Chapter 48

So every lengthening day Fringal cried, ‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’ beneath Gillian’s window; and the whole countryside stood amazed before the scriptural splendour of this wooing, which set the distant markets aflame with its expensiveness, brought old sunbonneted heads close together over garden hedges, and set the young men in a roar as they lounged on village bridges, or took their quart mugs in lonely inns. But those that drank at the ‘Mermaid’s Rest’ were mute, eyeing Elmer with mingled amusement and reverence. They apprec…