Chapter 5

THE QUEEN'S WEDDING.

"Weddin's-day."

Lizzi's happy thoughts would play upon the word Wednesday, and the gentle breeze in the pines above her made sweet accompaniment to the tuneful repetition.

She sat where Gill had said he would meet her, in the pine-grove at the edge of which stood the church. She had dressed and left home early, apparently for a walk, but now when the church-bell rung the call for prayer she was at the trysting-place.

"My wedding-bell," she murmured as the mellow solemn tones fell quivering on the air. When they ceased the echo floated to her, a far-away sound almost silence. Clasping her hands, she bowed her head in thankfulness.

"The angels up in heaven ring my weddin'-bell too, and that means John and I will be happy."

There was in this muscular daughter of the forest (she was born in a cabin in the woods) a gentle womanliness that was charming. As the hour drew near when she would give up her maiden name and freedom, she thought Time surely ought to go more slowly. He had taken his ease from Sunday until now, though she, running ahead, had pulled him along; but now, when only one short hour of her maidenhood was left, the contrary old fellow would run.

She blushed when, all too soon, she saw her promised husband enter the grove; and when he took her hand it trembled.

"What, Lizzi, not scared by the dark?"

The pressure he gave her hand and the light laugh that followed his words corrected their impression, and the sharp pain they caused was soothed by the knowledge that he really understood.

"What if it had been some other man going through the grove?" he asked.

"Then my hand wouldn't have shook."

It was the coming of the bridegroom that made her heart beat more quickly and her hand unsteady.

Gill repaid her for the pretty compliment with a kiss. Then they approached the church, which was wrapped in darkness.

Jim Harker, sexton and squire, had put out the lights after prayer-meeting was dismissed, and closed the shutters. Inside the church he was waiting.

Lizzi hesitated when, in answer to Gill's knock, the door was thrown open and she saw that the church was dark.

"Go in, Lizzi," said Gill. "We'll have a light as soon as the door is shut. If the church was lit up, somebody would see us go in, and come to peep to see what we was doin'."

She stepped into the close darkness. Gill followed, and Jim shut the door. Lizzi gave a little start when she heard the click of the latch, and a shiver ran over her. She was not frightened, only realizing that the door of her maiden life was closed behind her.

Squire Harker lighted two candles, and Lizzi's eyes blinked in the yellow light but soon they were able to pierce the semi-darkness, and to her surprise she could discover no preacher. She had thought him part of the romance. To no plan of Gill's had she objected after consenting to a secret marriage, but she had never dreamed otherwise than that the ceremony would be performed by a clergyman. When she saw Squire Harker, she supposed, because he was sexton, Gill had taken him into confidence and he was present because of his duties at the church, putting out the lights and locking it up.

Gill seemed as much astounded as she that there was no preacher present, and asked rather sharply why he had gone. Squire Harker replied that the preacher had been detained at the other end of the circuit by quarterly meeting.

"It's too confounded bad!" said Gill, angrily.

"It's bad luck to put off a weddin'," said Lizzi, disappointed.

"I think so, too," Gill remarked, and then asked, as if the idea had just struck him:

"Why not be married by the Squire?"

Lizzi, dressed in her best, demurred. She thought a church-wedding should be conducted by a preacher.

"A marriage ceremony performed by a Justice of the Peace is as binding and respectable as any churchman's," Gill urged.

"It's common-like, though," Lizzi replied; "but I'd be married by a squire rather than put it off."

"You will have to do it then," Gill said, in a tone that did not conceal his chagrin at having to be wedded by a Justice of the Peace.

While Squire Harker was gone for his books, pen, ink, and paper, which were concealed in a thorn-bush near the church, Lizzi sat silent in a pew and wondered if the angels would make merry over a church-wedding conducted by a squire.

When Squire Harker thought he had allowed himself time enough to get to his office and back, he tapped at the church door. Gill shaded the candles and called to him to enter. He closed the door and made a hat-peg of the key, the black slouch effectually preventing any peeping through the keyhole.

He took a position behind the table on which he had placed the candles, and Gill and Lizzi stood before it. The candles threw their weird shadows on the walls and ceiling of the low lecture-room. The shadows deepened and faded, advanced and retreated, nodded and bowed in the uncertain light from the candles which seemed to struggle against their own consumption, yet were never quite able to master the eating fire that at intervals flashed greedily.

The Squire took up the church book and began to read the ceremony, but Lizzi stopped him.

"Not the preacher's way by a squire; take your own book."

So he opened a volume of legal forms and asked the question, "Are both parties of contracting age?"

Gill responded "Yes," and Lizzi said she was old enough to know her own mind.

The shadows stood still.

"Is there any person here present who knows any good reason why these two parties shall not be united in marriage? If so, let him speak now, or forever after hold his peace."

The candles spluttered, the flames leaped and flashed, and the shadows nodded and bowed and nodded.

"Join your right hands."

Gill took Lizzi's hand in his, and the Squire continued the ceremony, reading the form slowly, stumbling over the big words, but at last he pronounced them man and wife.

Then the shadows stood solemnly still, while Gill kissed Lizzi.

After congratulating the bride and groom, the Squire sat down to write the marriage certificate. Gill and Lizzi retired to a window and conversed in low tones. Presently, after a long while it seemed to the flustered Squire, he handed Lizzi her marriage certificate. It was written on legal-cap and tied with red tape. She received it joyfully and placed it in her bosom. There it lay, the legal testimonial of her purity, the proof of her honesty, should that ever be questioned.

The Squire gathered up the things he had brought with him, blew out the candles and left the church, going his way, while Gill and Lizzi went to her home.