cks are nothing for once,
considering 'tis our wedding day." The bridal party was ordered to halt.

"Eno-o-o-o-ch!" cried Dick at the top of his voice.

"Y-a-a-a-a-a-as!" said Enoch from the distance.

"D'ye know who I be-e-e-e-e-e?"

"No-o-o-o-o-o-o!"

"Dick Dew-w-w-w-wy!"

"O-h-h-h-h-h!"

"Just a-ma-a-a-a-a-arried!"

"O-h-h-h-h-h!"

"This is my wife, Fa-a-a-a-a-ancy!" (holding her up to Enoch's view as if
she had been a nosegay.)

"O-h-h-h-h-h!"

"Will ye come across to the party to-ni-i-i-i-i-i-ight!"

"Ca-a-a-a-a-an't!"

"Why n-o-o-o-o-ot?"

"Don't work for the family no-o-o-o-ow!"

"Not nice of Master Enoch," said Dick, as they resumed their walk.

"You mustn't blame en," said Geoffrey; "the man's not hisself now; he's
in his morning frame of mind. When he's had a gallon o' cider or ale, or
a pint or two of mead, the man's well enough, and his manners be as good
as anybody's in the kingdom."

CHAPTER II: UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE

The point in Yalbury Wood which abutted on the end of Geoffrey Day's
premises was closed with an ancient tree, horizontally of enormous
extent, though having no great pretensions to height. Many hundreds of
birds had been born amidst the boughs of this single tree; tribes of
rabbits and hares had nibbled at its bark from year to year; quaint tufts
of fungi had sprung from the cavities of its forks; and countless
families of moles and earthworms had crept about its roots. Beneath and
beyond its shade spread a carefully-tended grass-plot, its purpose being
to supply a healthy exercise-ground for young chickens and pheasants; the
hens, their mothers, being enclosed in coops placed upon the same green
flooring.

All these encumbrances were now removed, and as the afternoon advanced,
the guests gathered on the spot, where music, dancing, and the singing of
songs went forward with great spirit throughout the evening. The
propriety of every one was intense by reason of the influence of Fancy,
who, as an additional precaution in this direction, had strictly charged
her father and the tranter to carefully avoid saying 'thee' and 'thou' in
their conversation, on the plea that those ancient words sounded so very
humiliating to persons of newer taste; also that they were never to be
seen drawing the back of the hand across the mouth after drinking--a
local English custom of extraordinary antiquity, but stated by Fancy to
be decidedly dying out among the better clas