and with a falling collar of worked linen, followed, supported by his bridesmen, in fit bravery of apparel; next came a group of relations, male and female, led by the old franklin himself, with his grave and comely wife, and the men and maids of his household brought up the rear of the procession. It was met at the churchyard gate by Parson Noble and his wife—she joining old Mrs. Blount, and the good vicar, in his snowy surplice, taking place at the head of it, immediately between the herb-strewers and the bridal party; and now a gravity and silence succeeded, and in decency and order all entered the church, and proceeded with quiet steps to the altar. There, the sweet and solemn service, which binds together for “better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do part,” was reverently and impressively performed by Noble, his own deep and mellow tones being only interrupted by the manly voice of the bridegroom, and the faltering accents of the shy and trembling bride, as they gave utterance to their heart’s true and hallowed responses. No sooner was the ceremony ended than the bells, which had, for a while, been silent, struck out with the wedding peal; and as the new married couple came forth into the churchyard the air was rent with the joyous acclamations of the crowd without; and the procession returned in nearly the same order as it had left the house of the worthy franklin, only, according to the good custom of the time, the parson made one of the wedding party, and partook of the marriage feast.
Such of the old as could not walk abroad, stood leaning on staves, or sat dim-eyed on the stones before their doors, to see or hear the bridal train pass down; for each of these Parson Noble and the franklin had a kind word as they went by, returned by the benison and good wishes for the bride, who had herself no voice for any one, and, supported on her husband’s arm, scarce saw her path through eyes that were filling from a happy bosom’s overflow.
We shall not detain our reader by describing the dinner at Master Blount’s; right plentiful was the cheer. Parson Noble said a grace in rhyme, out of old Tom Tusser’s book of Husbandry, to the great contentment of his hospitable host, that being the one book by which, after his Bible, Blount squared his honest life.
“God sendeth and giveth both mouth and the meat,
And blesseth us all with his benefits great;
Then serve we the God, who so richly doth give,
Show love to our neighbours, and lay for to live.”
This being the franklin’s rule—while his guests were feasted in the old oak parlour, at the back of the house; in the pleasant orchard, all his labourers were regaled with a hearty meal of meat and plum-porridge; and huge jacks of ale were emptied and replenished, to the health of bride and bridegroom and good master.
After due carvings of veal and bacon, unlacing of fat capons, and untrussing of great pies of fruit and other dainties, in the parlour, and after some mantling cups of wine drank to the happy pair, the old people yielded to the impatience of the young, and all adjourned to Robin’s Meadow, not, however, before they had sung, as the grace after meat, a short psalm of praise.
The meadow, in which from generations before the May-pole was raised, had a fine level sward, which Blount kept smooth as a bowling-ground for the dancers, while a part of it rose in swelling banks, shaded by trees. These, though, as yet, but in early leaf, were gaily green, and contrasted well with the many-coloured and blushing wreaths of field-flowers that wound about the May-pole, at the top of which glittered a small crown, newly gilded in honour of the wedding, and further adorned with a few of the rarest plants which the gardens of Cheddar could produce.
A pleasure it was, as they passed into the meadow, to see the happy children rolling and tumbling and racing down the steep bank, from which they now scrambled away, to make room for the franklin’s party, and for the elders of the village, who, from this grassy knoll, were wont to preside over the pastimes of this holyday. We give not this scene in detail:—the dances of the young, as, with light and elastic steps, they bounded to lively measures round the May-pole, and the nodding heads of the musicians keeping time with the dancers, and the races and gambols of the ruddy children, each reader may figure forth to his own fancy. Neither tell we of the pretty ceremonies with which the milk maids brought their cows, with horns all garlanded, into the adjoining close, and prepared and offered the delicious syllabub: our aim is only to give an outline of a village May-day of the times of which we write, and to show the good parson of the best school of that period mingling in mirth among his people. Leaving, therefore, the happy villagers to continue their sports till set of sun, we shall confine ourselves to the steps of the pastor, and complete the journal of his day.
As the chimes struck six o’clock, he quietly withdrew, and passed from the scenes of pleasure and feasting to those of sickness and of mourning. If he had regarded the former with complacent joy, he was not the less willing, nor the less prepared, to cheer the latter with those high contemplations and those tender sympathies to which, by faith, as a Christian, he could point, and which, in charity, as a man, he truly felt. Of the old, who were confined to their own thresholds, he found two or three cross and short, but most of them garrulous, and in good humour. They had got pleasant portions from the franklin, and they could tell of old May-days, and heard, with thankful nods and ready “ayes,” and strong fetchings of the breath, that were not sighs of grief, the grave good words with which he taught them how only they could die in peace.
Of his flock only one lay at the point of death, and her he visited last.
She was the miller’s daughter, and had been the May-queen of the bygone year. Sacred be such visit, in its most solemn communings! but we may paint the scene of it, and the trifles which belong to those sympathies of our humanity, that often survive the resigned hope of life.
In a tall chair, against the back of which she leaned her head, sate a pale maiden, warmly wrapped in a robe of white woollen, close to the small window of an upper chamber, on which the evening sun shone warm: curling honey-suckles did make a frame to it; and one rose, with an opening bud, peeped from the trained bush beneath. Upon a little table near her stood a fragrant branch of May in a cup of water. There were faint flushes in her transparent cheeks, and there was an unearthly brightness in her eyes—not fitful—but a calm, steady, serene ray, that, as the declining sun poured over the damsel its yellow glories, presented her to the thoughtful gazer such as she might be when treading the celestial courts above.
“And have you any other wish, my child?” said Noble, as he rose to go.
“Yes, if it be not too foolish.”
“Tell it, my dear.”
“I would like some flowers from the May-pole strewn on my winding-sheet, and a bit of rosemary from your own garden put in my hands.”
“And you shall have them,” said Noble, pressing her wan hand in his, and turning quick away.
CHAP. IV.
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