It was in the month of June last year, when the days were about their
longest, that the scattered dwellers in the upland parish of L—— were
excited by the intimation of a marriage in one of their glens. Among a
sparse population an event of this sort necessarily happens but rarely,
and as a consequence when it does happen it comes attended by much more
‘pomp and circumstance’ than would otherwise accompany it. As an angel
sent by some gracious fate, it stirs the stagnant pool of existence,
and revives hearts that may have drooped through dreary days of
solitude. The people who have participated in it are livelier in their
talk and wear a blither aspect for days and weeks afterwards.
A breeze was blowing through the bright June sunlight, and the shadows
of a few clouds were moving quietly across the hills, when about
three o’clock in the afternoon I set out on foot for the scene of the
marriage that has been referred to. The point from which I started lay
upon the highest tract of cultivated land at the head of a prettily
wooded valley, and I had to walk seven miles by mountain-side and glen
before reaching the cottage that was my destination. For the first
portion of the way there is an excellent cart-road—excellent for a
hill-country whose pastoral-bred pedestrians do not greatly need roads;
but after some three miles have been got over the traveller finds
himself almost literally at large among the mountains, with but a
feeble indication of a foot-track along the brow of a deep ravine, and
a mountain stream below.
Continuing my course, the glen began to expand again, and its slopes to
lose their covering of brushwood. A strip of level verdure, broadening
as I ascended, stretched on each side of the water; and after following
several windings of the stream without any change in the character of
its banks, the moorland cottage that I was in search of lay before me.
The first thing I observed was an animated crowd of people streaming
out of the door two and two, and setting off for an elevation that
stood some distance to the right. On arriving at the cottage I learned
that these were the bride’s people gone to meet the party of the
bridegroom, and to take part in ‘running the broose,’ which is a
foot-race among the young lads for the bride’s-maid’s handkerchief.
Herself the goal, the bride’s-maid, fluttering in white and scarlet,
had ascended to a knoll before the cottage, and some time afterwards
held up a silk handkerchief to the eyes of the expectant runners.
I fancy there are few spectacles that produce in one’s mind a stronger
sense of savage freedom than that of civilised human beings let
loose, coatless, vestless, bonnetless, to race among the hills. In
less than two minutes from their starting on the homeward race they
had sunk out of view at the foot of the highest hill, and when they
hailed in sight again, they were much more widely scattered than at
the beginning. Two or three in the rear had already dropped out of the
race; but those in the front seemed to be still running with energy
and determination. Once or twice again we lost them in the hollows,
and each time they reappeared we could notice that their number was
gradually getting smaller; so that by the time the leader swept across
the stream in front of us, all other competitors had given up the
contest as hopeless. A cheer broke forth as he struggled up the knoll
panting and bemired to clutch the coveted prize, which, with similar
ones thus gained, I find it is a great ambition among the young men in
some districts to accumulate. The winner of the ‘broose’ was a tall
and finely formed youth of fair complexion; with clear blue eyes and
well-cut features.
As soon as the stragglers had come forward, followed by the bridegroom
and his man, amid tremendous cheering, the marriage ceremony was
proceeded with in the kitchen. It was a long low-roofed apartment,
with innumerable shoulders of mutton in all the stages towards ham,
depending from the rafters. The bride was led out of an anteroom,
resting on her father’s arm. He was a rather oldish man, with the
history of a good many troubles plainly written upon his face. The
bride was a broad-shouldered, brown-visaged, and gray-eyed maiden
of about four-and-twenty; and her future husband, a loose-limbed,
amiable-looking youth in a lavender necktie and fiery red hair,
looked possibly a year or two younger. The service was performed by a
Presbyterian clergyman, and was accordingly a short one. Immediately
it was over there was a multitudinous shaking of hands with the happy
couple. It was interesting to note the various phraseologies in which
the numerous guests severally expressed their good wishes; all the
degrees of feelings from that of ordinary regard to the most ebullient
affection, being apparently represented.
While this process was going forward, the mother of the bride, a
sallow-faced person with kindly black eyes, and gray hair smoothed
neatly across her brow, took up a position by the fire to advance
arrangements for the tea. You could see that the good woman was greatly
excited and confused. Probably she had never had so many people under
her humble roof before; and there were ‘grand folk’ among them too,
the surrounding farmers and their families, for whose (comparatively)
delicate palates she was quite unaccustomed to prepare food. Every
now and then while proceeding with her duties, she would catch up
the corner of her ample white apron, and wiping the perspiration
from her forehead, would draw a long sigh, as of sadness or fatigue.
The movements of the company around her seemed to attract her but
little; all the evening she wore a preoccupied expression, and it was
evident that she had within her mind a picture of her own, on which
her thoughts were dwelling. But what the scene was that was calling
her away from the merriment of the hour I possessed no means of
ascertaining; and the reader is at liberty to fill up this blank in the
narrative as best delights his fancy.
* * * * *
A portion of the company now seated itself at a heavily laden tea-table
that was laid out in an adjoining chamber; and here let me remark
that as Scottish weddings are celebrated in the afternoon or evening,
the entertainment known by the English as the déjeûner, is unknown
to their northern neighbours. But there are few such teas served in
cities or even in Lowland dwellings as had been that night prepared for
us. The result of a good week’s labour of several women in carrying,
boiling, and baking, seemed to be placed upon the board. Let the reader
remember that it was in Scotland that this wedding took place, and he
will appreciate the bill of fare the better. It was by no means a much
varied one, but the several articles had been provided in unlimited
supply. Fresh baked scones lined each side of the table in castellated
rows; platefuls of dark-coloured ‘braxy’ ham, cut from the mutton that
hung on the rafters, stood in between them, with here and there a pile
of thick cut, deeply buttered bread. There were also buns, ‘cookies,’
biscuits, and gimcracks, that must have been carried painfully over
miles of moorland; and raised majestically at the head of the table was
a little white bride-cake surmounted by a solitary flag.
When the company had crushed themselves into seats around the
table, and were just going to operate upon the braxy, a big-boned,
bleached-looking old man was furtively led on to the end of a bench
that had been placed near the door. I soon discovered that, after the
minister, this was for the time being the most important of the invited
assembly. He was in fact no less a personage than the fiddler, and
was, as he ought to have been, in keeping with the character of the
traditionary musician, almost stone-blind. This Demodocus had been led
hither from his dwelling five miles over the hills by a little boy,
his grandson, who had fair hair, and wore faded velvet and corduroys.
The heartiness with which the veteran musician laid in a store of
victual against the labour of a long night’s fiddling, was a most
refreshing sight. He was a long-faced, heavy-jawed man, and had rusty
gray hair that fell unkempt upon a much worn velvet collar. A large
scarlet cotton handkerchief was twisted carelessly about his neck,
and came down in a loose fold upon his breast. He wore an aspect of
silent passive misfortune; and as you looked at him it was difficult to
imagine music dwelling in his soul, how much soever it might dwell in
his fiddle.
As soon as the tea was ended, or rather this first instalment of it,
he was guided to an elevated seat that had been prepared for him in a
corner of the kitchen, where he began scraping and preluding with his
fiddle. To many of the lads and lasses this was the first intimation of
the musician’s presence; and it was the signal for a little preliminary
coquetry with the eyes, while it lit up their honest faces with blushes
and expectant smiles.
A Scottish wedding without a dance is next door to no wedding at all,
so little time was lost in stepping to the floor. There were Scotch
reels, country-dances, and polkas, and now and then a quadrille was
decorously walked through by the two or three young farmers and their
sweethearts. But unquestionably the Scotch reel was the favourite, and
maintained the precedence throughout the whole of the entertainment.
As most readers doubtless know, this is a lively and stirring dance,
that permits a good deal of jumping and stamping, and is admirably
adapted to the social requirements of a warm-hearted and excitable
people. Whether its popularity in Scotland has anything to do with the
Celtic origin of the inhabitants, I do not take upon me to suggest;
but certain it is, that after seeing it performed, as on the present
occasion, with all the vivacity that belongs to it, you would not
think of associating it with a grave and solemn-minded race. To the
uninitiated onlooker it is nothing but an indistinguishable confusion;
in which he may observe that there is a great deal of bobbing with the
head and shuffling with the feet, and that it is in nowise adapted to
a staid person of fashion. Nevertheless it stood in high favour on
the present occasion, and seemed to please abundantly the agile young
persons who performed in it. What matter to them though it should be
unfashionable! They had come to this wedding to enjoy themselves; and
much as the horrid crew in ‘Alloway’s auld haunted kirk’ despised
foreign cotillons, so did these children of hills and valleys stick to
their native reels and country-dances.
After a time, when the music had begun to work in his soul, and he had
been set athinking upon ‘the brave days of old,’ you would notice a
reverend senior bravely leading out some gay and handsome maiden, and
challenging another gray-headed veteran to face him in the dance. These
exhibitions of pluck and spirit in the fathers uniformly evoked hearty
plaudits from the company; and some one would call out to ‘Archie’ the
fiddler, ‘to put his best foot foremost this time.’ Archie had by this
time got worked into a state of considerable energy and enthusiasm, and
was in some respects quite a different character from that of two hours
ago at the tea-table. The colour had travelled back to his old withered
cheek, and his features looked a deal more soft and flexible; his
face and form seemed much more indicative of life; youth seemed to be
coming back to him at the call of his own fiddle. It was interesting to
observe as he became enthusiastic in his fiddling, how sympathetic was
his every motion. How his rickety old legs crossed and bobbed up and
down; the body in a tremble, and constant movement in the shoulders;
while the head was perpetual motion, now hanging down upon his breast,
now erect and turning on its socket, now thrown backwards, and such
eyes as were in it—poor ‘ruined orbs’—directed restlessly towards the
ceiling. Archie’s _tout ensemble_ was a visible embodiment of the
doctrine that music incites to motion.