Why, what's possessing your little soul? You never used to mind such things a bit."
"Ah, Mr. Dick, I hadn't hoisted my colours and committed myself then!" said Fancy.
"'Tis a pity I can't marry the whole five of ye!" said Dick, surveying them all round.
"Heh-heh-heh!" laughed the four bridesmaids, and Fancy privately touched Dick and smoothed him down behind his shoulder, as if to assure herself that he was there in flesh and blood as her own property.
"Well, whoever would have thought such a thing?" said Dick, taking off his hat, sinking into a chair, and turning to the elder members of the company.
The latter arranged their eyes and lips to signify that in their opinion nobody could have thought such a thing, whatever it was.
"That my bees should ha' swarmed just then, of all times and seasons!" continued Dick, throwing a comprehensive glance like a net over the whole auditory. "And 'tis a fine swarm, too: I haven't seen such a fine swarm for these ten years."
"A' excellent sign," said Mrs. Penny, from the depths of experience.
"A' excellent sign."
"I am glad everything seems so right," said Fancy with a breath of relief.
"And so am I," said the four bridesmaids with much sympathy.
"Well, bees can't be put off," observed the inharmonious grandfather James. "Marrying a woman is a thing you can do at any moment; but a swarm o' bees won't come for the asking."
Dick fanned himself with his hat. "I can't think," he said thoughtfully, "whatever 'twas I did to offend Mr. Maybold, a man I like so much too. He rather took to me when he came first, and used to say he should like to see me married, and that he'd marry me, whether the young woman I chose lived in his parish or no. I just hinted to him of it when I put in the banns, but he didn't seem to take kindly to the notion now, and so I said no more. I wonder how it was."
"I wonder!" said Fancy, looking into vacancy with those beautiful eyes of hers--too refined and beautiful for a tranter's wife; but, perhaps, not too good.
"Altered his mind, as folks will, I suppose," said the tranter.
"Well, my sonnies, there'll he a good strong party looking at us to-day as we go along."
"And the body of the church," said Geoffrey, "will be lined with females, and a row of young fellers' heads, as far down as the eyes, will be noticed just above the sills of the chancel-winders."
"Ay, you've been through it twice," said Reuben, "and well mid know."
"I can put up with it for once," said Dick, "or twice either, or a dozen times."
"O Dick!" said Fancy reproachfully.
"Why, dear, that's nothing,--only just a bit of a flourish. You be as nervous as a cat to-day."
"And then, of course, when 'tis all over," continued the tranter, "we shall march two and two round the parish."
"Yes, sure," said Mr. Penny: "two and two: every man hitched up to his woman, 'a b'lieve."
"I never can make a show of myself in that way!" said Fancy, looking at Dick to ascertain if he could.
"I'm agreed to anything you and the company like, my dear!" said Mr. Richard Dewy heartily.
"Why, we did when we were married, didn't we, Ann?" said the tranter; "and so do everybody, my sonnies."
"And so did we," said Fancy's father.
"And so did Penny and I," said Mrs. Penny: "I wore my best Bath clogs, I remember, and Penny was cross because it made me look so tall."
"And so did father and mother," said Miss Mercy Onmey.
"And I mean to, come next Christmas!" said Nat the groomsman vigorously, and looking towards the person of Miss Vashti Sniff.
"Respectable people don't nowadays," said Fancy. "Still, since poor mother did, I will."
"Ay," resumed the tranter, "'twas on a White Tuesday when I committed it. Mellstock Club walked the same day, and we new-married folk went a-gaying round the parish behind 'em. Everybody used to wear something white at Whitsuntide in them days. My sonnies, I've got the very white trousers that I wore, at home in box now, Ha'n't I, Ann?"
"You had till I cut 'em up for Jimmy," said Mrs. Dewy.
"And we ought, by rights, after doing this parish, to go round Higher and Lower Mellstock, and call at Viney's, and so work our way hither again across He'th," said Mr. Penny, recovering scent of the matter in hand. "Dairyman Viney is a very respectable man, and so is Farmer Kex, and we ought to show ourselves to them."
"True," said the tranter, "we ought to go round Mellstock to do the thing well. We shall form a very striking object walking along in rotation, good-now, neighbours?"
"That we shall: a proper pretty sight for the nation," said Mrs.
Penny.
