“Meanin’, I suppose, as if ye knowed he was alive I shouldn’t ha’ had her,” retorted Sam explosively.  “Well, I d’ ’low, it bain’t too late yet to come to a understandin’.  Jenny be married to I, sure enough, but I bain’t a-goin’ to ha’ no wives what be a-hankerin’ arter other folks.  She may take herself off out of this wi’out my tryin’ for to hinder her.  If she can’t make up her mind to give over upsettin’ hersel’ along o’ he you may take her home-along, Mrs. Pitcher.”

A dead silence ensued within the house, but Betty’s strident tones could be heard without, uplifted in shrill discourse to curious neighbours.

“’E-es, d’ye see, he did write home so soon as he did get to Darchester, a-tellin’ of his aunt as he was a-comin’ private-like so as to surprise his sweetheart.  And Susan, she did write back immediate an’ say, ‘My poor bwoy, there be a sad surprise in store for you.’  And then when he comed they did make it up between them to keep quiet till—­”

“There’s the clock, too,” observed Abel, ending the pause at last.

“You can take the clock,” cried Jenny, simultaneously recovering speech and self-possession.  “Take the clock, Abel Guppy, and take yourself off.  There ben a mistake, but it be all cleared up at last.”

She stepped with dignity across the room, and slipped her arm through Sam’s, who made several strenuous but ineffectual efforts to shake her off.

“You get hold o’ he,” cried Sam; “you cut along an’ catch hold o’ he.  It be he you do want.”

“No, Samuel,” said the incomparable Jenny with lofty resolution, “it bain’t he as I do want.  I mid ha’ been took up wi’ some sich foolish notion afore, bein’ but a silly maid, but now I be a married ’ooman, an’ I do know how to vally a husband’s love.”

The new-made bridegroom ceased struggling and gaped at her.  Jenny, gazing at her former lover more in sorrow than in anger, pointed solemnly to the clock:—­

“Take down that clock, Abel Guppy,” she repeated.  “I do know you now for what you be.  I consider you’ve behaved most heartless an’ unfeelin’ in comin’ here to try an’ make mischief between man an’ wife.  I thank the Lard,” she added piously, “as I need never ha’ no more to do with you.  Walk out o’ my house, if ye please—­”

“Your house,” interpolated Sam, a note of astonished query perceptible in his tone despite its sulkiness.

“’E-es,” said Jenny firmly.  “He shall never show his face inside the door where I be missis.  Take down the clock, Abel Guppy,” she repeated for the third time.  “You’d best help him, Sam.  He don’t seem able to reach to it.”

Encumbered as he was with newly-regained possessions, the yeoman had made but abortive attempts to detach the timepiece; and Sam, with a dawning grin on his countenance, now mounted on a chair, officiously held by one of the guests, and speedily handed it down.

After all it was the ill-used Abel Guppy who looked most foolish as he made his way to the door, loaded with his various goods, the relatives of bride and bridegroom casting scornful glances at him as he passed.  Before he had proceeded twenty yards Sam ran after him with the bank-book, which the other pocketed without a word, while the bridegroom returned to the house, rubbing his hands and chuckling.