hen, the
door between being thrown open. The former radiated smiles like April
sunshine; the latter looked as sour as a plum beslimed by the
earthworms, and "didn't know as he'd ever seen sec a pack of hungry
hounds."

After the breakfast the toasts, and up leaped Mr. Bonnithorne. That
gentleman had quite cast off the weight of his anxiety. He laughed and
chaffed, made quips and cranks.

"Our lawyer is foreclosing," whispered a pert young damsel in Greta's
ear. "He's getting drunk."

Mr. Bonnithorne would propose "Mr. and Mrs. Ritson." He began with a few
hoary and reverend quotations--"Men are April when they woo, December
when they wed." This was capped by "Maids are May when they are maids,
but the sky changes when they are wives." Mr. Bonnithorne protested that
both had been true, only with exceptions.

Paul thanked the company in a dozen manly and well-chosen phrases, and
then stepped to the kitchen door and invited the guests over whom
Brother Peter presided to spend the evening at the Ghyll.

The ladies had risen and carried off Greta to prepare for her journey,
when Gubblum Oglethorpe got on his feet and insisted on proposing "the
lasses." What Gubblum had to say on the subject it is not given to us to
record. By some strange twist of logic, he launched out on a very
different topic. Perhaps he sat in the vicinity of Nancy Tantarum, for
he began with the story of a funeral.

"It minds me," he said, "of the carriers at Adam Strang's funeral, at
Gosforth, last back-end gone twelvemonth. There were two sets on 'em,
and they'd a big bottle atween 'em--same as that one as auld Peter, the
honey, keeps to hissel at yon end of the table. Well, they carried Adam
shoulder high from the house to the grave-yard, first one set and then
t'other, mile on mile apiece, and when one set got to the end of their
mile they set down the coffin and went on for t'other set to pick it
up. It were nine mile from Branthet Edge to Gosforth, so they had nine
shifts atween 'em, and at every shift they swigged away at the big
bottle--this way with it, Peter. Well, the mourners they crossed the
fields for shortness, but the bearers, they had to keep the corpse road.
All went reet for eight mile, and then one set with Adam were far ahead
of the other with the bottle. They set the coffin on a wall at the
roadside and went on. Well, when the second set came up they didn't see
it--they couldn't see owt, that's the fact--same as I expect I'l