Chapter XVII: Polly’s Wedding

Cherry engaged the room in which Polly’s wedding was to be “held up” a month before the time. The only thing in its favour against the homeliness of Granny’s cottage was--it would hold a hundred and fifty folk. The clan was going to be gathered to be merry, at last. Cherry was very anxious that Polly’s wedding should be no “dry affair.” It was to be a regular cheerful, northern wedding, with lots of eating, some drinking, and Granny agreed with him that a “bit o’ musick wouldn’t be out on it”--that on such occasions a bit o’ summat like that helped things on.

Nan refused to write out the invitations to the wedding. She had suddenly discovered that Polly didn’t ought to want to be married, after all they’d done for her.

As for Granny--she avowed that the age of miracles was not gone by, since Polly had thus lit, like a cat, on her feet, despite all her invitations to destiny to ruin her.

Adam kept his head pretty well.

Perhaps the fact that he had deserved neither the half-penny nor the cake, yet was getting both, humbled him a little, or perhaps he fully realized the responsibility he was taking with Polly Cherry.

For Uncle Nat, who had lived in what appeared poverty, and accepted stray half-crowns very graciously, had died and left him eight hundred pounds. Adam had taken a little farm on the opposite side of the valley, right away from Sagg Farm. Sarah was coming to help them with the work. He had bought a little churn for Polly.

The great day arrived at length.

It was a wet morning Cherry saw out of the window--from his bed.

Polly and Nan were making breakfast.

“Changed thy mind about not going?” he queried of Nan, as she helped him to dress. “After all, I’ve spent five pounds on thy outfit. It’d be a shame for Mrs. Jay not to see it.”

“Tha’s no nateral feelin’s,” yapped Nan.

But when he was pushed up to the table and observed a gaudy new pair of stays airing inside the fender--he knew Nan was going.

Polly sat at table, her short hair in “wavers.”

There was a trembling in her manner.

“Cheer up, Polly,” said her Dad.

Whereupon she giggled tremulously.

After breakfast Mrs. Bob Wild arrived--to see the wedding-dress, Adam’s present. It was one of those foolish things meant to wear once--and once only.

“I hope you’ll be as happy as we’ve been,” quoth Susan, with the air of a century-old wife.

“Ooo, Susan!” said Polly, suddenly, “if only I was a bit--wiser.”

“Adam,” said Adam’s sister-in-law, “has sense enough for two.” But even as she said it, she wondered what Polly would think had she known that Adam had been out, roaming the moors all night, in the crazy way some wise men have when once they definitely settle to make fools of themselves.

“Yes. He’s up,” she told Polly.

Adam was staying with them for nearness to the church.

“I’ll go down to Granny’s with Susan,” said Polly.

Polly was afraid of a scene on her leaving that cottage. So was Cherry.

Polly was being married from Granny’s.

This was the last private appearance of Miss Cherry at Myrtle Cottage.

She got ready. Susan packed the wedding-frock. Polly never could make a decent parcel.

At last there was no more excuse for lingering.

“Well,” said Polly.

She looked from her mother to her father hesitatingly. Susan went out and walked slowly along.

“Tooraloo, Polly,” said Cherry, cheerfully.

He had a little of the Cheer-up Party smile.

Polly walked up to his chair, put her hands round his arm.

“I’ve--given you a lot o’ trouble,” said Polly, stumblingly.

“Don’t mention it,” said Cherry, winking.

“An’--I’ve been happy here, too,” said Polly, a dim surprise at the fact shining in her wet eyes. “I--I don’t think I want to leave you both.”

It was Polly all over.

She sat down and cried.

The hundreds of times she had wished herself well away--and now--to find she didn’t want to go. At least, not for five minutes.

“If ever he doesn’t do right by thee, I’ll kill him as dead as a herring,” said Nan, with her high colouring ebbing, her eyes ablaze.

And--Polly giggled, dabbing her eyes, and said, “Well, I’ll have to go, I suppose.”

Nan’s good-bye, thought the man in the corner, might have been worse.

Polly only turned back three times before really joining the patient Susan.

The last time she ran, sobbing openly.

Behind a scented briar-bush Susan put her into apple-pie order, before they went into the road that ran past the little houses.

“Just an hour to get ready,” said Cherry.

“Chaps doesn’t need much gettin’ ready,” yapped Nan.

He watched her struggle into a twenty-six inch circumference--gave a victorious hurrah when she got the clasp fastened.

“Here,” he said at length, “what about me?”

Nan proceeded to get him ready.

They set out, a quarter before the time, going down to Granny’s through the now sunshiny village.

“Th’ weather-clerk knows it’s our Polly an’ is doin’ his best,” he told Nan.

Nan, in a dress of Irish green, and a blue hat with ears of wheat (what Cherry called a you-can’t-go-wrong hat), went on with her head up. Cherry, on his wheels, in blue coat, with yellow jonquils, white gloves, and white bowler, looked like a tomtit beside a grim paraquet.

“Well, you _do_ look weel,” was Granny’s verdict, as they came through the door.

She sat on a chair by the open door, dressed in her best, her bonnet on ready, only the strings wanting tying.

“Out o’ puff, mother?” queried Cherry.

“No--full on it,” she smiled.

Granny was breathing badly. She was more than a little excited.

There was another brand-new geranium in her bonnet. She wore, corner-wise, a cardinal silk shawl, which Susan admired and did not recollect having seen her in before.

Granny took a pinch of snuff.

“I were wed in this,” she said, slowly. “When Harker were drunk he used to talk about this shawl. T’were th’ only thing he ever bought me, barrin’ th’ ring, an’ I used to wish he’d not bought that. But--but for me there wouldn’t have been our Polly, would there? We serve our purpose in this world. An’--she’s goin’ to be happy. So--I put on th’ old shawl, by way o’ lettin’ by-gones be by-gones. It’d suited Harker. He were soft in some ways. An’--he were a good-lookin’ chap, when he were washed. Our Polly owes her good looks to him. I reckon him an’ me came together for summat, an’ has our bit o’ share in this day. I’m fain to ha’ sin it, Will.”

Cherry was touched.

In all his life Granny Harker had never struck him as a pathetic figure before. She had been both too droll and too grim.

On Polly’s wedding-day she had squared her account of the “gammy” leg, had forgiven that Primrose Leaguer who had given her that painful souvenir to carry to her grave.

“There ought to ha’ bin some fiddlers,” said the cobbler’s wife.

“Oh, them’ll come later,” said Cherry, grinning.

“Polly!” yelled Granny. “Tha’rt goin’ to be late!”

Granny was most impatient this day, for a calm old Calvinist.

Susan went upstairs to help Polly.

There were already a trio of neighbours, quarrelling as to which hook went to which eye of the puzzling dress, with Polly very pale and helpless amongst it all.

Susan set the puzzle straight, and they all flocked downstairs.

Polly in a shimmer of satin and soft lace and mock-orange blossom, was a sight for sore eyes. Even in the upheaval of this her careless life she enjoyed the sensation she created. The little milk-boy who had come in to look at her, didn’t really believe it _was_ Polly.

“Eh, ay,” said the cobbler’s wife, “some o’ th’ aristocrats can’t hold a cannel to poor folk for looks. Now--who’d think to look at her, she’d ever done a day’s wark in her life?”

“She takes after her dad for bein’ handsome,” said Cherry, which made the women smile at male conceit.

Polly sneaked into his corner, and gave him her little finger.

“Adam’s here,” said the cobbler’s wife.

Adam was in a grey suit.

His eyes sought for Polly amidst the throng, and found her in that dim corner--a white satin mouse, whose bright glance asked him if he was satisfied.

“Well, tha ought to be proud on her,” said a neighbour.

He smiled awkwardly.

The Wilds didn’t wear their hearts on their sleeves.

Even Polly had found him the most silent, undemonstrative lover she had had.

He looked at the clock.

“There’s Grandma Cherry to come,” said Granny. “An’--I wonder if that owd musicker as is to give Polly away is _up_ yet. An’ them cabs--cabbies is th’ carelessest folk born.”

Granny was plainly afraid of any hitch occurring.

“Bob’s gone to see the old man up,” said Adam.

Steps sounded on the cobbles.

A shadow fell across the doorway.

“Becky!” said Polly.

Becky it was, Becky with the fat baby trying to eat her shabby hat, Becky thinned and humbled out of knowledge, Becky living with a respectable aunt in Narrowfields, who didn’t forget to let her know how good she had been to take her in.

“Sit thee down, lass,” quoth Granny.

Adam got her a chair.

Becky had lost a day’s work and carried a fifteen pounds baby six miles to see her friend in her hour of glory.

“Make her a sup o’ tay, Nan,” said Granny.

So Becky sat eating and drinking tea in the way some people do eat and drink with others there--nervously, but glad of the tea.

Polly came out of the corner and forgot her self-consciousness and poured Becky a second cup.

She stared at Polly with eyes that filled with tears--glad, yet conscious of her forlorn lot.

“Come an’ see us, any time--any time--for weekends--when you like,” said Polly, and looked towards Adam.

“It’s Polly’s home,” said Adam.

“Oh--here’s _one_ cab,” said Granny, in relief.

Out of it stepped Grandma Cherry and Billy.

Billy had laid out in a new suit for Polly’s wedding. His look said that Adam had all the luck. Nan was almost gracious with her mother-in-law.

“Fancy havin’ a chap to give yo’ away as can’t get up!” said Granny.

Bob marshalled in Old Fiddlesticks.

He had helped to dress him.

He sat down near Adam, and hoped Adam would let Polly go on singing, just as if Adam was shutting her in a cage. Adam answered appropriately.

“I never knew that clock miss cuckooin’,” said Granny, “but--happen it’s wrong.”

Three folk looked at their watches.

Granny’s clock was “Greenwich, dead,” according to her son-in-law.

They waited for the moment to strike.

“Cuckoo!” sang the clock.

Granny rose up, rustling and relieved.

“I reckon nowt o’ havin’ to push,” she said.

The other cab had come along.

What a business it was.

The cobbler’s wife insisted that the bride ought to enter the cab with the bridegroom, and quarrelled with all convention because she didn’t, but went in on the arm of the best man.

“Poor Becky!” whispered Polly to Adam, who cut across.

He was quick to understand.

Becky was “pushed in” the third cab, and shared in the glory. The Cherry clan was waiting in, and almost filled the little church.

It was all over, as Cherry said, “in no time.” Adam it was who had to be asked to “speak a little louder, please.” Granny it was who greeted them as they came out of the vestry with, “Well, you’ve teed a knot wi’ your tongues you can’t undo wi’ your teeth, an’ I hope you’ll never rue it!”

Cherry, meanwhile, invited the new parson to the feast. Cherry was master of the ceremonies now. He had taken a fancy to the parson--who had a quaint resemblance to a well-fed monk.

Cherry being lifted in and out the cab and set upon the wheels again, felt it had been a “big job” for him, but that the fun was now commencing. Bob and Adam carried him up the twenty steps to that long room. Even yet, he always gritted his teeth a little at having to be carried. But when once he was wheeling himself about the huge room, as M. C.--the man who was going to make this feast a success--he had got over it.

He had sent out a hundred postcards to the clan.

Ninety had been answered--in person. Their ages ranged from ninety down to nine. There were also “Pontius Pilate,” Jane, the charwoman, Tim, her husband.

“Well, by gum! There’s enough to eat,” said Uncle Silas, in amaze, as dish after dish was carried on the table.

Cherry wheeled himself along past that array of chairs, holding the clan--the clan that was going to eat his stuff in return for that they had brought long ago.

There was no patronage, pity, nor charity in the eyes of the clan, now.

Nothing succeeds like success.

It was man to man now.

How the great room rang to the singing of the old-fashioned “grace” started off by Uncle Silas! What a hush was that which followed, wherein every one was at an awful pause, not liking to be first to begin, until Uncle Silas broke the ice by saying in a seriously meditative way, “I think I can’t do better nor start wi’ sausage-rolls.” Whereupon every one fell on sausage-rolls.

“Now, folk,” said Uncle Silas, “don’t be shy.”

He winked across the table at Polly.

Adam handed Polly the dish.

“Get plenty down tha,” advised Jane, the charwoman, sitting by Tim, who was eating sausage-rolls “wholesale.” Then she said by way of explanation, “For tha doesn’t know what tha’ll ha’ to go through.”

Whereupon, getting scared or embarrassed, Polly made a grab at the sausage-roll.

Something slipped.

It had gone on the floor!

Polly, scarlet, looked beseechingly at Adam.

“The sausage rolled,” said a waggish voice.

It was the merry, red-nosed parson.

And everybody laughed.

Adam rescued the sausage-roll from under the table, and it was the universal opinion that in any case it had lost nothing. Such eating, such laughing, such talking, with Adam and Polly too delirious to eat, and so ashamed to be delirious that they must make martyrs of themselves and appear sane.

Whilst little fragments of conversation crossed each other comically.

“Dinah couldn’t come. She’s morphy in her cheek three times a day, now. But she’s a rare plucked ’un. She’ll not dee on purpose----”

“Ay. Them were gradely weddin’s, when they had fiddlers walking afore, an’ posies thrown under their feet.”

“Muvver, can I have a pickle-onion?”

“An’ I said to him, well if I have lived afore--I were a Brussels sprout.”

“Give me a mongrel dog--wide between the ears----”

“Please, Adam, I can’t eat any more,” in a whisper from Polly.

Round about Cherry was the sound of a bottle clinking.

The parson was a very human man.

Aunt Miriam was about to refuse anything in her tea, but seeing Mr. Roecome accept, she thought better of it.

Aunt Miriam had watched the door in a way no one could fathom.

“Here’s to my lass,” cried Cherry, proud as Punch, and lifted his cup.

Granny jinked hers with him.

“Hear, hear!” called Bob Wild, tapping the table with his knife-haft. Only Susan restrained him from another partaking of the bottle.

“Then,” called Uncle Silas, standing up, “to everybody’s lasses. They’re all somebody’s, aren’t they, exceptin’ them as is nobody’s, an’ they’re somebody’s, too, an’ God bless ’em--every one.”

Which started off a series of applause.

Cherry’s eye missed nothing, as its glance roamed the length of the table--Becky, letting the infant Saul suck a bit of jam from her finger, when she thought no one watched; Aggie, flirting madly with Ned Thorn, whilst her husband raged and lost the flavour of the crab; Granny, elate and gay; Susan keeping her eye on Bob; Captain Brown, telling his lovely lies about his army career, and with a manner that made women believe him; Nan, unbending to Billy Breeze’s amiability and quite nice with Grandma Cherry, who was talking to Mr. Moss and cutting up his meat for him--he missed nothing of it all. _This_ was his day. Jane and Tim. How they ate. It made him a little sad. Pontius Pilate was on thought forces.

When a little, bald-headed man sneaked in through the door, it was Cherry who called out, “This way, Jerry,” and saw Aunt Miriam flush and grow pale--Aunt Miriam dressed in pink, the colour Granny called “old maid’s last refuge.”

He knew all the tumult of Aunt Miriam’s soul as Jerry Clin sat down, and began to cut. For a writer of burning love-letters Jerry Clin was pathetically nervous. Perhaps it was the effect of Aunt Miriam’s answers, and the threat to have him up for breach of promise.

After Jerry came the five fiddlers, who dined in a little room behind, and no sooner had they sat down than in came Sandy MacGuir, with his pipes, and sat down also, in the little room.

Uncle Silas was the last man to cease eating.

They waited patiently for him.

“Any more, Silas?” quoth Granny.

Silas touched his neck with his hand, sideways--to assert that he was filled to the top.

“Well, then----” said Granny.

There was a great shuffling of chairs.

At the far end sat Jerry Clin, casting glances at the door, now the feast was over. Cherry, on his wheels again, trundled towards him.

“She’s here,” said Cherry, in a confidential whisper.

Jerry looked like bolting.

“Which is her?” quoth Jerry.

Cherry pointed out Aunt Miriam.

“She’s religious, too,” said Cherry. “Tha might go further an’ fare worse. Come an’ be introduced.”

But Jerry would not.

Aunt Miriam casting sheep’s-eyes at him had scared him to death.

Cherry conducted him into the little room where the fiddlers were now tuning up their instruments. The fiddlers and Jerry said they didn’t mind if they did, and the man with the pipes said that was a fine brand o’ whiskey, though he’d known a better at two shillings would burn a man’s guts out.

Jerry was quite courageous when they left the little room.

Half a dozen people were waxing the huge floor; the tables were pushed back against the wall; everybody was talking; Aunt Miriam was sitting, heaving great sighs.

Cherry introduced Jerry and left him to Aunt Miriam. He made a half-move to follow the man on the wheels--but Aunt Miriam was not to be thrown off.

The five fiddlers sat themselves down, and struck up the lancers. The big room was suddenly filled with people eager to make up “sets.”

Great was the astonishment of Polly to find that Adam could dance, nay, that he was one of the best dancers in the room. Here, they were, they two, in heaven when the dance brought them together, when they touched hands in the “chain” or went down the middle. Polly’s paleness was gone, now. It was the dream come true. After all, had Adam not rescued her? She giggled as some of the dancers missed each other--and at the face of one man which appeared to be set on another man’s shoulder, wearing a look of stony horror. It was Jerry Clin--dancing for the first time.

Uncle Silas was what he called “pushing Granny through the Lancers”--and that set they danced in laughed too much to dance really, laughed until everybody got with the wrong partners and “chained” out of order, and what Granny called “blundered through it,” and found themselves at it when the five fiddlers had stopped.

But it was when the barn dance came on that Granny shone.

She led off, with Uncle Silas, going down the middle with a broad, beaming face, and all the others following--whilst the good humour spread. The dancing only stopped when the five fiddlers went to “wet their whistles” in that little room. When they came out, and played a hornpipe the young folk stood abashed. But the older ones danced the hornpipe and two of the five fiddlers got so excited as they watched Granny that they yelled “go on, old girl,” “keep it up, mother,”--and Uncle Silas said he wouldn’t be licked by Betsy, if he knew, but had to retire after all.

It was Adam and Polly who led off when the waltz music struck up, and danced so beautifully together no one else got up, and the cobbler’s wife cried, and they only found they were the cynosure of all eyes half-way through the waltz, and Polly said “Ooo,” but Adam said, looking down, “Nay, let’s dance it out, Polly.”

Soon afterwards the little platform was filled with the Concert’s Committee, Cherry being one.

Unanimously he was elected Chairman, and perched at a table, which held a glass of beer.

“The next dance,” said Cherry, “will be a song. Mr. Silas Cherry will oblige. ‘Roses Underneath the Snow.’” Thus began the entertainment, where people had to sing whether they would or not.

“Sitha--I’ll kill thee, Will,” shouted the first singer on the programme.

“Eh--we all know tha can sing,” called Betsy.

Four picked men escorted Uncle Silas on to the platform, nay, pushed him up the four steps, and saw he did not run away. Whilst the piano player vamped to Uncle Silas trying to get the pitch, and people tried to look as though they couldn’t hear him.

Uncle Silas fronted the audience.

“If I forget a bit, yo’ mun excuse me,” he said, before beginning.

Cherry could see Adam and Polly sat together--both pair of eyes on Uncle Silas, and Adam having taken one of Polly’s hands in his.

“Turn around in brave en-dev-hour,
Let your vain rip-pinin’s go--
’Opeful harts will find fur-rever,
Ro--oses underneath th’ snow.”

Uncle Silas managed a verse and the chorus and sang the chorus twice, and again with the audience, and went down the four steps to a thunder of applause and a “We don’t know what talents we’ve got!”

Cherry was in his element now.

There sat Uncle Bob Rimmer, unconscious that his was the next name down, waiting delightedly for the blow to fall on somebody else.

“Mr. Bob Rimmer will oblige with ‘Bite Bigger, Billy,’”--called Cherry. Mr. Bob Rimmer said he would see Cherry somewhere, first. The whisky had upset Bob. There was quite a scrimmage before _he_ was hauled upon the platform. But once having got thereon he recited with a fervour that surpassed himself, a warmth, and a delightfulness that made his audience see the little scene of the two urchins in the dimness of a snowy morning, finding the apple, the faded flower, and sharing.

“If tha has’nt no luck o’ thysel’,
Tha can share all th’ findin’s wi me.”

Which made his audience expand, and grow moist-eyed and shake their heads as to say what a different world it’d be if that spirit prevailed.

But the star of the entertainment was Grandma Cherry, singing “The Kerry Dancers.” It was the ghost of a sweet old voice singing a song of a youth passed away--a thread of a voice, quivering the sad, sweet words--and Cherry noticed that Adam’s hand gripped Polly’s more closely. Song after song, piece after piece. The sun was going down, the room filling with gloom--and the five fiddlers were almost drunk. It was then that James MacGuire gave his exhibition of the pipes, going down the aisle between the chairs, coming back again, skirling away. Then when the lights were lit, Cherry called out “Mr. Adam Wild will oblige with a song.”

The end was felt to be approaching.

Adam faced the platform, though he had his own ideas on a bridegroom singing at the bridal feast.

Polly found to her delight that Adam had quite a fine baritone voice. She sat seeing him through the eyes of the audience--her hands clasped.

It was the man with the pipes who accompanied

“O, wert thou in th’ cauld, cauld blast.”

The tenderest of love-songs rolled through the big room.

“A gradely song,” applauded Uncle Silas. Then he said to Granny, “Who’s that chap our Miriam’s picked up?”

It was at this moment that there arose sounds of a conflict from the little room. The five fiddlers were fighting, and with difficulty disentangled, and set to playing again. After this, it was almost time for Cherry’s speech.

He knocked upon the table for order with the beer-glass.

“The last song,” said Cherry, almost sadly. Then, turning again, he said, “_By request._”

Everybody waited.

“Mr. Tim--over there--will oblige with ‘Young Kate,’” he said, pointing at the sand-hawker, who was almost drunk, so drunk that he wanted to kiss Jane.

They carried the last singer up on the platform. Jane had said he had a good voice.

Supported by a man on either side, Tim managed to keep a swaying sort of balance. Then, he began to sing that old, old song, with its crooney, monotonous tune that any one could sing, whether they knew it or not.

Tim realised that it was up to him to “shine,” so began. He had not a bad voice, but he had taken a lot of whisky.

“Young Kate, she was a flower girl,
Young Kate, she was a flower girl,
Young Kate, she was a flower girl,
And ofttimes she did say--

‘Will you buy, will you buy, will you buy,
Will you buy, will you buy, will you buy,
Will you buy my posies?
I’ve cowslips and primroses,
And I’ve lilies, daffydowndillies,
Daisies, honeysuckle and wild roses.’”

It was one of those songs where the audience sing and the soloist chips in. In fact, Tim found that they could do very well without him. “Will you buy, will you buy, will you buy, my posies?” The room rang with “buy, buy, buy.” Cherry saw Nan singing it! Christopher Columbus! Nan was singing. But then--everybody was singing.

“Here, come back,” said Tim’s supporters, who had forgotten to support him, in singing. “There’s another verse.”

Tim wobbled forwards, scratched his head, and saw Jane prompting him with her lips, and looking happy to see him such a big man.

After some reflection he recalled the second verse.

“And Kate became the squire’s bride,
And Kate became the squire’s bride,
And Kate became the squire’s bride,
And no more will she say--”
Chorus: “Will you buy?”

The chorus was sung, every one applauded their own share, and Tim came down, in a halo of glory.

Cherry knocked soberly with his beer-glass this time.

When he had succeeded in getting order, which took a little time, he looked down on the upturned faces.

“Ladies and gentlemen----” he began, smiling.

“Cheese it, Will,” came a voice.

“Well then--Foak----!” he addressed them.

“Ay--that’ll do.”

“Order--order.”

“Shut up!”

“Fill his glass up.”

“Foak--” said Cherry, meditatively, “I’m glad to see you here, and believe you’ve enjoyed yourselves.”

(Some furious hand-clapping.)

“The merry-makin’ is drawin’ to a close. Everything draws to a close. Sometimes it’s a good job. But I believe in bein’ happy, if possible--despite what the parson says. It’s easier bein’ happy wi’ some one to share your happiness, an’ double your sorrows. It’s a bit hard, sometimes--but is anything easy in this world? I sit here and lift up this glass----”

He lifted it and eyed it with beneficent look.

“And drink to the health of the bride and bridegroom.”

He drank, amidst a dead silence.

He set the glass down.

“May they be happier nor anybody ever was before,” he said, “though I don’t think they will--there’s a lot o’ happiness in th’ world--an’ allers will be----

“An’ when they’re not--let em’ stick it----”

“Hear, hear!”

“I’m not in favour of month-old contracts----”

Loud applause.

“You don’t get the best out of friendship in a month. It’s stickin’ does it--just stickin’. Here’s to them ’at has stuck it, an’ kept to th’ bargain, an’ grinned an’ borne wi’ one another, like a mother bears wi’ her child, like a dog bears wi’ its master--like the Boss o’ th’ Great Show bears wi’ all on us. Here’s to our Polly again, an’ to our Adam. An’ now, before we break up, we’ll just push th’ chairs to one side, an’ sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’--after which I declare this meeting closed.”

The climax was reached as the clan seized hands in the great room and sang the immortal song, swinging hands vigorously. Then a travelled person suggested the outlandish custom of sending up “rockets.” This was merely a hand movement, coupled with a mouth-noise as of a rocket bursting, and calling out the name of the person. A “rocket” was sent up for Cherry, Polly, Adam, this body and that, however, until it began to feel delicate to leave anybody out, so everybody had a rocket sent up for them--even Becky--Becky whose baby was asleep in the cloak-room. Even Nan--Nan, who looked touched to receive this public mark of esteem.

“He ought to have a do like this every week,” avowed Uncle Silas.

There was a great to do in the cloak-room finding garments. They also found Mr. Roscoe, quite sound asleep, and quoting Scripture when he was roused--with a whisky bottle in his hand.

Cherry trundled up to Miriam and Jerry Clin.

Granny was talking to them.

“They’re going to be asked out next Sunday,” he said.

Jerry gasped.

“I’ve sin the letters he’s written,” said Cherry, to Aunt Miriam, “they’d read well in a court o’ law. A hundred poun’ damages it’d be.”

Jerry groaned.

A hundred pounds!

“It’s a forgery,” he said.

Cherry laughed.

He took Jerry off to have another nip in the little room.

“I don’t--mind--if I do,” said Jerry, desperately, and offered to kiss Aunt Miriam.

“So you’re engaged?” said Cherry.

Jerry looked hopelessly at him.

“Ay, I suppose we are,” he said.

Aunt Miriam and Cherry and the whisky combined were too much for Jerry.

“I hope, Miriam,” said Cherry, “tha’ll fix him up well on Brand from the Burning stuff. It’d be a pity for owd Nick to get _him_. An’ if I were thee, I’d never show him them letters. He mightn’t have written ’em.”

Aunt Miriam stared at Cherry.

Then--a light dawned in her eyes.

She took the arm of Jerry Clin--and saw him safely home.

“I suppose there’ll be another weddin’ to dance at, son,” said Granny.

She was peering about.

“Th’ trap came just after I made my speech,” said Cherry. “I saw ’em go. They’ve gone home.”

He referred to Polly and Adam.

Nan came out of the cloak-room just then.

“Darby and Joan, now,” he said, comically. “Left all alone in the cottage by the sea!”

Granny looked at him.

“It’s me ’at ’ll feel it,” said Nan, chokily.

But Granny was staring at Cherry.

“All flesh is but grass, Will,” she said. “She’s gone th’ way o’ all flesh--except that as is hay wi’ havin’ a’ th’ human nature dried out on it. Well, he has a trap. You’ll see her a lot.”

They took Granny home.

Then went up to Myrtle Cottage with Grandma Cherry, who was staying overnight And there--waiting “innocent like,” as Cherry said--was a letter, bringing the great news that Cherry had won his case. He had a pound per week for life.

Across the valley, in that little white farm, Sarah was waiting, with a big fire, for Polly and Adam.

“We’re not stayin’ in,” said Adam.

“Eh?” she gasped.

Adam was off to harness the new brown cob, and drove Polly to Narrowfields, to start her honeymoon week of Grand Opera. “Faust” was first night--the wonder, the glory of it, with a star company; “Rigoletto,” “Il Trovatore,” “Maritana,” “Lily of Killarney,” with Polly scarcely breathing through it all, and afterwards the drive back under the low moon in a spring night, with the trot of the brown cob setting itself to music, and Sarah awaiting at the other end to mother Polly as she had never been able to mother Adam. Polly was in clover.

“We’ll go down to Granny’s to-night,” said Polly.

This was on Sunday.

They called, after chapel.

“I’m fain yo’ called to-neet,” she said, repeating the statement twice.

Granny had not been herself since that jig in which she out-jigged Silas.

They were glad, too, three days later.

Granny died, sitting in her chair--whilst laughing with the cobbler’s wife.

She had gone as she wanted to go, “like the crack of a gun”--giving trouble to no one, and on her own hearthstone.

All that she was possessed of she left to her grand-daughter Polly. It consisted of the household furniture and some forty pounds. Conditional on the household furniture was the clause that if ever Belle Harker came to Cherrydale, she should stay as long as she liked with Polly. She also begged that the weather-vane should cause no bad feeling--but that one or other of the two who had asked for it should “give way” if necessary. She asked that there should be no flowers, a sad waste of good money, and ended this Grannyish will with the remark that none should miss any sleep over her going, _as she’d had a good innings_.

The funeral took place just a fortnight after Polly’s wedding--the clan gathering in the same room.

So genial a ghost had Granny left behind her that no man ate with a sense of shame.

Only Polly did not eat at all.

And was remonstrated with by the parson. But really comforted by Adam and her Dad.

“She’s left such a memory behind,” said Cherry, “we shall never believe she’s right gone from us. An’ it’s not th’ sort of memory you can cry off.”

Which was perhaps all the flowers Granny needed. It was very appropriate that the minister forgot his glasses, and, therefore, could not read the burial service, laying Betsy Harker back into the earth with a few human words spoken as a friend. Only the cobbler’s wife thought _she_ wouldn’t like to die _laughing_.

But, as Granny would say, “In this world it’s hard to suit everybody.”

After a life with its full innings of mirth and sorrow, she “ligged low and said nowt.”

THE END

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Typos corrected. However, the author’s original spelling of “blussed” (page 36) has been left unchanged.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been left unchanged.