“BY JOVE!” GROWLED Admiral Trevor, staring down into the hedgerows from his position at the library window. “By Jove! Has not the fellow any idea of when to have done?”
“I beg your pardon?” stammered Lord Ramblay.
The Viscount had been pacing back and forth before his desk while he made his speech. He had felt some nervousness, it is true, upon requesting the Admiral’s permission to marry his daughter. Some hesitancy he had expected, though the older man had seemed complacent enough upon emerging from his conference with his daughter earlier that day. But so emphatic a denouncement of his plea, he had not forseen. Now, seeing the fierce look in the Admiral’s eyes, he moved closer the window himself, and peered downward.
“Have you ever seen such a knave in all your life?” demanded Admiral Trevor, without glancing up.
“Oh!” Lord Ramblay looked relieved. “I take it you are speaking of Mr. Wayland, sir.”
“None other, my dear fellow—look at the idiot now, waving his arms about for all the world as though he would like to be a windmill! And look at that pompous face! Have you seen anything to top it?”
Lord Ramblay grinned. “Seldom, in fact. I wonder what he is saying to her?”
Even Mr. Wayland might have astounded his audience, had they known that he was once again in the midst of proposing to Miss Trevor. The idea had been eating away at him ever since that pleasurable walk they had had together in the park on the first day of his arrival at Ramblay. He had hemmed and hawed for some little while, uncertain if he really wished to encumber himself with as troublesome a wife as the Admiral’s daughter would no doubt make. But at last vanity and ambition had won out over good sense, and he had managed to secure a moment alone with her. This was no mean feat, to be sure: Miss Trevor was much in demand by her cousins of late, and there had been a great to-do in the castle, what with visitors coming and going and the arrival of the Admiral himself. But at last he had seized his chance, upon glimpsing the young lady walking alone in the hedgerows with a most docile and dreamy expression upon her face. This expression had persuaded him that her thoughts were not far removed from his own, and when she started a little upon hearing his voice, and then smiled up at him very sweetly, he was convinced of the fact.
“My dear Miss Trevor,” he had commenced, falling into step beside her, “I hope I am not disturbing some very deep reflection of your own.” This was accompanied by a significant look. “Love is a wonderful thing, is it not?”
“A most wonderful thing,” agreed Maggie softly, but a little astonished to find how clearly Mr. Wayland had read her mind.
“Surely the closest thing to Heaven we are granted here upon earth,” continued the Vicar, with a comprehending look.
Maggie made no reply, for none seemed needed. She saw that the clergyman was about to embark on one of his rhapsodic speeches, which in truth required no encouragement from any outside source. She continued to walk along, gazing before her with a starry-eyed look, which Mr. Wayland promptly interpreted as a maidenly attention to his words.
“It is the manna of our existence, the very honey of our lives. Without love, what are we but savages, uncivilized and sordid creatures, incapable of any fine feeling? Love, indeed, strikes me as the very oil of life. When our hearts are lifted up by such a kind of sentiment, our minds are clearer, our thoughts purer, we are driven to do good, as surely as the murderer is driven to do evil. All foulness and baseness is vanished from us, we are purged and cleansed, as white as lilies of the field, as clean as snow.”
Here Mr. Wayland, who had been inspired by seeing some white particles beginning to descend from Heaven, attempted to seize one in his fingers with the idea of laying it in Maggie’s hair. His attempt was futile, but he persisted in catching at snowflakes for a while, waxing eloquent as he did so.
He was amazed, after a little, to see that Miss Trevor had not made a sound. She still gazed straight before her with that same starry-eyed expression, which was beginning to strike the clergyman as unnatural and making him wonder if she were not ill. To be sure it was unlike her not to make even one impudent retort! Peering at her, he broke off his soliloquy to murmur, “Are you absolutely well, Miss Trevor? You look a little ill, I think.”
But he was quickly assured that she had never been better, and with such a delightful radiant smile, that it seemed to him this was all the encouragement he could ever wish for. Plunging in, therefore, he commenced to steer his own speech in the direction of matrimony, as the highest expression of that love he had already lauded to the Heavens. He was in the midst of this lecture, which in truth had some very pretty metaphors in it, though not of his own invention, when he was startled by a gurgle from behind him.
The sound may not have been a gurgle—it might have been a growl, or even a gargle, but nonetheless, it made the curate jump up in the air and spin about, thinking they must have crossed the path of some wild beast.
But the figure which now emerged from the clump of trees just behind Mr. Wayland bore more resemblance to a thunder cloud than an animal. Admiral Trevor, his cheeks puffed up with indignation, his great hammy fist lambasting the very air, came lumbering out from his hiding place with such a roar that Mr. Wayland almost fell down in terror.
“Here, here, you young pup!” roared he now, advancing upon the pair with his jowls wagging, “what d’you think you’re doing?”
“What—what?” cried Mr. Wayland, positively shaking in his boots.
Admiral Trevor did not deign to repeat himself. He stood his ground, as if he were holding off a fleet of brigadoons, with his fist still raised in the air. He seemed to be on the point of shouting something else, when a mild voice from behind him said:
“Why, Admiral—do not you see? Wayland here is just rehearsing what he is going to say at the pulpit, on the day your daughter and I are made man and wife!”
Lord Ramblay took a step or two forward and secured the hand of his betrothed, who was smiling up at him in delight.
“Just so, Papa,” she said with a twinkle. “Mr. Wayland has very kindly offered to do our honors at the wedding ceremony. He is just deciding what he ought to say on the points of love and marriage for our edification.”
Mr. Wayland blinked back and forth between them. “At your wedding?” he stammered.
“Right-o, Mr. Wayland. Only do try to keep it short and crisp, if you will,” Lord Ramblay suggested mildly, “for we shall be in something of a rush to suit our actions to your words.”
Admiral Trevor nodded gravely at this, regarding the bewildered curate with a keen look. “Excellent advice, my dear fellow, excellent advice—I pray you will take it to heart, Wayland.”