And at the Big House it would be Bryde this and Bryde that, till I am thinking poor Hugh would be near demented.
And the night before the wedding Bryde stayed with us, and we had a great night of it, for Hugh would not be having any other for his best man, as they will be calling it, and Margaret was to be helping the lass Helen, and was at Glenscaur already with the Laird and her mother, and that night Hugh slept with Bryde like boys again, and I would be hearing the laughing of them.
In the morning Bryde was up and crying that the sun was shining, and that it would be time to be on the road.
"You will not be last at your ain wedding," he would say to Hugh, for the boy was not very clever with his fingers that day; but we gave him a good jorum, and he brisked up at that, and we got on the horses and away, with the bauchles raining round our lugs and the horses sketch. On all the road the folk would be walking to be seeing the couple, and it was all we could be doing to be holding the horses, for there would be salutes from blunderbusses, and flags on the trams of creels, old flags and tattered from many's the sea, and we came to Scaurdale, and smuggled Hugh into the house like a thief, for fear he would be seeing Helen, and got at the dressing of him.
It was Bryde who had mind of all the freits.
"Something old and something new,
Something borrowed and something blue,"
he would be singing, for it will not be lucky to be married without the due observance of these old sayings.
I would be sitting with Hugh in his room, and Bryde away to be seeing if all things were ready, and to have a word with Margaret, for this wedding would be putting things into his head maybe. At last back he came, tall and swarthy and smiling.
"She is a beautiful wife you will be getting, Hughie," said he; "and Margaret and the old women will have her imprisoned, so you will be coming with me,"—and we took Hugh out under the trees where the place was made ready, and the guests were gathered, and in a little Helen came to his side and Margaret with her, and the marrying was begun.
And the Laird of Scaurdale was lifted out in his chair, very white, but with a good spirit in him yet.