Gus and Flora are Naughty in Church, and the Whole Business Comes to an End.

Charles’ purpose of being married in London held good. And I need not say that William’s held good too.

Shall I insult your judgment by telling you that the whole story of Petre Ravenshoe’s marriage at Finchampstead was true? I think not. The register was found, the lawyers were busy down at Ravenshoe, for every one was anxious to get up to London, and have the two marriages over before the season was too far advanced.

The memorabilia about this time at Ravenshoe, were — The weather was glorious. (I am not going to give you any more about the two capes, and that sort of thing. You have had those two capes often enough. And I am reserving my twenty-ninth description of the Ravenshoe scenery for the concluding chapter.) The weather, I say, was glorious. And I was always being fetched in from the river, smelling fishy, and being made to witness deeds. I got tired of writing my name. I may have signed away the amount of the national debt in triplicate, for anything I know (or care. Tor you can’t get blood out of a stone). I signed some fifty of them, I think. But I signed two, which gave me great pleasure.

The first was a rent-charge on Ravenshoe of two thousand a year, in favour of William Ravenshoe. The second was a similar deed of five hundred a year in favour of Miss Ravenshoe. We will now have done with all this sordid business, and go on.

The ladies had all left for town, to prepare for the ceremony. There was a bachelors’ house at Ravenshoe for the last time. The weather was hot. Charles Ravenshoe, General Mainwaring, and the rest, were all looking out of the dining-room windows towards the sea, when we were astonished by seeing two people ride up on to the terrace, and stop before the porch.

A noblelooking old gentleman, in a blue coat and brass buttons, knee-breeches and gaiters, on a cob, and a beautiful boy of sixteen on a horse. I knew well enough who it was, and I said Ho! But the others wondered. William would have known, had he been looking out of the window just then, but by the time he got there, the old gentleman and the boy were in the porch, and two of Charles’s men were walking the horses up and down.

“Now, who the deuce is this?” said Charles. “They haven’t come far; but I don’t know them. I seem to know the old man, somehow; but I can’t remember.”

We heard the old gentleman’s heavy step along the hall, and then the door was thrown open, and the butler announced, like a true Devonshire man —

“Mr. Humby to Hele!”

The old gentleman advanced with a frank smile and took Charles’s hand, and said, “Welcome home, sir; welcome to your own; welcome to Ravenshoe. A Protestant at Ravenshoe at last. After so many centuries.”

Everybody had grown limp and faint when they heard the awful name of Humby, that is to say, every one but me. Of course 1 had nothing to do with fetching him over. Not at all. This was the first time that a Humby had had friendly communication with a Ravenshoe, for seven hundred and eighty-nine years. The two families had quarrelled in 1066, in consequence of John Humby having pushed against Kempion Ravenshoe, in the grand rush across the Senlac, at the battle of Hastings. Kempion Ravenshoe had asked John Humby where he was shoving to, and John Humby had expressed a msh to punch Kempion Ravenshoe’s head (or do what went for the same thing in those times. I am no antiquarian). The wound was never healed. The two families located themselves on adjoining estates in

Devonshire immediately after the conquest, but never spoke till 1529, when Lionel Humby bit his thumb at our old friend, Alured Ravenshoe, in Cardinal Wolsey’s antechamber, at Hampton, and Alured Ravenshoe asked him, what the devil be meant by that. Tbey fought in Twickenham meadow, but held no relations for two hundred and fourteen years, that is to say, till 1745, when Ambrose Ravenshoe squeezed an orange at Chichester Humby at an election dinner in Stonnington, and Boddy Fortescue went out as second to Chichester Humby, and Lord Segur to Ambrose Ravenshoe. After this the families did not speak again for one hundred and ten years, that is to say, till the time we are speaking of, the end of April, 1855, when James Humby to Hele frightened us all out of our wits, by coming into the dining-room at Ravenshoe, in a blue coat and brass buttons, and shaking hands with Charles, and saying, beside what I have written above —

“Mrs. Humby and my daughters are in London for the season, and I go to join them the day after tomorrow. There has been a slight cloud between the two houses lately” (that is to say, as we know it, for seven hundred and eighty-nine years. But what is time?) ” and I wish to remove it. I am not a very old man, but I have my whimsies, my dear sir. I wish my daughters to appear among Miss Corby’s bridesmaids. nd do you know, I fancy when you get to London, that you will find the whole matter arranged.”

Who was to resist this? Old Humby went up in the train with all of us the next day but one. And if I were asked to pick out the most roystering, boisterous, jolly old county member in England, Scotland, or Ireland, I should pick out old Humby of Hele. What fun he made at the stations where the express stopped! The way he allowed himself to be fetched out of the refreshment room by the guard, and then, at the last moment, engaged him in a general conversation about the administration of the line, until the station-master was mad, and an accident imminent, was worthy of a much younger man, to say the least. But then, in a blue coat and brass buttons, with drab small clothes, you may do anything. They are sure to-take you for a swell. If I, William Marston, am ever old enough, and fat enough, and rich enough, I shall dress like that myself, for reasons. If my figure does not develop, I shall try black br — ch — s and gaiters, with a shovel hat, and a black silk waistcoat buttoned up under my throat. That very often succeeds. Either are better than pegtops and a black bowler hat, which strike no awe into the beholders.

When we all got to town, we were, of course, very busy. There was a great deal of millinery business.

Old Humby insisted on helping at it. One day he went to Madame Tulle’s, in Conduit Street, with his wife and two daughters, and asked me to come too, for which I was sorry at first, for he behaved very badly, and made a great noise. We were in a great suite of rooms on tbe first floor, full of crinolines and that sort of thing, and there were a great many people present. I was trying to keep him quiet, for he was cutting a good many clumsy jokes, as an old-fashioned country squire will. Everybody was amused with him, and thoroughly appreciated his fun, save his own wife and daughters, who were annoyed; so I was trying to keep him quiet, when a tall, brown-faced, handsome young man came up to me and said —

“I beg a thousand pardons; but is not your name Marston?”

I said, “Yes.”

“You are a first cousin of John Marston, are you not? — of John Marston, whom I used to meet at Casterton?”

I said, “Yes; that John Marston was my cousin.” But I couldn’t remember my man, for all that.

“You don’t remember me! I met you once at old Captain Archer’s, at Lashbrook, for ten minutes. My wife has come here to buy fal-lals for Charles Ravenshoe’s wedding. He is going to marry my cousin. My ame is George Corby. I have married Miss Ellen Hockstrop, daughter of Admiral Blockstrop, Her eldest sister married young Captain Archer of the merchant service.”

I felt very faint, but I congratulated him. The way those Australians do business shames us old-country folk. To get over a heavy disappointment and be married in two months and a week is very creditable.

“We bushmen are rough fellows,” he said. (His manners were really charming. I never saw them beaten.) “But you old-country fellows must excuse us. Will you give me the pleasure of your acquaintance? I am sure you must be a good fellow, for your cousin is one of the best fellows I ever knew.”

“I should be delighted.” And I spoke the truth.

“I will introduce you to my wife directly,” he said; “but the fact is, she is just now having a row with Madame Tulle, the milliner here. My wife is a deuced economical woman, and she wants to show at the Ravenshoe wedding in a white mou’e-antique, which will only cost fifty guineas, and which she says will do for an evening dress in Australia afterwards. And the Frenchwoman won’t let her have it for the purpose, because she says it is incorrect. And I hope to Gad the Frenchwoman will win, because my wife will get quite as good a gown to look at for twenty guineas or so.”

Squire Humby begged to be introduced. Which I did.

“I am glad, sir,” he said, “that my daughters have not heard your conversation. It would have demoralised them, sir, for the rest of their lives. I hope they have not heard the argument about the fifty-guinea gown. If they have, I am a ruined man. It was one of you Australians who gave twelve hundred guineas for the bull ‘Master Butterfly,’ the day before yesterday?”

“Well, yes,” said George Corby, “I bought the bull He’ll pay, sir, handsomely, in our part of the world.”

“The devil he will,” said Squire Humby. “You don’t know an opening for a young man of sixty-five, with a blue coat and brass buttons, who understands his business, in your part of the country, do you?”

And so on. The weddings took place at St. Peter’s, Eaton Square. If the ghost of the little shoeblack had been hovering round the wall where he had played fives with the brass button, he might have almost heard the ceremony performed. Mary and Charles were not a handsome couple. The enthusiasm of the population was reserved for William and Jane Evans, who certainly were. It is my nature to be a Jack-of-all-trades, and so I was entrusted with old Master Evans, Jane’s father, a magnificent old sea-king, whom we have met before. We two preferred to go to church quietly before the others, and he, refusing to go into a pew, found himself place in the free seats, and made himself comfortable. So I went out into the porch, and waited till they came.

I waited till the procession had gone in, and then I found that the tail of it was composed of poor Lord Charles Herries’ children, Gus, Flora, and Archy, with their nurse.

If a bachelor is worth his salt, he will make himself useful. I saw that nurse was in distress and anxious, so I stayed with her.

Archy was really as good as gold till he met with his accident. He walked up the steps with nurse as quiet as possible. But even at first I began to get anxious about Gus and Flora. They were excited. Gus wouldn’t walk up the steps; but he put his two heels together, and jumped up them one at a time, and Flora walked backwards, looking at him sarcastically. At the top step but one Gus stumbled; whereupon Flora said, “Goozlemy, goozlemy, goozlemy.”

And Gus said, “You wait a minute, my lady, till we get into church,” after which awful speech I felt as if I was smoking in a powder magazine.

I was put into a pew with Gus, and Flora, and Archy. Nurse, in her modesty, went into the pew behind us.

I am sorry to say that these dear children, with hom I had had no previous acquaintance, were very naughty. The ceremony began by Archy getting too near the edge of his hassock, falling off, pitching against the pew door, bursting it open, and flying out among the free seats, head foremost. Nurse, a nimble and dexterous woman, dashed out, and caught him up, and actually got him out of the church door before he had time to fetch his breath for a scream. Gus and Flora were left alone with me.

Flora had a great scarlet and gold church service. As soon as she opened it, she disconcerted me by saying aloud, to an imaginary female friend, “My dear, there is going to be a collection; and I have left my purse on the piano.”

At this time, also, Gus, seeing that the business was well begun, removed to the further end of the pew, sat down on the hassock, and took from his trousers’ pocket a large tin trumpet.

I broke out all over in a cold perspiration as I looked at him. He saw my distress, and putting it to his lips, puffed out his cheeks. Flora administered comfort to me. She said, “You are looking at that foolish boy. Perhaps he won’t blow it, after all. He mayn’t if you don’t look at him. At all events, he probably won’t blow it till the organ begins; and then it won’t matter so much.”

Matters were so hopeless with me that I looked at old Master Evans. He had bent down his head on to the rail of the bench before him. His beautiful daughter had been his only companion at home for many years, for his wife had died when Jane was a little bare-legged thing, who paddled in the surf It had been a rise in life for her to marry Mr. Charles Ravenshoe’s favourite pad-groom. And just now she had walked calmly and quietly up the aisle, and had stopped when she came to where he sat, and had pushed the Honiton-lace veil from her forehead, and kissed his dear old cheek: and she would walk back directly as Mrs. William Ravenshoe. And so the noble old privateer skipper had bent down, and there was nothing to be seen there, but a grey head and broad shoulders, which seemed to shake.

And so I looked up to the east end. And I saw the two couples kneeling before the clergyman. And when I, knowing everything as I did, saw Charles kneeling beside Mary Corby, with Lord Ascot, great burly, brutal giant, standing behind him, I said something which is not in the marriage service of the Church of England. After it all, to see him and her kneeling so quietly there together! “We were all happy enough that day. But I don’t think that any one was much happier than T. For I knew more than any one. And also, three months rom that time, I married my present wife, Eliza Humby. And the affair had only been arranged two days. So I was in good spirits.

At least I should have been, if it had not been for Lord Charles Herries’ children. I wish those dear children (not meaning them any harm) had been, to put it mildl............