'Sun, gallop down the westlin skies,
Gang soon to bed, an' quickly rise;
O lash your steeds, post time away,
And haste about our bridal day!'
The Gentle Shepherd.
Every noon, during this last week, as we have wended our way up the
loaning to the Pettybaw inn for our luncheon, we have passed three
magpies sitting together on the topmost rail of the fence. I am not
prepared to state that they were always the same magpies; I only know
there were always three of them. We have just discovered what they were
about, and great is the excitement in our little circle. I am to be
married to-morrow, and married in Pettybaw, and Miss Grieve says that
in Scotland the number of magpies one sees is of infinite significance:
that one means sorrow; two, mirth; three, a marriage; four, a birth, and
we now recall as corroborative detail that we saw one magpie, our first,
on the afternoon of her arrival.
Mr. Beresford has been cabled for, and must return to America at once on
important business. He persuaded me that the Atlantic is an ower large
body of water to roll between two lovers, and I agreed with all my
heart.
A wedding was arranged, mostly by telegraph, in six hours. The Reverend
Ronald and the Friar are to perform the ceremony; a dear old painter
friend of mine, a London R.A., will come to give me away; Francesca
will be my maid of honour; Elizabeth Ardmore and Jean Dalziel, my
bridemaidens; Robin Anstruther, the best man; while Jamie and Ralph will
be kilted pages-in-waiting, and Lady Ardmore will give the breakfast at
the Castle.
Never was there such generosity, such hospitality, such wealth of
friendship! True, I have no wedding finery; but as I am perforce a
Scottish bride, I can be married in the white gown with the silver
thistles in which I went to Holyrood.
Mr. Anstruther took a night train to and from London to choose the
bouquets and bridal souvenirs. Lady Baird has sent the veil, and a
wonderful diamond thistle to pin it on,--a jewel fit for a princess!
With the dear Dominie's note promising to be an usher came an antique
silver casket filled with white heather. And as for the bride-cake,
it is one of Salemina's gifts, chosen as much in a spirit of fun
as affection. It is surely appropriate for this American wedding
transplanted to Scottish soil, and what should it be but a model, in
fairy icing, of Sir Walter's beautiful monument in Princes Street! Of
course Francesca is full of nonsensical quips about it, and says that
the Edinburgh jail would have been just as fine architecturally (it is,
in truth, a building beautiful enough to tempt an aesthete to crime),
and a much more fitting symbol for a wedding-cake, unless, indeed, she
adds, Salemina intends her gift to be a monument to my folly.
Pettybaw kirk is trimmed with yellow broom from these dear Scottish
banks and braes; and waving their green fans and plumes up and down
the aisle where I shall walk a bride, are tall ferns and bracken from
Crummylowe Glen, where we played ballads.
As I look back upon it, the life here has been all a ballad from first
to last. Like the elfin Tam Lin,
'The queen o' fairies she caught me
In this green hill to dwell,'
and these hasty nuptials are a fittingly romantic ending to the
summer's poetry. I am in a mood, were it necessary, to be 'ta'en by
the milk-white hand,' lifted to a pillion on a coal-black charger,
and spirited 'o'er the border an' awa'' by my dear Jock o' Hazeldean.
Unhappily, all is quite regular and aboveboard; no 'lord o' Langley
dale' contests the prize with the bridegroom, but the marriage is
at least unique and unconventional; no one can rob me of that sweet
consolation.
So 'gallop down the westlin skies,' dear Sun, but, prythee, gallop back
to-morrow! 'Gang soon to bed,' an you will, but rise again betimes! Give
me Queen's weather, dear Sun, and shine a benison upon my wedding-morn!
[Exit Penelope into the ballad-land of maiden dreams.]