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 shalclass="underline" a proper pretty sight for the nation," said Mrs. Penny.
"Hullo!" said the tranter, suddenly catching sight of a singular human figure standing in the doorway, and wearing a long smock-frock of pillow-case cut and of snowy whiteness.
"Why, Leaf! whatever dost thou do here?"
"I've come to know if so be I can come to the wedding--hee-hee!" said Leaf in a voice of timidity.
"Now, Leaf," said the tranter reproachfully, "you know we don't want 'ee here to-day: we've got no room for ye, Leaf."
"Thomas Leaf, Thomas Leaf, fie upon ye for prying!" said old William.
"I know I've got no head, but I thought, if I washed and put on a clane shirt and smock-frock, I might just call," said Leaf; turning away disappointed and trembling.
"Poor feller!" said the tranter, turning to Geoffrey. "Suppose we must let en come? His looks are rather against en, and he is terrible silly; but 'a have never been in jail, and 'a won't do no harm."
Leaf looked with gratitude at the tranter for these praises, and then anxiously at Geoffrey, to see what effect they would have in helping his cause.
"Ay, let en come," said Geoffrey decisively. "Leaf, th'rt welcome, 'st know;" and Leaf accordingly remained.
They were now all ready for leaving the house, and began to form a procession in the following order: Fancy and her father, Dick and Susan Dewy, Nat Callcome and Vashti Sniff, Ted Waywood and Mercy Onmey, and Jimmy and Bessie Dewy. These formed the executive, and all appeared in strict wedding attire. Then came the tranter and Mrs.
Dewy, and last of all Mr. and Mrs. Penny;--the tranter conspicuous by his enormous gloves, size eleven and three-quarters, which appeared at a distance like boxing gloves bleached, and sat rather awkwardly upon his brown hands; this hall-mark of respectability having been set upon himself to-day (by Fancy's special request) for the first time in his life.
"The proper way is for the bridesmaids to walk together," suggested Fancy.
"What? 'Twas always young man and young woman, arm in crook, in my time!" said Geoffrey, astounded.
"And in mine!" said the tranter.
"And in ours!" said Mr. and Mrs. Penny.
"Never heard o' such a thing as woman and woman!" said old William; who, with grandfather James and Mrs. Day, was to stay at home.
"Whichever way you and the company like, my dear!" said Dick, who, being on the point of securing his right to Fancy, seemed willing to renounce all other rights in the world with the greatest pleasure The decision was left to Fancy.
"Well, I think I'd rather have it the way mother had it," she said, and the couples moved along under the trees, every man to his maid.
"Ah!" said grandfather James to grandfather William as they retired, "I wonder which she thinks most about, Dick or her wedding raiment!"
"Well, 'tis their nature," said grandfather William. "Remember the words of the prophet Jeremiah: 'Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire?'"
Now among dark perpendicular firs, like the shafted columns of a cathedral; now through a hazel copse, matted with primroses and wild hyacinths; now under broad beeches in bright young leaves they threaded their way into the high road over Yalbury Hill, which dipped at that point directly into the village of Geoffrey Day's parish; and in the space of a quarter of an hour Fancy found herself to be Mrs. Richard Dewy, though, much to her surprise, feeling no other than Fancy Day still.
On the circuitous return walk through the lanes and fields, amid much chattering and laughter, especially when they came to stiles, Dick discerned a brown spot far up a turnip field.
"Why, 'tis Enoch!" he said to Fancy. "I thought I missed him at the house this morning.
How is it he's left you?"
"He drank too much cider, and it got into his head, and they put him in Weatherbury stocks for it. Father was obliged to get somebody else for a day or two, and Enoch hasn't had anything to do with the woods since."
"We might ask him to call down to-night. Stocks are nothing for once, considering 'tis our wedding day." The bridal party was ordered to halt.
"Eno-o-o-o-ch!" cried Dick at the top of his voice.
"Y-a-a-a-a-a-as!" said Enoch from the distance.
"D'ye know who I be-e-e-e-e-e?"
"No-o-o-o-o-o-o!"
"Dick Dew-w-w-w-wy!"
"O-h-h-h-h-h!"
"Just a-ma-a-a-a-a-arried!"
"O-h-h-h-h-h!"
"This is my wife, Fa-a-a-a-a-ancy!" (holding her up to Enoch's view as if she had been a nosegay.)
"O-h-h-h-h-h!"
"Will ye come across to the party to-ni-i-i-i-i-i-ight!"
"Ca-a-a-a-a-an't!"
"Why n-o-o-o-o-ot?"
"Don't work for the family no-o-o-o-ow!"
"Not nice of Master Enoch," said Dick, as they resumed their walk.
"You mustn't blame en," said Geoffrey; "the man's not hisself now; he's in his morning frame of mind. When he's had a gallon o' cider or ale, or a pint or two of mead, the man's well enough, and his manners be as good as anybody's in the kingdom."
PART V: 2. Under The Greenwood Tree
The point in Yalbury Wood which abutted on the end of Geoffrey Day's premises was closed with an ancient tree, horizontally of enormous extent, though having no great pretensions to height. Many hundreds of birds had been born amidst the boughs of this single tree; tribes of rabbits and hares had nibbled at its bark from year to year; quaint tufts of fungi had sprung from the cavities of its forks; and countless families of moles and earthworms had crept about its roots. Beneath and beyond its shade spread a carefully-tended grass-plot, its purpose being to supply a healthy exercise-ground for young chickens and pheasants; the hens, their mothers, being enclosed in coops placed upon the same green flooring.
All these encumbrances were now removed, and as the afternoon advanced, the guests gathered on the spot, where music, dancing, and the singing of songs went forward with great spirit throughout the evening. The propriety of every one was intense by reason of the influence of Fancy, who, as an additional precaution in this direction, had strictly charged her father and the tranter to carefully avoid saying 'thee' and 'thou' in their conversation, on the plea that those ancient words sounded so very humiliating to persons of newer taste; also that they were never to be seen drawing the back of the hand across the mouth after drinking--a local English custom of extraordinary antiquity, but stated by Fancy to be decidedly dying out among the better classes of society.
In addition to the local musicians present, a man who had a thorough knowledge of the tambourine was invited from the village of Tantrum Clangley,--a place long celebrated for the skill of its inhabitants as performers on instruments of percussion. These important members of the assembly were relegated to a height of two or three feet from the ground, upon a temporary erection of planks supported by barrels. Whilst the dancing progressed the older persons sat in a group under the trunk of the tree,--the space being allotted to them somewhat grudgingly by the young ones, who were greedy of pirouetting room,--and fortified by a table against the heels of the dancers. Here the gaffers and gammers, whose dancing days were over, told stories of great impressiveness, and at intervals surveyed the advancing and retiring couples from the same retreat, as people on shore might be supposed to survey a naval engagement in the bay beyond; returning again to their tales when the pause was over. Those of the whirling throng, who, during the rests between each figure, turned their eyes in the direction of these seated ones, were only able to discover, on account of the music and bustle, that a very striking circumstance was in course of narration--denoted by an emphatic sweep of the hand, snapping of the fingers, close of the lips, and fixed look into the centre of the listener's eye for the space of a quarter of a minute, which raised in that listener such a reciprocating working of face as to sometimes make the distant dancers half wish to know what such an interesting tale could refer to.