And indeed in those unsettled and troubled times fathers were glad enough to get their daughters safely married at the first reasonable opportunity.  Farmer Devenish had another reason in wishing Joan to leave her home.  He was afraid that she might imbibe the views her mother had embraced, and which he and his son could not but give credence to, whilst they made no protest of having altered their old way of thinking.  But he had always forbidden his wife to disturb Joan in her pious faith in the old religion.  Such hard matters, he said, were not for young wenches; and the peril which menaced those who embraced the reformed doctrines was sufficiently terrible for the mother to be almost glad of the prohibition.  It would be an awful thing for her if her daughter fell under the ban of the law, and was made to answer for her faith as some had been in so cruel a fashion before now.

So that there was no wish on the part of any at the old home to hinder her marriage, and as soon as the young people had come to an understanding with one another, their way was made perfectly plain by those in authority.

Joan looked shyly at Paul as he crossed the kitchen with some pleasant word of congratulation, and said: 

“In faith, kind sir, I think we owe it all to you.  Will tells me it was you who sent him hither today.  He had got some foolish notion in his head which kept him away; but he said it was you who bid him take heart and try his luck.”

“And very good luck he has had, it seems,” answered Paul, laughing.  “And so the marriage is to be next week?”

“My father and mother wish it so,” answered the blushing Joan; “and my mother has long had all my household linen spun against the wedding day.  I trust you will stay, and your kinsman also.  Perchance you have never before seen a rustic wedding.”

“Not for many years now,” answered Paul, with a smile and a sigh; “and I would fain be a witness of yours, fair mistress.  But I must ask my young companion there.  We have linked our lives together for the nonce.”

But young Edward was perfectly willing to be the farmer’s guest for awhile.  Nothing could better have fitted in with his own wishes than to have stayed in such unquestioned fashion beneath the roof of one of his humble subjects.  At the supper table that night he won all hearts by the grace of his manners, the sweetness of his smiles, his ready courtesy to all, and the brilliant sallies that escaped his lips which set the whole table sometimes in a roar.  He possessed that ready adaptability to circumstances which is often an attribute of the highest birth.  The motherly heart of Mistress Devenish went out to him at once, and she would fain have known something of his history, and how it came that so fair and gentle a youth was wandering thus alone in the wide world.