"There's no need, I presume, to make you acquainted with this other gentleman, sand Charles, with s laughing glance at Sir Norman."Kingsley, stand forward and receive your bride.My Lord of Canterbury, we await your good offices."The bland bishop, in surplice and stole, and book in hand, stepped from a distant group, and advanced.Sir Norman, with a flush on his cheek, and an exultant light in his eyes, took the hand of his beautiful bride who stood lovely, and blushing, and downcast, the envy and admiration of all.And"Before the bishop now they stand, The bridegroom and the bride;And who shall paint what lovers feel In this, their hour of pride?"Who indeed? Like many other pleasant things is this world, it requires to be felt to be appreciated; and, for that reason, it is a subject on which the unworthy chronicler is altogether incompetent to speak.The first words of the ceremony dropped from the prelate's urbane lips, and Sir Norman's heart danced a tarantella within him."Wilt thou?" inquired the bishop, blandly, and slipped a plain gold ring on one pretty finger of Leoline's hand and all heard the old, old formula: "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder!" And the whole mystic rite was over.
Leoline gave one earnest glance at the ring on her finger.Long ago, slaves wore rings as the sign of their bondage - is it for the same reason married women wear them now? While she yet looked half-doubtfully at it, she was surrounded, congratulated, and stunned with a sadden clamor of voices; and then, through it all, she heard the well-remembered voice of Count L'Estrange, saying:
"My lords and ladies, time is on the wing, and the sun is already half an hour high! Off with you all to the courtyard, and mount, while Lady Kingsley changes her wedding-gear for robes more befitting travel, and joins us there."With a low obeisance to the king, the lovely bride hastened away after one of the favorite's attendants, to do as he directed, and don a riding-suit.In ten minutes after, when the royal cavalcade started, she turned from the pest-stricken city, too and fairest, where all was fair, by Sir Norman's side rode Leoline.
Sitting one winter night by a glorious winter fire, while the snow and hail lashed the windows, and the wind without roared like Bottom, the weaver, a pleasant voice whispered the foregoing tale.Here, as it paused abruptly, and seemed to have done with the whole thing, I naturally began to ask questions.What happened the dwarf and his companions? What became of Hubert?
Did Sir Norman and Lady Kingsley go to Devonshire, and did either of them die of the plague? I felt, myself, when I said it, that the last suggestion was beneath contempt, and so a withering look from the face opposite proved; but the voice was obliging enough to answer the rest of my queries.The dwarf and his cronies being put into his majesty's jail of Newgate, where the plague was raging fearfully, they all died in a week, and so managed to cheat the executioner.Hubert went to France, and laid his claims before the royal Louis, who, not being able to do otherwise, was graciously pleased to acknowledge them; and Hubert became the Marquis de Montmorenci, and in the fullness of time took unto himself a wife, even of the daughters of the land, and lived happy for ever after.
And Sir Norman and Lady Kingsley did go to the old manor in Devonshire, where - with tradition and my informant - there is to be seen to this day, an old family-picture, painted some twelve years after, representing the knight and his lady sitting serenely in their "ain ingle nook" with their family around them.
Sir Norman,- a little portlier, a little graver, in the serious dignity of pater familias; and Leoline, with the dark, beautiful eyes, the falling, shining hair, the sweet smiling lips, and lovely, placid face of old.Between them, on three hassocks, sit three little boys; while the fourth, and youngest, a miniature little Sir Norman, leans against his mother's shoulder, and looks thoughtfully in her sweet, calm face.Of the fate of those four, the same ancient lore affirms: "That the eldest afterward bore the title of Earl of Kingsley; that the second became a lord high admiral, or chancellor, or something equally highfalutin; and that the third became an archbishop.But the highest honor of all was reserved for the fourth, and youngest," continued the narrating voice, "who, after many days, sailed for America, and, in the course of time, became President of the United States."Determined to be fully satisfied on this point, at least, the author invested all her spare change in a catalogue of all the said Presidents, from George Washington to Chester A.Arthur, and, after a diligent and absorbing perusal of that piece of literature, could find no such name as Kingsley whatever; and has been forced to come to the conclusion that he most have applied to Congress to change his name on arriving in the New World, or else that her informant was laboring reader a falsehood when she told her so.As for the rest,"I know not how the truth may be;I say it as 'twas said to me."
End
