[{"node":{"title":"Hanna002","Collections":"Part One","Contributor":"Linen Hall Library","Coverage":"1951","Creator":"Linen Hall Library","Date":"Thursday, April 7, 2016","Format":"TIFF","Identifier":"Hanna002","Item Description":"Manuscript","Keywords":"Communion, Marriage","Language":"English","Path":"https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna002","Publisher":"Linen Hall Library","Relation":"Linen Hall Library","Rights":"Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA","Scanned image":{"src":"https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna002_2.jpg","alt":""},"Source":"LHL Archive","Transcript":"\ufeffDECEMBER BRIDE\n\nChapter One\n\nRAVARA MEETING-HOUSE MOULDERED among its gravestones like a mother\n\nsurrounded by her spinster children. Today the winter wind poured\n\nacross the fields. It flung a handful of starlings over the church and\n\nplucked the caps and skirts of the men and women sheltering behind the\n\ngravestones. A man, with a billhook in his hand, broke through the\n\nhedge that surrounded the churchyard and hurried towards the gravelled\n\npath, Along the hedge bordering the road the weak sun glinted on curves\n\nand ellipses of bicycle wheels.\n\nIn the church, with his back to the communion rail, and the book\n\nin his hand open at the marriage service, stood the reverend Isaac\n\nSorleyson. The man and woman before him, Hamilton Echlin and Sarah\n\nGomartin, were elderly, stooped, huddled together as if for protection.\n\nThe whimpering wind and the breathless silence of the churoh heightened\n\nthe loneliness of the two and gave an impression absurd and pathetic\n\nto the ceremony. Behind the bridegroom stood a youth of about nineteen\n\nyears of age. Throughout the service he had strained to follow the\n\nminister\u2019s words, only relaxing to glance back into the glimmering\n\nchurch or to reassure himself that the wedding ring was still embedded\n\nin his sweating palm.\n\n\"Do you, Hamilton, take this woman, Sarah, to be your lawfuily\n\nwedded wife ...\u201d The responses were given, and at a sign from\n\nSorleyson, the young man dropped the ring into the dark cupped hand\n\nof the bridegroom. Echlin took his bride\u2019s hand, and with her\n","Type":"Text"}}]