“That they have,” said the keeper.

“Ay; I’ve knowed times when the wedding had to be put off through his not appearing, being tired of the woman.  And another case I knowed was when the man was catched in a man-trap crossing Oaker’s Wood, and the three months had run out before he got well, and the banns had to be published over again.”

“How horrible!” said Fancy.

“They only say it on purpose to tease ’ee, my dear,” said Mrs. Dewy.

“’Tis quite sad to think what wretched shifts poor maids have been put to,” came again from downstairs.  “Ye should hear Clerk Wilkins, my brother-law, tell his experiences in marrying couples these last thirty year:  sometimes one thing, sometimes another—­’tis quite heart-rending—­enough to make your hair stand on end.”

“Those things don’t happen very often, I know,” said Fancy, with smouldering uneasiness.

“Well, really ’tis time Dick was here,” said the tranter.

“Don’t keep on at me so, grandfather James and Mr. Dewy, and all you down there!” Fancy broke out, unable to endure any longer.  “I am sure I shall die, or do something, if you do!”

“Never you hearken to these old chaps, Miss Day!” cried Nat Callcome, the best man, who had just entered, and threw his voice upward through the chinks of the floor as the others had done. “’Tis all right; Dick’s coming on like a wild feller; he’ll be here in a minute.  The hive o’ bees his mother gie’d en for his new garden swarmed jist as he was starting, and he said, ‘I can’t afford to lose a stock o’ bees; no, that I can’t, though I fain would; and Fancy wouldn’t wish it on any account.’  So he jist stopped to ting to ’em and shake ’em.”

“A genuine wise man,” said Geoffrey.

“To be sure, what a day’s work we had yesterday!” Mr. Callcome continued, lowering his voice as if it were not necessary any longer to include those in the room above among his audience, and selecting a remote corner of his best clean handkerchief for wiping his face.  “To be sure!”

“Things so heavy, I suppose,” said Geoffrey, as if reading through the chimney-window from the far end of the vista.

“Ay,” said Nat, looking round the room at points from which furniture had been removed.  “And so awkward to carry, too.  ’Twas ath’art and across Dick’s garden; in and out Dick’s door; up and down Dick’s stairs; round and round Dick’s chammers till legs were worn to stumps:  and Dick is so particular, too.  And the stores of victuals and drink that lad has laid in:  why, ’tis enough for Noah’s ark!  I’m sure I never wish to see a choicer half-dozen of hams than he’s got there in his chimley; and the cider I tasted was a very pretty drop, indeed;—­none could desire a prettier cider.”

“They be for the love and the stalled ox both.  Ah, the greedy martels!” said grandfather James.

“Well, may-be they be.  Surely,” says I, “that couple between ’em have heaped up so much furniture and victuals, that anybody would think they were going to take hold the big end of married life first, and begin wi’ a grown-up family.  Ah, what a bath of heat we two chaps were in, to be sure, a-getting that furniture in order!”