If a young man is in a smal boat on a choppy sea, along with his affianced bride and both are sea-sick, and if the sick swain can forget his own anguish in the

happiness of holding the fair one's head when she is at her worst--then he is in love, and his heart wil be in no danger of failing him as he

passes his fir plantation. Other people, and unfortunately by far the greater number of those who get married must be classed among the "other people," wil inevitably go through a quarter or half an hour of greater or less badness as the case may be. Taking numbers into account, I

should think more mental suffering had been undergone in the streets leading from St George's, Hanover Square, than in the condemned cel s of Newgate. There is no time at which what the Italians cal _la figlia

del a Morte_ lays her cold hand upon a man more awful y than during the first half hour that he is alone with a woman whom he has married but

never genuinely loved.Death's daughter did not spare Theobald. He had behaved very wel hitherto. When Christina had offered to let him go, he had stuck to his post with a magnanimity on which he had plumed himself ever since. From that time forward he had said to himself: "I, at any rate, am the very soul of honour; I am not," etc., etc. True, at the moment of magnanimity the actual cash payment, so to speak, was stil distant; when his father gave formal consent to his marriage things began to look more serious; when the col ege living had fal en vacant and been accepted they looked more serious stil ; but when Christina actual y named the day, then

Theobald's heart fainted within him.The engagement had gone on so long that he had got into a groove, and the

prospect of change was disconcerting. Christina and he had got on, he thought to himself, very nicely for a great number of years; why--why--why should they not continue to go on as they were doing now for the rest of their lives? But there was no more chance of escape for him than for the sheep which is being driven to the butcher's back premises, and like the sheep he felt that there was nothing to be gained by resistance, so he

made none. He behaved, in fact, with decency, and was declared on al hands to be one of the happiest men imaginable.Now, however, to change the metaphor, the drop had actual y fal en, and

the poor wretch was hanging in mid air along with the creature of his affections. This creature was now thirty-three years old, and looked it: she had been weeping, and her eyes and nose were reddish; if "I have done it and I am alive," was written on Mr Al aby's face after he had thrown Page 33

Butler, Samuel: The Way of All Flesh

the shoe, "I have done it, and I do not see how I can possibly live much longer" was upon the face of Theobald as he was being driven along by the fir Plantation. This, however, was not apparent at the Rectory. Al

that could be seen there was the bobbing up and down of the postilion's head, which just over-topped the hedge by the roadside as he rose in his stirrups, and the black and yel ow body of the carriage.For some time the pair said nothing: what they must have felt during

their first half hour, the reader must guess, for it is beyond my power to tel him; at the end of that time, however, Theobald had rummaged up a conclusion from some odd corner of his soul to the effect that now he and Christina were married the sooner they fel into their future mutual

relations the better. If people who are in a difficulty wil only do the first little reasonable thing which they can clearly recognise as

reasonable, they wil always find the next step more easy both to see and take. What, then, thought Theobald, was here at this moment the first

and most obvious matter to be considered, and what would be an equitable view of his and Christina's relative positions in respect to it? Clearly their first dinner was their first joint entry into the duties and

pleasures of married life. No less clearly it was Christina's duty to order it, and his own to eat it and pay for it.The arguments leading to this conclusion, and the conclusion itself, flashed upon Theobald about three and a half miles after he had left Crampsford on the road to Newmarket. He had breakfasted early, but his usual appetite had failed him. They had left the vicarage at noon without staying for the wedding breakfast. Theobald liked an early dinner; it dawned upon him that he was beginning to be hungry; from this to the conclusion stated in the preceding paragraph the steps had been

easy. After a few minutes' further reflection he broached the matter to his bride, and thus the ice was broken.Mrs Theobald was not prepared for so sudden an assumption of importance.

Her nerves, never of the strongest, had been strung to their highest tension by the event of the morning. She wanted to escape observation; she was conscious of looking a little older than she quite liked to look as a bride who had been married that morning; she feared the landlady,

the chamber-maid, the waiter--everybody and everything; her heart beat so fast that she could hardly speak, much less go through the ordeal of

ordering dinner in a strange hotel with a strange landlady. She begged and prayed to be let off. If Theobald would only order dinner this once, she would order it any day and every day in future.But the inexorable Theobald was not to be put off with such absurd

excuses. He was master now. Had not Christina less than two hours ago promised solemnly to honour and obey him, and was she turning restive over such a trifle as this? The loving smile departed from his face, and was succeeded by a scowl which that old Turk, his father, might have

envied. "Stuff and nonsense, my dearest Christina," he exclaimed mildly, and stamped his foot upon the floor of the carriage. "It is a wife's duty to order her husband's dinner; you are my wife, and I shal expect you to order mine." For Theobald was nothing if he was not logical.The bride began to cry, and said he was unkind; whereon he said nothing,

but revolved unutterable things in his heart. Was this, then, the end of his six years of unflagging devotion? Was it for this that when

Christina had offered to let him off, he had stuck to his engagement? Was Page 34

Butler, Samuel: The Way of All Flesh

this the outcome of her talks about duty and spiritual mindedness--that now upon the very day of her marriage she should fail to see that the

first step in obedience to God lay in obedience to himself? He would drive back to Crampsford; he would complain to Mr and Mrs Al aby; he didn't mean to have married Christina; he hadn't married her; it was al a hideous dream; he would--But a voice kept ringing in his ears which

said: "YOU CAN'T, CAN'T, CAN'T.""CAN'T I?" screamed the unhappy creature to himself."No," said the remorseless voice, "YOU CAN'T. YOU ARE A MARRIED MAN."He rol ed back in his corner of the carriage and for the first time felt how iniquitous were the marriage laws of England.