Page:On the Coromandel Coast.djvu/259

Rh she frequently keeps the clergyman waiting till his patience is exhausted. When she does appear she is so imperfectly dressed and so painfully shy that she looks a shapeless bundle of new clothes and jewelry. Her head is hidden in the folds of her saree, and she has to be supported up the church by her old bride-women. Once placed at the altar rails it is almost impossible to elicit a response, or even a murmur which may be treated liberally and taken as a response.

Bishop Caldwell was once marrying just such a couple, the bride maintaining a modest silence. After frequent repetitions of the betrothal sentence his patience was at an end. It had already been severely tried by the loss of more than an hour of valuable time he could ill spare. Closing the book, he said :

'Now, for the last time I repeat the sentence. If you do not say the words after me, I shall send you home unmarried.'

On hearing this terrible threat, one of the bridesmaids, who was the bride's great-aunt and an influential person in her father's household, rushed forward, seized the bride, and gave her a violent shaking, as she exclaimed :

"How dare you behave so! Why don't you do as the gentleman tells you?'

It had the desired effect, inasmuch as it gave the bride leave to speak. She found her voice–a firm, strong young voice it was, too–and the ceremony was concluded without further delay.

After he became Bishop he made his headquarters at Tuticorin, where he occupied a curious old Dutch house that had its staircase outside. He was consecrated Bishop of Tinnevelly in 1877, and died in 1891, in the seventy–eighth year of his age, after fifty-three years' work in South India. His parents were Scotch, but he was