CHAPTER CL.
THE WEDDING PEAL AT ST. GEORGE'S, AND THE BRIDE'S APPEARANCE AT CHURCH.
See how I have strayed! and you'll not wonder when you reflect on the whence and the whither.
ALEXANDER KNOX.
Well dear Reader, I have answered your question concerning the great Decasyllabon. I have answered it fairly and explicitly, not like those Jesuitical casuists
That palter with us in a double sense,
That keep the word of promise to our ear
And break it to our hope.
You have received an answer as full and satisfactory as you could expect or desire, and yet the more than cabalistic mysteries of the word are still concealed with Eleusinean secresy. Enough of this. For the present also we will drop the subject which was broken off by the extraordinary circumstances that called forth our Chapter Extraordinary.
τὸ δε και τετελεσμένον ἔσται,1
for awhile, however, it will be convenient to leave it unfinished, and putting an end to the parenthesis in the most important part of the Doctor's life, tell thee that the Interim is past, that in the month of April 1761, he brought home his bride, and the bells of St. George rang that peal,—that memorable peal which was anticipatively mentioned in the 32d chapter. Many such peals have they rung since on similar occasions, but they have rung their last from St. George's Tower, for in 1836, it was thought necessary to remove them, lest they should bring that fine old fabric down.
1 HOMER.
Webster libelled the most exhilarating and the most affecting of all measured sounds when he said
those flattering bells have all
One sound at weddings and at funerals.
Es cierta experiencia que la musica crece la pena donde la halla, y acrecieuta el plazer en el corazon contento; this is more true of bell ringing than of any other music; but so far are church bells from having one sound on all occasions, that they carry a different import on the same to different ears and different minds. The bells of St. George's told a different tale to Daniel Dove, and to Deborah, on their wedding day. To her, they said, as in articulate words, varying, but melancholy alike in import as in cadence,
Descending tune
Deborah Bacon hath changed her name;
Deborah Bacon hath left her home;
Deborah Bacon is now no more.
Yet she had made what in every one's opinion was considered a good match, and indeed was far better than what is commonly called good; it promised in all human likelihood to be a happy one, and such it proved. In the beautiful words of Mrs. Hutchinson, neither she nor her husband, “ever had occasion to number their marriage among their infelicities.”
Many eyes were turned on the Doctor's bride when she made her appearance at St. George's Church. The novelty of the place made her less regardful of this than she might otherwise have been. Hollis Pigot who held the vicarage of Doncaster thirty years, and was then in the last year of his incumbency and his life, performed the service that day. I know not among what description of preachers he was to be classed; whether with those who obtain attention, and command respect, and win confidence, and strengthen belief, and inspire hope, or with the far more numerous race of Spintexts and of Martexts. But if he had preached that morning with the tongue of an angel, the bride would have had no ears for him. Her thoughts were neither upon those who on their way from church would talk over her instead of the sermon, nor of the service, nor of her husband, nor of herself in her new character, but of her father,—and with a feeling which might almost be called funereal, that she had passed from under his pastoral as well as his paternal care.
