Proddy! the miller never loved thee as I
did—and it's very hard that I can't expect to
live more than a few months, for I should
like to see what comes o' thy fair child—the
nurse called her Susan Proddy, which gave
me palpitation of the heart. O, if I could
live twenty years to learn what fortune
befals the darling Susan the second—but it
aint o' no use wishing. I shall be gone in
three weeks."

But Tommy was again disappointed.
Eighteen years after his visit to Wakefield,
he found his way to Warwick, where, in St.
Mary's church, a noble marriage was to take
place. Stephen Honeydew was about to
become the happy husband of Susan Proddy's
daughter, the lovely Susan Proddy Dodger;
and from a gallery at the side our friend the
valetudinarian was a witness to the ceremony.
Susan Proddy, now Mrs. Dodger, had lost
some portion of her youthful beauty, for she
was now rather crooked, and not quite so
graceful in her walk as when we saw her
crossing the churchyard with the water-pail
on her head. But in Tommy's eyes she was
Venus and all the Graces still. As the
procession went forth, he staggered down to the
porch, and placed himself so exactly in the
middle, that the bride was forced to touch
him with her sleeve as she glided past. The
touch of her arm gave him new life. He
ceased to cough for a moment; a flood of
warm blood rushed into his heart. He looked
round for the original Susan Proddy, but a
fat man at her side pushed him out of the
way.

"Spludders! " exclaimed the invalid, " I
always hated that miller—but what's the
use o' hating, or liking either? I can't have
long to live, only it would be so pleasant to
survive to see if there's ever a fambly from
this here wedding. I'll keep my ears open
for this Master Honeydew, but they can't
keep open long. I've got the colic, and knots
on my ancles, aud a cataract in my eye, and
swelling in the joints, and a wen on my neck,
and carbuncles on my arm. So I must get
home in time to die."

Perhaps all these diseases counteracted
each other, and left Tommy in perfect health.
He found means before he left Warwick to
forward to the bride another ring which he
had taken out of his mother's store; a plain
gold ring with the commencement of the
motto "Honi"—perhaps it was the ring of
Richard himself, or at all events of a Knight
of the Garter;—and having placed this last
memorial of his affection for Susan Proddy in
the hands of her daughter, he returned in
peace to his native village.

And did he die? No. He had said he
would keep his ears open, but many things
passed in those agitating days of English
history which never reached the Shropshire
village where the afflicted Tom
resided. Mr. Honeydew, who had
married Susan the second, was a constable
and sheriff's officer, who made himself
very useful to Henry the Eighth. He
ferreted out rich abbots, and turned nuns out
of their houses. He hanged refractory monks
with his own hands, and enriched himself
with the spoils of the monasteries. When a
cloud came over his fortunes in Mary's time
he turned it aside by wearing a white sheet,
and, after penance, being received into the
holy church. He compensated for past
sacrileges by presiding at the Smithfield fires.
He broke Latimer's head with a blow of a
billet of wood, and pierced Cranmer with a
red hot poker. He was a servant of his
sovereign and his country, and thought
obedience the first duty of a subject. When
Elizabeth came into power he recanted once
more, and was so useful in the discovery of
plots and exacting fines from traitors, that he
died immensely rich, and was buried in
Westminster Abbey. Of all these changes Tommy
continued ignorant. He had been surprised
at the visit of certain commissions to purify
the church of popery and break all the
crosses; and after a few years he was again
astonished by another visit of other
commissioners to introduce popery again and restore
the crosses.

"Faddlekicks!" he said, to an officer of the
first commission, in the year fifteen hundred
and forty-four, "who sent thee here to break
off Bridget's nose and take away the thumbnails
of St. Jockster of Coventry?"

"Who but the great Master Honeydew,"
replied the man, while he plied the hammer,
and split St. Bridget's shoulder into fifty
fragments. "He is a stout and true-hearted
Protestant, and high in favour with our Lord
the King."

And in fifteen hundred and fifty-five he
said, "By cross and pie! who hath sent thee
hither with thy new painted wooden image?
The old Bridget was good enough for we."

"I am sent by Sir Stephen Honeydew,"
replied the man, fixing the saint against the
wall by a long nail through her leg. "He is
a true and holy Catholic, and high in favour
with our Lady the Queen."

"Odds Wigginton!" said Tommy, "can
this be the husband of Susan Proddy's
child?" And he made inquiry, and found
that the daughter of Dodger, the miller of
Wakefield, was Lady Honeydew, one of the
grandest ladies about the court.

"Hath she ever a son?" he inquired of
the workman, who was giving St. Bridget's
cheeks a rub with sand-paper.

"Aye, marry, hath she," he said, "a goodly
boy of ten years old. He never misseth a
burning of heretics; for already the saints
have given him a spirit of the true faith."

"I wish I could look on him afore I die,"
said Tommy; " but there ain't no chance.
I've lost my teeth; my head be bald; my
back be bent; I ha' no taste in my mouth;
I have singing in my ears; I've congestion
of the spleen; I've a softening of the brain;