The priest had
cantered through the service in Latin, pronounced the benediction
in English, and congratulated the "happy couple" in Indian, as a
compliment to the assembled tribe in the little amateur structure
that did service at the post as a sanctuary.
But the knot was tied as firmly and indissolubly as if all Charlie
McDonald's swell city friends had crushed themselves up against the
chancel to congratulate him, and in his heart he was deeply thankful
to escape the flower-pelting, white gloves, rice-throwing, and
ponderous stupidity of a breakfast, and indeed all the regulation
gimcracks of the usual marriage celebrations, and it was with a
hand trembling with absolute happiness that he assisted his little
Indian wife into the old muddy buckboard that, hitched to an
underbred-looking pony, was to convey them over the first stages of
their journey. Then came more adieus, some hand-clasping, old Jimmy
Robinson looking very serious just at the last, Mrs. Jimmy, stout,
stolid, betraying nothing of visible emotion, and then the pony,
rough-shod and shaggy, trudged on, while mutual hand-waves were
kept up until the old Hudson Bay Post dropped out of sight, and
the buckboard with its lightsome load of hearts deliriously happy,
jogged on over the uneven trail.
Pages:
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122