Mith. Thou’s want for naething, my bairn, to get thee ready for marriage.
The wooing being over and the day being set, Jockey’s mither killed the black boul horned yeal ewe, that lost her lamb the last year, three hens and a gule-fitted cock; to prevent the ripples, 5 pecks of maut masked in the muckle kirn, a pint of treacle, to mak it thicker, and sweeter, and mamier for the mouth; 5 pints of whisky, wherein was garlic and spice, for raising the wind, and the clearing their water. The friends and good neighbours went wi’ John to the Kirk, where Maggy chanced to meet him, and was married by the minister. The twa companies joined the gither, and came hame in a crowd; and at every change-house they chanced to pass by, Providence stopt their proceeding with full stoups, bottles, and glasses, drinking their healths, wishing them joy, ten girls and a boy. Jockey seeing so many wishing well to his health, coupt up what he got for to augment his health, and gar him live long, which afterwards couped him up, and proved detrimental to the same.
So hame they came to the dinner, where his mither presenting to them a piping het haggis, made of the creesh of the black boul horned ewe, boiled in the meikle pot, mixt with bear-meal, onions, spice, and mint. This haggis being supt warm, the foaming swats and spice in the liquor set John’s belly a-bizzing like a working fat; and he playing het-fit to the fiddler, was suddenly seized with a bocking and rebounding, which gave his dinner such a backward ca’, that he lost a’ but the girt bits, which he scythed thro’ his teeth. His mither cried to spence him, and bed him with the bride. His breeks being filed, they washed both his hips and laid him in his bed. Pale and ghostly was his face, and closed were baith his een. Ah, cries his mither, a dismal day indeed; his bridal and his burial may be in ae day. Some cuist water in his face, and jag’d him wi a needle, till he began to rouse himself up, and then lisp out some broken words. Mither, mither! cries Jockey, whar am I now? Whar are you now, my bairn, says his mither, ye’re bedet, and I’ll bring the bride to you. Beded, says Jockey, and is my bridal done else? Ay is’t, said his mither, and here’s the bride come to lie down beside you, my man. Na na, mither, says Jockey, I’ll no lie wi an unco woman indeed, and it binna heads and thraws, the way that I lie wi’ you, mither. O fy, John, says his mither, dinna affront yoursel’ and me baith, tak her in o’er the bed ayont ye, and kiss her, and clap her, and daut her till ye fa’ asleep. The bride fa’s a-crying out, O mither! mither! was this the way my father guided you the first night? Na, na, thy father was a man of manners, and better mettle; poor thing, Meg, thou’s ca’d thy hogs to a bonny market. A bonny market! says Jockey’s mither; a shame fa’ you and her baith, he’s wordy of her though she were better nor what she is, or e’er will be.—His friends and her friends being a mixed multitude, some took his part, some took hers, there did a battle begin in the clap of a hand, being a very fierce tumult, which ended in blood; they struck so hard with stones, sticks, beetles, and barrow trams; pigs, pots, stoups, and trenchers, were flying like bombs and granadoes; the crook, bouls, and tangs, were all employed as weapons of war, till down came the bed, with a great mou of peats! So this disturbed a’ the diversion at Jockey’s bedding, and the sky was beginning to break in the east before the hurly-burly was over.
PART II.
Now, though all the ceremonies of Jockey and Maggy’s wedding were ended, when they were fairly bedded before a wheen rattling unruly witnesses, who dang down the bed aboon them; the battle still increased, and John’s work turned out to be very wonderful, for he made Janet, that was his mithers servant lass the last year, grew like an elshen haft and got his ain, Maggy wi’ bairn forby. The humsheughs were very great, until auld uncle Rabby came in to redd them; and a sturdy auld fallow he was; he stood lively with a stiff rumple, and by strength of his arms rave them aye sundry, flinging the taen east and the tither wast, till they stood a’ round about like as many for-foughten cocks and no ane durst steer anither for him. Jockey’s mither was caed o’er a kist and brokit a’ her hip on a round heckle, up she gat, and running to fell Maggy’s mither with the ladle, swearing she was the mither of a’ the mischief that happened. Uncle Rabby ran in between them, he having a muckle nose, like a trumpet, she recklessly came o’er his lobster neb a drive wi’ the laddle, till the blood came, ran down his old grey beard, and hang like snuffy bubbles at it. O then he gaed wud, and looked as waefu’ like as he had been a tod-lowrie come frae worrying lambs, with his bloody mouth. With that he gets an auld flail and rives awa’ the supple, then drives them a’ to the back of the door, but yet nane wan out; then wi chirting and claping down comes the clay hallen, and the hen bawk wi Rab Reid the fiddler, who had crept up beside the hens, for the preservation of his fiddle.
Ben comes the bride, when she got on her coat, clappet Rabby on the shouther, and bade him spare their lives, for there was blood enough shed in ae night, quoth she; and that my beard can witness quoth he. So they all came in obedience to uncle Rabby, for his supple made their pows baith saft and sair that night; but daft Maggy Simpson sat by the fire and picked banes a’ the time of the battle. Indeed, quoth she, I think ye’re a’ fools, but myself, for I came here to get a good supper, and ither folk hae gotten their skin well paid.
By this time up got Jock, the bridegroom, that was Jockey before he was married, but couldna get his breeks; yet wi a horse-nail he tacked his sark-tail between his legs, that nane might see what every body should hide; and ramplingly he cries, Settle ye, or I’ll gar my uncle settle ye, and saften your heads wi an auld supple.
Poor Rab Reid, the fiddler, took a sudden blast; same said he was maw-turned wi the fa’, for he bocked up a’ the barley, and then gar’d the ale gae like a rainbow frae him, as brown as wort-brose.
The hurley-burly being ended, and naething but fair words and shaking of hands, which was a sure sign of an agreement, they began to cow their cutted lugs, and wash their sairs, a’ but Jockey’s mither, who cried out. A black end to you and your wedding baith, for I hae gotten a hunder holes dung in my arse wi’ the round heckle teeth.
Jockey answers, A e’en haud you wi’ them then, mither, ye will e’en be the better sair’d.