When John Huxtable set off for home, just in time to see to his harvest,
which is always late round Exmoor, I kissed him--ay, Conny, you saw
it--and thrust, during his amazement, something far down into his mighty
pocket, which something he was not upon any account to look at until he
got home. It was a deed, prepared by our solicitors, presenting him
with the fee simple of Tossil’s Barton farm. True, I was not of age,
but I signed it as if I had been, and Conny and I again signed it, when
we paid our first visit there. Perhaps, in strict law, it binds not my
interest even now; but if ever any one claiming "by, from, through,
under, or in trust for" me, forgets the Vaughan honour and dares to
dream of that farm, I’ll be at him as sure as a ghost; and I trust
before that time comes, the farmer will have sound title by immemorial
years of possession. He is now a prosperous man; and has never found it
necessary to give up his beer, as he threatened Young John, who is just
like his father, cleaves fast to Tabby Badcock, now a blooming maiden;
but my Sally has more than balanced that imminent loss of caste, by
fixing the eyes and transfixing the heart of George Tamlin, the son of
our principal tenant, and himself of Devonshire origin. The young lady
comes to and fro every six weeks, and is to be married from our house,
when her father considers her "zober enough." Beany Dawe, who does not
like work, still lives at Tossil’s Barton, and is in receipt of a
pension of sixpence a day from Government, as a bard at last
appreciated.
As for me, Clara Vaughan, on the very day after that which released me
from my teens (counting forward, as we do, till we count receding
years), to wit on the 31st of December, 1851, I did not change my name,
but wrote it in the old church register, half an inch below a better and
firmer hand. There was no fuss or frippery; no four clergymen and ten
bridesmaids simpering at one another. Our good vicar represented the
one class, dear Lily and Annie Franks the other. My godfather, newly
disclosed for the purpose, gave me away very gracefully, and young Peter
Green helped Conrad. Lily Vaughan looked so exquisite, so deliciously
lovely, that nobody in the whole world--Now Conny, hold your tongue, I
never fish for compliments, don’t degrade yourself so for a kiss, of
course I know all my perfections, but how can I care about them, when
you say they belong to you?--Lily Vaughan, I say once more, was such a
sunrise of loveliness, that young Peter Green, just new from his Oxford
honours, collapsed, and fell over the railings, and wedged his head in
the "piscina," or whatever those nice young gentlemen, who see the duty
of wearing strait waistcoats, are pleased to denominate it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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