With a clatter the fan dropped upon the pavement.  Sir Edward gallantly stooped down and returned it to its fair owner, but Manners waited to see no more.  She was his; the signal had been given, and picking up his instrument he set to and contributed as good a share to the gladsome melody as any of his fellows.

CHAPTER XXXII.

Plain John Manners Wins his bride.

  One touch of her hand, and one word in her ear,
  When they reached the hall-door the charger stood near: 
  So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung,
  So light to the saddle before her he sprung! 
  “She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur,
  They’ll have fleet steeds that follow,” quoth young Lochinvar.

  Scott.

Fast waxed the fun at Haddon, and loud above the strains of music rose the sounds of merriment in the grand old Hall.

It was the bridal night.  Margaret Vernon had redeemed her troth-plight, given to Sir Thomas Stanley early in the summer, and in the former part of the day she had been joined in holy wedlock with her lover by Father Nicholas Bury, with more of the Roman Catholic ritual than Queen Elizabeth’s ministers would have approved of had they known it.

Never had Haddon been so full of visitors before.  Never had it been so gay.  None who came had been turned away.  The baron kept an open house, and whilst the rooms of the Hall were strained to the uttermost to find accommodation for the numerous guests, the gate had been thronged throughout the livelong day by an eager crowd of expectant beggars, none of whom had gone away with empty hands.

But now the night was closing in, and the visitors were determined to make the most of it.  Sir George was almost ubiquitous.  Here, there, wherever the mirth was loudest, there the form of the jovial baron was sure to be found.  Old knights and equally elderly dames congregated together in the capacious oriel windows, and, with the tapestry curtains drawn aside, talked of the good old times of “Bluff King Hal,” and pointed out with pride of superiority of their own happy age to these degenerate days.  Middle-aged matrons sat proudly watching their offspring as they flitted to and fro, and noted with much satisfaction the matchless beauty of their own daughters, and the mediocrity of the rest; or, were they so inclined, footed it, as of old, with equally middle-aged gallants.  Sir Benedict a Woode soon retired from the scene, and taking advantage of his intimate knowledge of the building, he led a few convivial spirits, like himself, into the wine-cellar, which they did their utmost to empty, until, having imbibed too much, they were fain to lie down, through sheer inability to stand.

It was from the rising generation, however, that the greatest merriment arose.  These, paired off in ever changing couples, whirled from one end of the room to the other, and then, without a pause, returned again, heedless alike of the gratulations of their elder friends as they passed them by, and of the indifferent gaze of those who were not their friends who looked at them with jealous eyes.