He had never formed to himself an idea that a heifer so gentle would toss and fling him over.

The blow was stunning.

But no one compassionates the misfortunes of the covetous, though few perhaps are in greater need of compassion.

And leaving poor Captain Higginbotham to retrieve his illusory fortunes as he best may among "the expectations" which gathered round the form of Mr.Sharpe Currie, who was the crossest old tyrant imaginable, and never allowed at his table any dishes not compounded with rice, which played Old Nick with the captain's constitutional functions, I return to the wedding at Hazeldean, just in time to see the bridegroom--who looked singularly well on the occasion--hand the bride (who, between sunshiny tears and affectionate smiles, was really a very interesting and even a pretty bride, as brides go) into a carriage which the squire had presented to them, and depart on the orthodox nuptial excursion amidst the blessings of the assembled crowd.
It may be thought strange by the unreflective that these rural spectators should so have approved and blessed the marriage of a Hazeldean of Hazeldean with a poor, outlandish, long-haired foreigner; but besides that Riccabocca, after all, had become one of the neighbourhood, and was proverbially "a civil-spoken gentleman," it is generally noticeable that on wedding occasions the bride so monopolizes interest, curiosity, and admiration that the bridegroom himself goes for little or nothing.

He is merely the passive agent in the affair,--the unregarded cause of the general satisfaction.