‘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.
CHAPTER XXIX
Never did Nature show herself better pleased on any festival than on Walter’s wedding-day. The sun shone out as if his very rays were as much made up of gladness as of light. The dew-drops twinkled as if instinct with pleasure. The birds lilted—the waters and the windows sparkled; cocks crowed as if they were themselves bridegrooms, and the sounds of laughing girls, and cackling hens, made the riant banks of the Clyde joyful for many a mile.
It was originally intended that the minister should breakfast at Kilmarkeckle, to perform the ceremony there; but this, though in accordance with newer and genteeler fashions, was overruled by the young friends of the bride and bridegroom insisting that the wedding should be celebrated with a ranting dance and supper worthy of the olden, and, as they told Leddy Grippy, better times. Hence the liberality of the preparations, as intimated in the preceding chapter.
In furtherance of this plan, the minister, and all his family, were invited, and it was arranged, that the ceremony should not take place till the evening, when the whole friends of the parties, with the bride and bridegroom at their head, should walk in procession after the ceremony from the manse to Grippy, where the barn, by the fair hands of Miss Meg and her companions, was garnished and garlanded for the ball and banquet. Accordingly, as the marriage hour drew near, and as it had been previously concerted by ‘the best men’ on both sides, a numerous assemblage of the guests took place, both at Grippy and Kilmarkeckle—and, at the time appointed, the two parties, respectively carrying with them the bride and bridegroom, headed by a piper playing ‘Hey let us a’ to the bridal,’ proceeded to the manse, where they were met by their worthy parish pastor at the door.
The Reverend Doctor Denholm was one of those old estimable stock characters of the best days of the presbytery, who, to great learning and sincere piety, evinced an inexhaustible fund of couthy jocularity. He was far advanced in life, an aged man, but withal hale and hearty, and as fond of an innocent ploy, such as a wedding or a christening, as the blithest spirit in its teens of any lad or lass in the parish. But he was not quite prepared to receive so numerous a company; nor, indeed, could any room in the manse have accommodated half the party. He, therefore, proposed to perform the ceremony under the great tree, which sheltered the house from the south-west wind in winter, and afforded shade and shelter to all the birds of summer that ventured to trust themselves beneath its hospitable boughs. To this, however, Walter, the bridegroom, seemed disposed to make some objection, alleging that it might be a very good place for field-preaching, or for a tent on sacramental occasions, ‘but it was an unco-like thing to think of marrying folk under the canopy of the heavens;’ adding, ‘that he did na think it was canny to be married under a tree.’
The Doctor soon, however, obviated this objection, by assuring him that Adam and Eve had been married under a tree.
‘Gude keep us a’ frae sic a wedding as they had,’ replied Watty; ‘where the deil was best-man? Howsever, Doctor, sin it’s no an apple-tree, I’ll mak a conformity.’ At which the pipes again struck up, and, led by the worthy Doctor bare-headed, the whole assemblage proceeded to the spot.