Chapter XXXVII: The Old Clock Ticks Again

"It's a rambling old place," Westover said, as he and Margaret strolled through the vast spaces of the Wanalah rooms with their highly polished white ash floors, their wealth of stoutly built, time darkened furniture, their ancient, oaken wainscots and their hospitably spacious fireplaces. "I suppose a modern judgment would say tear it down and build anew--"

"Then the modern judgment shall have no welcome when I am mistress here. Tear down Wanalah, with its walls of thick masonry, its generously large rooms, and its memories? Only a vandal would do that. I'll tell you, Boyd, there is only one change I'd like you to make here."

"I'll make it. What is it?"

"There's a beautiful old standing clock in the dining room that has never ticked since I have known Wanalah. Won't you have somebody put new works into it and set it going again?"

"Yes," he answered, "but it shall not run until you and I return from our wedding trip and you enter the house as its mistress. We'll go to it together then and set it going, to mark time in a new era at Wanalah."

"You are very good and thoughtful and tender, Boyd. I suppose you are a trifle romantic also, but I shall certainly not quarrel with that, now or ever."

"Speaking of our wedding trip, Margaret," he said eagerly, "what is it to be? We can go anywhere you like and everywhere you like and for as long as you like."

"Am I really free to choose?" she asked, looking into his eyes.

"Yes, really and absolutely."

"What I would like best, then, would be to go up to that place of yours in the high mountains. It was there that you suffered most on my account; I want you to rejoice and be happy there, Boyd, by way of recompense."

"But it's rough living up there, Margaret; perhaps you'd find it----"

"I'd find it delightful. How could it be otherwise, with just you and me there?"

"It shall be so then. Nothing could delight me more. I'll get Theonidas to carry my things back up there at once. They are still at Judy's. And we'll take along with us whatever baggage you want."

"That will be very little. It is the air, the sunshine, the rain, the freedom and _you_, Boyd, that I want. And besides, you know you have forbidden me to have a trousseau. I'll be a wood nymph or a water witch or something of that sort, and such beings do not bother with baggage, I suppose."

During the next week, Westover was speaking day and night, all over the district. He really cared nothing for the office he was running for, but it was his temperament to do his mightiest to win in any contest in which he had a part, and in this case he had the additional impulse to gratify Margaret by securing the biggest majority possible for his election.

Meanwhile, in his enthusiasm, Colonel Conway forgot all about his gout, and busied himself in the fulfilment of the promise he had long ago given, to fill The Oaks at the wedding time with the most brilliant company the country could furnish, and to have feasting there of a kind that might make the occasion memorable. He even made a journey to Washington and fairly forced his old commander in the Mexican War, General Scott, to be a guest, honored and honoring the occasion.

Judy Peters was also an honored guest. When Westover learned at last what part she had borne in his nomination and in his campaign, he rode all the way up to her place to persuade her to come. And when the time arrived, he sent the Wanalah carriage to fetch her. She appeared at the ceremony, in a gown more gaudily gorgeous than any that had been seen in that region since "the time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary."

Colonel Conway devoted his particular attention to her. Among other special courtesies he shared with her a bottle of precious old Madeira--too precious, as he told her, to be "wasted on a lot of young fellows whose palates are not educated up to it."

She drank the wine with relish, and after the third thimbleful glass she gave judgment.

"It's better 'n apple jack, but in the matter o' taste, 'tain't quite up to peach an' honey, is it now, Bob?"

Since his boyhood nobody had ever ventured to address Colonel Conway as "Bob," but as it came from Judy's barbaric and privileged lips, he rather liked it.

The wedding was held in the early morning because Boyd Westover had explained, without a hint of whither they were bound, that he and Margaret had a long journey to make before nightfall.

The wedding morn was on the day following the election, and the returns were all in. Carley Farnsworth summarized them to the company by announcing that Westover was elected by the vote of more than three-fourths and nearly four-fifths of the citizens of the district.

Then he added:

"And Sam Butler, Democrat, is elected to the House of Delegates, chiefly by the mountain vote, which seems to have been pretty nearly solid for him."

Judy Peters beamed upon Colonel Conway, and ventured the remark:

"'Tain't no use a-votin', Colonel, ef you don't stick together an' vote to 'lect. That's our way up in the mountings."

"Ah, Judy," the Colonel replied, "I'm afraid you're a sad sinner. I'm afraid you manipulated that vote."

"I ain't close acquainted with that big word o' your'n, Bob, but I was purty nigh right in my jedgment as to how this here 'lection was a goin' to come out. Say, Bob, what d'you think that there comb-cut rooster William Wilberforce Webb thinks of hisself by now? I wonder ef he'll unload some o' that name?"

Westover and his bride left as soon as the ceremony was over, but Colonel Conway kept the festivities going all day, and there was a dance at night.

The occasion was rich in opportunities for Jack Towns, and, with the alert energy which was characteristic of him, he made the most of them. When, two days later, he left for Boston as Millicent's escort, there was no room for doubt in anybody's mind as to the outcome of his visit to the blue hills of Milton.

It was a month later, and winter had begun, when Westover and Margaret--just entering the house--went to the clock and set it going. She said something--no matter what. He said nothing, but gathering her head to his breast, he caressed her. Words seemed superfluous.

THE END.

The Potter and the Clay

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End of Project Gutenberg's Westover of Wanalah, by George Cary Eggleston