r daughter," answered Zeb, very slow and
distinct. "She was to wed Zebedee Minards to-day, an' I'm Zebedee
Minards."

"But--"

"I've a note to hand to each of 'ee. Better save your breath till
you've read 'em."

He delivered the two notes, and stood, tapping a toe on the tiles, in
the bridegroom's place on the right of the chancel-rails.

"Damnation!"

"Mr. Tresidder," interrupted the parson, "I like a man to swear off his
rage if he's upset, but I can't allow it in the church."

"I don't care if you do or you don't."

"Then do it, and I'll kick you out with this very boot."

The farmer's face was purple, and big veins stood out by his temples.

"I've been cheated," he growled. Zeb, who had kept his eyes on Ruby,
stepped quickly towards her. First picking up the paper that had
drifted to the pavement, he crushed it into his pocket. He then took
her hand. It was cold and damp.

"Parson, will 'ee marry us up, please?"

"You haven't asked if she'll have you."

"No, an' I don't mean to. I didn't come to ax questions--that's your
business--but to answer."

"Will you marry this man?" demanded the parson, turning to Ruby.

Zeb's hand still enclosed hers, and she felt she was caught and held for
life. Her eyes fluttered up to her lover's face, and found it
inexorable.

"Yes," she gasped out, as if the word had been suffocating her.
And with the word came a rush of tears--helpless, but not altogether
unhappy.

"Dry your eyes," said Parson Babbage, after waiting a minute; "we must
be quick about it."

So it happened that the threatened shal-lal came to nothing.
Susan Jago, the old woman who swept the church, discovered its forgotten
apparatus scattered beneath the pews on the following Saturday, and
cleared it out, to the amount (she averred) of two cart-loads.
She tossed it, bit by bit, over the west wall of the churchyard, where
in time it became a mound, covered high with sting-nettles. If you poke
among these nettles with your walking-stick, the odds are that you turn
up a scrap of rusty iron. But there exists more explicit testimony to
Zeb's wedding within the church--and within the churchyard, too, where
he and Ruby have rested this many a year.

Though the bubble of Farmer Tresidder's dreams was pricked that day,
there was feasting at Sheba until late in the evening. Nor until eleven
did the bride and bridegroom start off, arm in arm, to walk to their new
home. Before them, at a consi