Rum and Gunpowder - 13) Wedding

What a catch.

Such a lucky girl.

A yeoman of the county, highly thought of by all of the parish. A genuine gentleman farmer, owning his own land and with the rights to a parliamentary vote. A fine man, with a fine family pedigree stretching back to the medieval sheriffs of Pembrokeshire and beyond that indeed to The Lord Rhys, Prince of Deheubarth, Prince of the Welsh. Such a lucky girl but with just one nagging doubt lingering in Rebekha’s heart. There was no avoiding the fact that the groomsman waiting for her near the altar, was forty three years her senior.

Had Rebekha been able to read, I’m sure she’d have been a lot happier with the rector’s entry in the parish records.

John Griffith, Yeoman and

Rebekha Esmond, spinster of

the parish were married by Banns

the fourteenth day November

1793 by me Rev Moses Grant.

This marriage was solemnised between

X mark of John Griffith.

X mark of Rebekha Esmond.

The whole event reminds me so much of the chorus from an old Irish folk song.

He's got no falorum, faliddle aye orum down.

Well he's got no falorum, faliddle aye ay

Well he's got no falorum, he's lost his ding-dorum now

Maids when you're young never wed an old man.

Maids WhenYouYoung.mp3

Well, as it turned out, John did indeed still have his falorum and he’d managed to keep his ding-dorum in fine fettle. Within twelve years, Rebekha was to have three children by John. They would be named Elizabeth, Mary and Thomas.

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