whenever she came from the watering-places. And Frank knew that he should miss her sadly, and thought she had made a very queer choice.
Captain Higginbotham had been invited; but, to the astonishment of Jemima, he had replied to the invitation by a letter to herself, marked "private and confidential." 'She must have long known,' said the letter, 'of his devoted attachment to her; motives of delicacy, arising from the narrowness of his income, and the magnanimity of his sentiments, had alone prevented his formal proposals; but now that she was informed (he could scarcely believe his senses, or command his passions) that her relations wished to force her into a BARBAROUS marriage with a foreigner Of MOST FORBIDDING APPEARANCE, and most abject circumstances, he lost not a moment in laying at her feet his own hand and fortune. And he did this the more confidently, inasmuch as he could not but be aware of Miss Jemima's SECRET feelings towards him, while he was proud and happy to say, that his dear and distinguished cousin, Mr Sharpe Currie, had honoured him with a warmth of regard, which justified the most brilliant EXPECTATIONS – likely to be soon realised – as his eminent relative had contracted a very bad liver complaint in the service of his country, and could not last long!'.
In all the years they had known each other, Miss Jemima, strange as it may appear, had never once suspected the Captain of any other feelings to her than those of a brother. To say that she was not gratified by learning her mistake, would be to say that she was more than woman. Indeed, it must have been a source of no ignoble triumph to think that she could prove her disinterested affection to her dear Riccabocca, by a prompt rejection of this more brilliant offer. She couched the rejection, it is true, in the most soothing terms. But the Captain evidently considered himself ill used; he did not reply to the letter, and did not come to the wedding.
To let the reader into a secret, never known to Miss Jemima, Captain Higginbotham was much less influenced by Cupid than by Plutus in the offer he had made. The Captain was one of that class of gentlemen who read their accounts by those corpse-lights, or will-o'-the-wisps, called expectations. Ever since the Squire's grandfather had left him – then in short clothes – a legacy of £500, the Captain had peopled the future with expectations! He talked of his expectations as a man talks of shares in a Tontine; they might fluctuate a little – be now up and now down – but it was morally impossible, if he lived on, but that he should be a millionnaire one of these days. Now, though Miss Jemima was a good fifteen years younger than himself, yet she always stood for a good round sum in the ghostly books of the Captain. She was an expectation to the full amount of her £4000, seeing that Frank was an only child, and it would be carrying coals to Newmarket to leave him anything.
Rather than see so considerable a cipher suddenly spunged out of his visionary ledger – rather than so much money should vanish clean out of the family, Captain Higginbotham had taken what he conceived, if a desperate, at least a certain, step for the preservation of his property. If the golden horn could not be had without the heifer, why, he must take the heifer into the bargain. He had never formed to himself an idea that a heifer so gentle would toss and fling him over. The blow was stunning. But no one compassionates the misfortunes of the covetous, though few perhaps are in greater need of compassion. And leaving poor Captain Higginbotham to retrieve his illusory fortunes as he best may among 'the expectations' which gathered round the form of Mr Sharpe Currie, who was the crossest old tyrant imaginable, and never allowed at his table any dishes not compounded with rice, which played Old Nick with the Captain's constitutional functions, – I return to the wedding at Hazeldean, just in time to see the bridegroom – who looked singularly well on the occasion – hand the bride (who, between sunshiny tears and affectionate smiles, was really a very interesting and even a pretty bride, as brides go) into a carriage which the Squire had presented to them, and depart on the orthodox nuptial excursion amidst the blessings of the assembled crowd.
It may be thought strange by the unreflective that these rural spectators should so have approved and blessed the marriage of a Hazeldean of Hazeldean with a poor, outlandish, long-haired foreigner; but, besides that Riccabocca, after all, had become one of the neighbourhood, and was proverbially "a civil-spoken gentleman," it is generally noticeable that on wedding occasions the bride so monopolises interest, curiosity, and admiration, that the bridegroom himself goes for little or nothing. He is merely the passive agent in the affair – the unregarded cause of the general satisfaction. It was not Riccabocca himself that they approved and blessed – it was the gentleman in the white waistcoat who had made Miss Jemima – Madam Rickeybockey!
Leaning on his wife's arm, (for it was a habit of the Squire to lean on his wife's arm rather than she on his, when he was specially pleased; and there was something touching in the sight of that strong sturdy frame thus insensibly, in hours of happiness, seeking dependence on the frail arm of woman,) – leaning, I say, on his wife's arm, the Squire, about the hour of sunset, walked down to the booth by the lake.
All the parish – young and old, man, woman, and child – were assembled there, and their faces seemed to bear one family likeness, in the common emotion which animated all, as they turned to his frank fatherly smile. Squire Hazeldean stood at the head of the long table: he filled a horn with ale from the brimming tankard beside him. Then he looked round, and lifted his hand to request silence; and, ascending the chair, rose in full view of all. Every one felt that the Squire was about to make a speech, and the earnestness of the attention was proportioned to the rarity of the event; for (though he was not unpractised in the oratory of the hustings) only thrice before had the Squire made what could fairly be called "a speech" to the villagers of Hazeldean – once on a kindred festive occasion, when he had presented to them his bride – once in a contested election for the shire, in which he took more than ordinary interest, and was not quite so sober as he ought to have been – once in a time of great agricultural distress, when, in spite of reduction of rents, the farmers had been compelled to discard a large number of their customary labourers; and when the Squire had said, – "I have given up keeping the hounds, because I want to make a fine piece of water, (that was the origin of the lake,) and to drain all the low lands round the park. Let every man who wants work come to me!" And that sad year the parish rates of Hazeldean were not a penny the more.
Now, for the fourth time, the Squire rose, and thus he spoke. At his right hand, Harry; at his left, Frank. At the bottom of the table, as vice-president, Parson Dale, his little wife behind him, only obscurely seen. She cried readily, and her handkerchief was already before her eyes.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE SQUIRE'S SPEECH
"Friends and neighbours, – I thank you kindly for coming round me this day, and for showing so much interest in me and mine. My cousin was not born amongst you as I was, but you have known her from a child. It is a familiar face, and one that never frowned, which you will miss at your cottage doors, as I and mine will miss it long in the old hall – "
Here there was a sob from some of the women, and nothing was seen of Mrs Dale but the white handkerchief. The Squire himself paused, and brushed away a tear with the back of his hand. Then he resumed, with a sudden change of voice that was electrical —
"For we none of us prize a blessing till we have lost it! Now, friends and neighbours, – a little time ago, it seemed as if some ill-will had crept into the village – ill-will between you and me, neighbours! – why, that is not like Hazeldean!"
The audience hung their heads! You never saw people look so thoroughly ashamed of themselves. The Squire proceeded —
"I don't say it was all your fault; perhaps it was mine."
"Noa – noa – noa," burst forth in a general chorus.
"Nay, friends," continued the Squire humbly, and in one of those illustrative aphorisms which, if less subtle than Riccabocca's, were more within reach of the popular comprehension; "nay – we are all human; and every man has his hobby: sometimes he breaks in the hobby, and sometimes the
