University of Virginia Library

II.

Next morning, by break of day, at four o'clock, the four
swift hours were personified in four impatient horses, which
shook their trappings beneath the windows of the inn. Three
figures emerged into the cool dim air and took their places in
the coach.

The old landlord had silently and despondently shaken
Pierre by the hand; the vainglorious driver was on his box,
threadingly adjusting the four reins among the fingers of his
buck-skin gloves; the usual thin company of admiring ostlers
and other early on-lookers were gathered about the porch;
when—on his companions' account—all eager to cut short any
vain delay, at such a painful crisis, Pierre impetuously shouted
for the coach to move. In a moment, the four meadow-fed
young horses leaped forward their own generous lengths, and
the four responsive wheels rolled their complete circles; while
making vast rearward flourishes with his whip, the elated
driver seemed as a bravado-hero signing his ostentations farewell
signature in the empty air. And so, in the dim of the
dawn—and to the defiant crackings of that long and sharp-resounding
whip, the three forever fled the sweet fields of Saddle
Meadows.

The short old landlord gazed after the coach awhile, and
then re-entering the inn, stroked his gray beard and muttered
to himself:—“I have kept this house, now, three-and-thirty
years, and have had plenty of bridal-parties come and go; in
their long train of wagons, break-downs, buggies, gigs—a gay
and giggling train—Ha!—there's a pun! popt out like a cork
—ay, and once in ox-carts, all garlanded; ay, and once, the
merry bride was bedded on a load of sweet-scented new-cut
clover. But such a bridal-party as this morning's—why, it's
as sad as funerals. And brave Master Pierre Glendinning is

the groom! Well, well, wonders is all the go. I thought I
had done with wondering when I passed fifty; but I keep
wondering still. Ah, somehow, now, I feel as though I had
just come from lowering some old friend beneath the sod, and
yet felt the grating cord-marks in my palms.—'Tis early, but
I'll drink. Let's see; cider,—a mug of cider;—'tis sharp, and
pricks like a game-cock's spur,—cider's the drink for grief.
Oh, Lord! that fat men should be so thin-skinned, and suffer
in pure sympathy on others' account. A thin-skinned, thin
man, he don't suffer so, because there ain't so much stuff in
him for his thin skin to cover. Well, well, well, well, well;
of all colics, save me from the melloncholics; green melons is
the greenest thing!”