Leddy Grippy having been, as she herself observed, ‘cheated baith o’
bridal and infare by Charlie’s moonlight marriage,’ was resolved to
have all made up to her, and every jovial and auspicious rite performed
at Walter’s wedding.--Accordingly, the interval between the booking
and the day appointed for the ceremony was with her all bustle and
business. Nor were the preparations at Kilmarkeckle to send forth the
bride in proper trim, in any degree less active or liberal. Among other
things, it had been agreed that each of the two families should kill
a cow for the occasion, but an accident rendered this unnecessary at
Grippy.
At this time, Kilmarkeckle and Grippy kept two bulls who cherished the
most deadly hatred of each other, insomuch that their respective herds
had the greatest trouble to prevent them from constantly fighting.
And on the Thursday preceding the wedding-day, Leddy Grippy, in the
multitude of her cares and concerns, having occasion to send a message
to Glasgow, and, unable to spare any of the other servants, called the
cow-boy from the field, and dispatched him on the errand. Bausy, as
their bull was called, taking advantage of his keeper’s absence, went
muttering and growling for some time round the enclosure, till at last
discovering a gap in the hedge, he leapt through, and, flourishing
his tail, and grumbling as hoarse as an earthquake, he ran, breathing
wrath and defiance, straight on towards a field beyond where Gurl,
Kilmarkeckle’s bull, was pasturing in the most conjugal manner with
his sultanas.
Gurl knew the voice of his foe, and, raising his head from the grass,
bellowed a hoarse and sonorous answer to the challenger, and, in the
same moment, scampered to the hedge, on the outside of which Bausy was
roaring his threats of vengeance and slaughter. The two adversaries
glared for a moment at each other, and then galloped along the sides
of the hedge in quest of an opening through which they might rush to
satisfy their rage.
In the meantime, Kilmarkeckle’s herd-boy had flown to the house for
assistance, and Miss Betty, heading all the servants, and armed with a
flail, came, at double quick time, to the scene of action. But, before
she could bring up her forces, Bausy burst headlong through the hedge,
like a hurricane. Gurl, however, received him with such a thundering
batter on the ribs, that he fell reeling from the shock. A repetition
of the blow laid him on the ground, gasping and struggling with rage,
agony, and death, so that, before the bride and her allies were able
to drive Gurl from his fallen antagonist, he had gored and fractured
him in almost every bone with the force and strength of the beam of
a steam-engine. Thus was Leddy Grippy prevented from killing the cow
which she had allotted for the wedding-feast, the carcase of Bausy
being so unexpectedly substituted.
But, saving this accident, nothing went amiss in the preparations for
the wedding either at Grippy or Kilmarkeckle. All the neighbours were
invited, and the most joyous anticipations universally prevailed; even
Claud himself seemed to be softened from the habitual austerity which
had for years gradually encrusted his character, and he partook of
the hilarity of his family, and joked with the Leddy in a manner so
facetious, that her spirits mounted, and, as she said herself, ‘were
flichtering in the very air.’
The bridegroom alone, of all those who took any interest in the
proceedings, appeared thoughtful and moody; but it was impossible that
any lover could be more devoted to his mistress: from morning to night
he hovered round the skirts of her father’s mansion, and as often as
he got a peep of her, he laughed, and then hastily retired, wistfully
looking behind, as if he hoped that she would follow. Sometimes this
manœuvre proved successful, and Miss Betty permitted him to encircle
her waist with his arm, as they ranged the fields in amatory communion
together.
This, although perfectly agreeable to their happy situation, was not
at all times satisfactory to his mother; and she frequently chided
Watty for neglecting the dinner hour, and ‘curdooing,’ as she said,
‘under cloud o’ night.’ However, at last every preparatory rite but
the feet-washing was performed; and that it also might be accomplished
according to the most mirthful observance of the ceremony at that
period, Charles and George brought out from Glasgow, on the evening
prior to the wedding-day, a score of their acquaintance to assist in
the operation on the bridegroom; while Miss Meg, and all the maiden
friends of the bride, assembled at Kilmarkeckle to officiate there. But
when the hour arrived, Watty was absent. During the mixing of a large
bowl of punch, at which Charles presided, he had slily escaped, and not
answering to their summons, they were for some time surprised, till it
was suggested that possibly he might have gone to the bride, whither
they agreed to follow him.
Meanwhile the young ladies had commenced their operations with Miss
Betty. The tub, the hot water, and the ring, were all in readiness; her
stockings were pulled off, and loud laughter and merry scuffling, and
many a freak of girlish gambol was played, as they rubbed her legs, and
winded their fingers through the water to find the ring of Fortune,
till a loud exulting neigh of gladness at the window at once silenced
their mirth.
The bride raised her eyes; her maidens turning round from the tub,
looked towards the window, where they beheld Watty standing, his
white teeth and large delighted eyes glittering in the light of the
room. It is impossible to describe the consternation of the ladies at
this profane intrusion on their peculiar mysteries. The bride was the
first that recovered her self-possession: leaping from her seat, and
oversetting the tub in her fury, she bounded to the door, and, seizing
Watty by the cuff of the neck, shook him as a tigress would a buffalo.
‘The deevil ride a-hunting on you, Watty Walkinshaw, I’ll gar you
glower in at windows,’ was her endearing salutation, seconded by the
whole vigour of her hand in a smack on the face, so impressive, that it
made him yell till the very echoes yelled again. ‘Gang hame wi’ you,
ye roaring bull o’ Bashen, or I’ll take a rung to your back,’ then
followed; and the terrified bridegroom instantly fled coweringly, as if
she actually was pursuing him with a staff.
‘I trow,’ said she, addressing herself to the young ladies who had come
to the door after her, ‘I’ll learn him better manners, before he’s long
in my aught.’
‘I would be none surprised were he to draw back,’ said Miss Jenny
Shortridge, a soft and diffident girl, who, instead of joining in the
irresistible laughter of her companions, had continued silent, and
seemed almost petrified.
‘Poo!’ exclaimed the bride; ‘he draw back! Watty Walkinshaw prove false
to me! He dare na, woman, for his very life; but, come, let us gang in
and finish the fun.’
But the fun had suffered a material abatement by the breach which had
thus been made in it. Miss Meg Walkinshaw, however, had the good luck
to find the ring, a certain token that she would be the next married.
In the meantime, the chastised bridegroom, in running homeward, was
met by his brothers and their companions, to whose merriment he
contributed quite as much as he had subtracted from that of the ladies,
by the sincerity with which he related what had happened,--declaring,
that he would rather stand in the kirk than tak Betty Bodle; which
determination Charles, in the heedlessness and mirth of the moment, so
fortified and encouraged, that, before they had returned back to the
punch-bowl, Walter was swearing that neither father nor mother would
force him to marry such a dragoon. The old man seemed more disturbed
than might have been expected from his knowledge of the pliancy of
Walter’s disposition at hearing him in this humour, while the Leddy
said, with all the solemnity suitable to her sense of the indignity
which her favourite had suffered,--
‘Biting and scarting may be Scotch folks’ wooing; but if that’s the
gait Betty Bodle means to use you, Watty, my dear, I would see her,
and a’ the Kilmarkeckles that ever were cleckit, doon the water, or
strung in a wooddie, before I would hae ony thing to say to ane come
o’ their seed or breed. To lift her hands to her bridegroom!--The like
o’t was never heard tell o’ in a Christian land--Na, gudeman, nane
o’ your winks and glooms to me,--I will speak out. She’s a perfect
drum-major,--the randy cutty--deevil-do-me-good o’ her--it’s no to seek
what I’ll gie her the morn.’
‘Dinna grow angry, mother,’ interposed Walter, thawing, in some degree,
from the sternness of his resentment. ‘It was na a very sair knock
after a’.’
‘T’ou’s a fool and a sumph to say any thing about it, Watty,’ said
Grippy himself; ‘many a brawer lad has met wi’ far waur; and, if t’ou
had na been egget on by Charlie to mak a complaint, it would just hae
passed like a pat for true love.’
‘Eh na, father, it was na a pat, but a scud like the clap o’ a fir
deal,’ said the bridegroom.
‘Weel, weel, Watty,’ exclaimed Charlie, ‘you must just put up wi’t,
ye’re no a penny the waur o’t.’ By this sort of conversation Walter was
in the end pacified, and reconciled to his destiny.