And in a little while, having dressed with more than usual care, I went downstairs to find my breakfast awaiting me in the “Sanded Parlour,” having ordered it for this early hour the night previously - ham and eggs and fragrant coffee, what mortal could wish for more?
And while I ate, waited on by the rosy-cheeked chambermaid, in came Master Amos Baggett, mine host, to pass the time of day, and likewise to assure me that my baggage should catch the early train; who when I rose, my meal at an end, paused to wipe his honest hand quite needlessly upon his snowy apron ere he wished me “Good-bye.”
So having duly remembered the aforesaid rosy-cheeked chambermaid, the obsequious “Boots” and the grinning ostler, I sallied forth into the sunshine, and crossing the green, where stood the battered sign-post, I came to a flight of rough steps, at the foot of which my boat was moored. In I stepped, cast loose the painter, and shipping the sculls, shot out into the stream.
No, there never was, there never could be, just such another morning as this, for to-day I was to marry Lisbeth, and every stroke of the oar carried me nearer to her and happiness. Gaily the alders bent and nodded to me; joyfully the birds piped and sang; merrily the water laughed and chattered against my prow as I rowed through the golden morning.
Long before the hour appointed I reached the water-stairs at Fane Court, and tying my skiff, lighted my pipe and watched the smoke rise slowly into the still air while I tried “to possess my soul in patience.” Sitting thus, I dreamed many a fair dream of the new life that was to be, and made many resolutions, as a man should upon his wedding morn.
And at last came Lisbeth herself, swiftly, lightly, as fair and sweet and fresh as the morning, who yet paused a while to lean upon the balustrade and look down at me beneath the brim of her hat. Up I rose and stretched out my hands to her, but she still stood there, and I saw her cheeks were flushed and her eyes shy and tender. So once more we stood upon the old water-stairs, she on the top stair, I on the lower; and again I saw the little foot beneath her skirt come slowly towards me and hesitate. “Dick,” she said, “you know that Aunt Agatha has cut me off - disinherited me altogether - you have had time to think it all over?”
“Yes.”
“And you are quite - quite sure?”
“Quite! I think I have been so all my life.”
“I’m penniless now, Dick, a beggar, with nothing in the world but the clothes I wear.”
“Yes,” I said, catching her hands in mine, “my beggar-maid; the loveliest, noblest, sweetest that ever stooped to bestow her love on man.
“Dick, how glorious everything is this morning - the earth, the sky, and the river!”
“It is our wedding morning!” said I.
“Our wedding day,” she repeated in a whisper.
“And there never was just such a morning as this,” said I.
“But, Dick, all days cannot be as this - there must come clouds and storm sometimes, and - and - O Dick! are you sure that you will never, never regret - “
“I love you, Lisbeth, in the shadow as well as the sunshine - love you ever and always.” And so, the little foot hesitating no longer, Lisbeth came down to me.
Oh, never again could there be such another morning as this!
“Ahoy!”
I looked round with a start, and there, his cap cocked rakishly over one eye, his “murderous cutlass” at his hip and his arms folded across his chest, stood “Scarlet Sam, the Terror of the South Seas.”
“Imp!” cried Lisbeth.
“Avast!” cried he in lusty tones; “whereaway ?”
I glanced helplessly at Lisbeth and she at me.
“Whereaway, shipmate?” he bel1owed in nautical fashion, but before I could find a suitable answer Dorothy made her appearance with the fluffy kitten “Louise” cuddled under her arm as usual.
“How do you do?” she said demurely; “it’s awfully nice to get up so early, isn’t it? We heard auntie creeping about on tippity-toes, you know, so we came, too. Reginald said she was pretending to be burglars, but I think she’s going ‘paddling.’ Are you, auntie ?”
“No, dear; not this morning,” answered Lisbeth, shaking her head.
“Then you are going for a row in Uncle Dick’s boat. How fine!”
“An’ you’ll take us with you, won’t you, Uncle Dick?” cried the Imp eagerly. “We’ll be pirates. I’ll be ‘Scarlet Sam,’ an’ you can be ‘Timothy Bone, the bo’sun,’ like you were last time.
“Impossible, my Imp,” I said firmly. He looked at me incredulously for a moment, then, seeing I meant it, his lip began to quiver.
“I didn’t think “T-Timothy B-Bone’ would ever desert me,” he said, and turned away.
“Oh, auntie!” exclaimed Dorothy, “won’t you take us?”
“Dear - not this morning.”
“Are you going far, then, Uncle Dick ?”
“Yes, very far,” I answered, glancing uneasily from the Imp’s drooping figure to Lisbeth,
“I wonder where ?”
“Oh - well - er - down the rivers” I stammered, quite at a loss.
“Y-e-s, but where ?” persisted Dorothy.
“Well. to - er - to - “
“To the ‘Land of Heart’s Delight,’” Lisbeth put in, “and you may come with us, after all, if Uncle Dick will take you,”
“To be sure he will, if your auntie wishes it,” I cried, “so step aboard, my hearties, and lively!” In a moment the Imp’s hand was in mine, and he was smiling up at me with wet lashes.
“I knew ‘Timothy Bone’ could never be a - a ‘mutinous rogue,’” he said, and turned to aid Dorothy aboard with the air of an admiral on his flagship.
And now, all being ready, he unhitched the painter, or, as he said, “slipped our cable,” and we glided out into midstream.
“A ship,” he said thoughtfully, “always has a name. What shall we call this one? Last time we were ‘pirates’ and she was the Black Death - “
“Never mind last time, Imp,” I broke in; “to-day she is the Joyful Hope.”
“That doesn’t sound very ‘pirate-y,’ somehow,” he responded with a disparaging shake of the head, “but I s’pose it will have to do.
And so, upon that summer morning, the good ship Joyful Hope set sail for the “Land of the Heart’s Delight,” and surely no vessel of her size ever carried quite such a cargo of happiness before or since.
And once again “Scarlet Sam” stamped upon the “quarterdeck” and roared orders anent “lee shrouds” and “weather braces,” with divers injunctions concerning the “helm,” while his eyes rolled and he flourished his ‘murderous cutlass” as he had done upon a certain other memorable occasion. Never, never again could there be just such another morning as this - for two of us at least.
On we went, past rush and sedge and weeping willow, by roaring weir and cavernous lock, into the shadow of grim stone bridges and out again into the sunshine, past shady woods and green uplands until at length we “cast anchor” before a flight of steps leading up to a particularly worn stone gateway surmounted by a crumbling stone cross.
“Why,” exclaimed the Imp, staring, “this is a church!”
“Imp,” I nodded, “I believe it is?”
“But to-day isn’t Sunday, you know,” he remonstrated, seeing it was our intention to land.
“Never mind that, Imp; ‘the better the deed, the better the day, you know.’”
On we went, Dorothy with the fluffy Louise beneath her arm and the Imp with cutlass swinging at his belt, while Lisbeth and I brought up the rear, and as we went she slipped her hand into mine. In the porch we came upon an aged woman busy with a broom and a very large duster, who, catching sight of Dorothy’s kitten and the Imp’s “murderous weapon,” dropped first the duster and then the broom, and stood staring in open-mouthed astonishment.
And there in the dim old church, with the morning sun making a glory of the window above our heads, and with the birds for our choristers, the vows were exchanged and the blessing pronounced that gave Lisbeth and her future into my keeping; yet I think we were both conscious of those two small figures in the gloom of the great pew behind, who stared in round-eyed wonderment.