r, he yielded with a good grace. He
merely remained in London long enough to pay a friendly visit to the
policeman who had locked him up, and then returned to Suffolk,
revolving in his mind how glorious should be the matrimonial triumph
which he had at last achieved.

Before the day arrived, old Ruggles had been constrained to forgive
his granddaughter, and to give a general assent to the marriage. When
John Crumb, with a sound of many trumpets, informed all Bungay that he
had returned victorious from London, and that after all the ups and
downs of his courtship Ruby was to become his wife on a fixed day, all
Bungay took his part, and joined in a general attack upon Mr Daniel
Ruggles. The cross-grained old man held out for a long time, alleging
that the girl was no better than she should be, and that she had run
away with the baronite. But this assertion was met by so strong a
torrent of contradiction, that the farmer was absolutely driven out of
his own convictions. It is to be feared that many lies were told on
Ruby's behalf by lips which had been quite ready a fortnight since to
take away her character. But it had become an acknowledged fact in
Bungay that John Crumb was ready at any hour to punch the head of any
man who should hint that Ruby Ruggles had, at any period of her life,
done any act or spoken any word unbecoming a young lady; and so strong
was the general belief in John Crumb, that Ruby became the subject of
general eulogy from all male lips in the town. And though perhaps some
slight suspicion of irregular behaviour up in London might be
whispered by the Bungay ladies among themselves, still the feeling in
favour of Mr Crumb was so general, and his constancy was so popular,
that the grandfather could not stand against it. 'I don't see why I
ain't to do as I likes with my own,' he said to Joe Mixet, the baker,
who went out to Sheep's Acre Farm as one of many deputations sent by
the municipality of Bungay.

'She's your own flesh and blood, Mr Ruggles,' said the baker.

'No; she ain't;--no more than she's a Pipkin. She's taken up with Mrs
Pipkin jist because I hate the Pipkinses. Let Mrs Pipkin give 'em a
breakfast.'

'She is your own flesh and blood,--and your name, too, Mr Ruggles.
And she's going to be the respectable wife of a respectable man, Mr
Ruggles.'

'I won't give 'em no breakfast;--that's flat,' said the farmer.

But he had yielded in the main when he allowed himself to base his
oppositi