“What wedding?” asked Gay in a clear voice, but moved by some intuitive knowledge of what the answer would be, he did not look at Molly.

“Why, Solomon Hatch’s daughter, Judy, to be sure.  She’s just married the miller.”  For a minute he stopped, coughed, spat and then added:  “Mr. Mullen tied ’em up tight all by heart, without so much as glancin’ at the book.  Ah, that young parson may have his faults, an’ be unsound on the doctrine of baptism, but he can lay on matrimony with as pious an air as if he was conductin’ a funeral.”

He fell back as Gay nodded pleasantly, and the wheels grated over the rocky ground by the well.  With a slow flick on the long whip, the carriage crossed the three roads and rolled rapidly into the turnpike.  And while she gazed straight ahead into the flat distance, Molly was thinking, “All this has happened because I went down the Haunt’s Walk that April afternoon and not over the east meadow.”

CHAPTER VII

A NEW BEGINNING TO AN OLD TRAGEDY

The wedding was over.  Mr. Mullen had read the service in his melodious voice, gazing straight over the Prayer-book as though he saw a vision in the sunbeam above Judy’s head.  On that solitary occasion his soul, which revolted from what he described in secret as the “Methodistical low church atmosphere” of his parish, had adorned the simple word with the facial solemnity that accompanies an elaborate ritual.

From the front pew, Sarah Revercomb, in full widow’s weeds, had glared stonily at the Reverend Orlando, as if she suspected him of some sinister intention to tamper with the ceremony.  At her side, Solomon Hatch’s little pointed beard might have been seen rising and falling as it followed the rhythmic sound of the clergyman’s voice.  When the service was over, and the congregation filed out into the leaf-strewn paths of the churchyard, it was generally decided that Mr. Mullen’s delivery had never been surpassed in the memory of the several denominations.

“‘Twas when he came to makin’ Abel say ‘with all my worldly goods’ that he looked his grandest,” commented old Adam, as he started for Solomon’s cottage between Sarah and Mrs. Hatch.  “But, them are solemn words an’ he was wise to give a man pause for thought.  Thar ain’t a mo’ inspirin’ sentence in the whole Prayer-book than that.”

“Well, marriage ain’t all promisin’,” observed Sarah, “thar’s a deal to it besides, an’ they’re both likely to find it out befo’ they’re much older.”

Old Adam, who never contradicted a woman unless he was married to her, agreed to this with some unintelligible mutters through his toothless gums, while Mrs. Hatch remarked with effusive amiability that “it’s a sad sight to see a daughter go, even though she’s a stepchild.  It’s a comfort to think,” she added immediately, “that Judy’s got a God-fearin’, pious husband an’ one with no nonsense about him for all his good looks.”