great surprise, therefore, to Silas, when suddenly the oldaspect of things altered, and the Lord whom he sincerely loved ceased tochasten. Life was so completely changed to Silas that he scarcely knewhimself.
He was going to be married. There was nothing remarkable in the fact initself--more than one middle-aged woman of the Wesleyan community in hisown village would gladly have come to keep house for him. She would, asthe expression goes, "make him and mend him." She would cook for him,and keep his place clean, and spend his money, and be the mother of hischildren, whom she would bring up in the fear of the Lord.
Silas could have married Eliza Sparkes, or Mary Ann Hatton, or HannahMartin, and he would have received the congratulations of his friends,and the sincerest good wishes from all quarters, and yet not have beenable consciously to say in his heart, "The Lord has ceased to chasten."
But he was not going to marry a middle-aged woman from the village. Hewas middle-aged himself, no doubt, nearly forty, but the bride who wassoon coming to gladden the old cottage, and vie with the flowers in herbeauty, was scarcely more than a child in years.
This wilful, pretty, dainty blossom which he had culled out of theLondon streets was just the very last wife any one would have expectedhim to take. She would not be to the taste of the Wesleyans, and hefelt that the congratulations and "God speed you" from his friends wouldbe few.
But what mattered these things, when his own heart was singing a psalmof thanksgiving from morning till night, when the flowers in his gardenwere absolutely riotous in the profusion of their blossoms, when the sunsmiled on him, and the dews came at night to refresh him? What did hecare for the neighbours, whether they were pleased or not?
During the first fortnight of his engagement to Jill, his own naturetook a sudden late blossoming. His gruff voice became a shade lower andmore refined in tone, and even Jonathan, his hard-working factotum,ceased to fear Silas.
Master and man were very busy, putting the tiny cottage in order, forthe wedding was to be in another week.
On a certain Saturday evening, as Silas was standing in the middle ofhis flower-beds, contemplating a late crop of enormous carnations, andconsidering how many boxes he could fill with cut blooms for hisMonday's market, he heard the click of the gate at the far end of thegarden path, and saw an elderly woman in a poke bonnet and long cloakadvancing to meet him.
"Giminy! ef it ain't Aunt Hannah!" he muttered under his breath, "Now,whatever's bringing her bothering round?"
He walked down the path as he spoke, and held out his big hand to hisrelation.
"Wot's this I hear, Silas?" said his aunt; "that you're going to,contract marriage with an unbeliever?"
The little woman had an anxious, wizened face. It was raised now with aworld of commiseration in it to Silas.
The man felt so happy that he absolutely smiled down at the audaciouslittle intruder.
"That's all you know," he began.
"Oh, don't I know, Silas! Wot would yer pore mother say ef she were tocome alive again, and see this bitter day? Oh, Silas! you that has beenbrought up on the Bible--han't you read your Scripter to some purpose?`Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain.' Oh, Silas! Silas! it's MaryAnn Hatton, or one of them other sober women you ought to be taking towife."
"Yes," said Silas, "and wouldn't both on us have been as cross as twosticks? I'm taking a bonny bit of a gel to wed, wot's sweet as a roseto look at, and with a perfume o' the lavender and the cherry-pie abouther. Good inside and out is Jill, and I guess ef Solomon were alive,he'd say as the price of a gel like Jill were above rubies."
"I heerd tell," said Aunt Hannah, in a slow voice, "that you was quitegone off yer head, Silas, my man, but I didn't go to believe it, until Ihad clapped my own two eyes on yer. I'm mournful, thinkin' on yer poremother. But there's no manner of use in wasting words on a man wot'sgone silly, so I'll wish yer a werry good-evening."
"You stay a bit," said Silas. "Jonathan and me, we are doing up thecottage, and you had ever a cute eye for a good bit of furniture. Comeand see what I am doing. I doubt ef you'd know the place."
With many sighs and groans, Aunt Hannah was induced to enter thecottage. She behaved in a melancholy way when she got inside, for thesight of her sister's vacant chair provoked a sudden flood of tears,which embarrassed and annoyed Silas.
"Eh dear, eh dear," she sobbed, "to think of the last time I ha' seenpore Maria a-bolstered up in that cheer. She had the asthmey awful, andshe said to me, `Hannah, it ketches me most when I lies down.' She saidthem words over and over, and I don't think I ever heerd anything moremournful. Eh, and ef that ain't the lavender I see'd her put in withher own hands into that identical muslin bag, my name ain't HannahRoyal! Oh, Silas! it's wonderful how you can go agin a mother likethat!"
"I ain't a-going agin her," said Silas; "you shet up now, Aunt Hannah,you has said enough. Wot do you think of this table and chair as I hasbought? And this rug to put in front of the stove? Come now, give usyour opinion; it's worth having."
Thus appealed to Aunt Hannah immediately wiped her tears, and going downon her knees began to feel the texture of the rug, and to put it up toher nose, and to sniff at it, and then hold it between herself and thelight.
"I misdoubt me that it ain't made with three threads across," she said,laying it down with some contempt. "And the colour's too flashy for mytaste. I like a drab ground, with a teeny sprig of purple on it. Letme look at that 'ere table. You don't mean to tell me, Silas, as youhas gone and bought a _meehogany_ table? Don't yer know as sech a tableis sinful waste to a man in your station?"
"It were goin' dirt cheap," said Silas, in an apologetic tone.
"I misdoubt me that it's worm-eat," said Aunt Hannah. "And as to thischeer, its creak would turn a body silly. Well, is there anything elsefor me to see?"
"There's a crate in that corner, full of cups and saucers, and platesand dishes."
"Chaney?" said Aunt Hannah, "I'm a jedge of that. I'll unpack the crateef you wish, Silas."
"Well, do," said Silas, "I'll be obleeged. I can manage flowers, but I'ates touching chaney. It seems to slip out of yer fingers, howevercareful you air. You unpack the crate, missis, and we'll have a cup oftea together."
Silas proceeded to light the fire, and put the kettle on to boil, andAunt Hannah unpacked the crate which contained the cups and saucers, andplates, and dishes, with which Jill was to help to furnish her new home.
If there were one thing more than another for which Mrs Royal had atruly worldly affection, it was for "chaney." She was a good judge ofall house furniture, but with regard to "chaney" she felt herself aspecialist. She was as knowing on this point as Silas was with regardto the best blooms and the choicest cuttings. The task, therefore, towhich she now set herself was quite to her mind.
Silas had not dared to choose the tea-service and the plates and disheshimself--he had asked a friend of his to buy them for him, and to havethem sent down to the cottage. When Aunt Hannah, therefore, removed thepaper wrapper from a delicate cup of white and gilt, with a blueconvolvulus lying across the saucer, and sending its delicate tendrilsround the cup, he came and gazed at the lovely specimens with a certainquickening of his pulses, and a queer inclination in his eyes to water.
"I say!" he exclaimed, "I never thought as chaney would look like that."
"It's most onsuitable," said Aunt Hannah. "But I don't deny as it'sneat. My word, I only hope as that gel will have deft fingers, orshe'll be crackin' and splittin' this yere fragile chaney. You don'tmean to say, Silas, as you'll use it hevery day? You are sinnin a'mostpast knowin' you, but I don't s'pose as you'll go the awful depths ofusing this yere chaney hevery day."
"That must be as Jill pleases," said Silas.
"Giminy! I never did know as chaney could look like this, it seems toadd a fresh pleasure to life--why, it a'most beats the flowers."
"I won't deny that it ain't a werry neat pattern," said Aunt Hannah,"the twist of convolvuly is werry cunnin', but chaney l
ike that is meantto lock up in a cupboard; there ain't no one as 'ud use it daily."
"Look here," said Silas, "there's a power of cups and saucers ain'tthere, Aunt Hannah?"
"My word, yes," said Aunt Hannah, "a whole, dozen, and plates to match,and four fruit dishes, and a couple of cake plates, and a slop-bowl anda teapot, and a cream jug and sugar basin--it's the most complete thingI iver seed."
"Well,