Cecil soon made me comprehend, that she meant a brideman; whose office, she said, was to accompany the bridegroom when he went to invite guests to his wedding, and to attend him when he conducted his bride to her home. She told me, that, according to the custom of her country, her wedding was not celebrated till some weeks after she had taken the vows of wedlock; the Highland husband, once secure of his prize, prudently postponing the nuptial festivities and the honey-moon, till the close of harvest brought an interval of leisure. Meanwhile, the forsaken lover, whose attachment had become respectable by its constancy, as well as pitiable by its disappointment, was removed from the scene of his rival's success by the humanity of Henry Graham, who contrived to employ him in a distant part of the country. But, in the restlessness of a disordered understanding, poor Robert left his post; wandered unconsciously many a mile; and reached his native glen on the day of Cecil's wedding.
By means of much rhetoric and gesticulation upon Cecil's part, and innumerable questions upon mine, I obtained a tolerably distinct idea of the ceremonial of this wedding. Upon the eventful morning, the reluctant bride presided at a public breakfast, which was attended by all her acquaintance, and honoured by the presence of 'the laird himsel'.' I will not bring discredit upon the refinement of my Gael, by specifying the materials of this substantial repast, as they were detailed to me with naïve vanity by Cecil; but I may venture to tell, that, like more elegant fêtes of the same name, it was succeeded by dancing. 'I danced with the rest,' said Cecil, 'tho', with your leave, it made my very heart sick; and many a time I thought, oh, if this dancing were but for my lykwake.'[16] The harbingers of the bridegroom, (or, to use Cecil's phrase, the send,) a party of gay young men and women, arrived. Cecil, according to etiquette, met them at the door, welcomed, and offered them refreshments; then turned from them, as the prisoner from one who brings his death-warrant, struggling to gather decent fortitude from despair.
At last the report of a musket announced the approach of the bridegroom; and it was indispensable that the unwilling bride should go forth to meet him. 'The wind might have blawn me like the withered leaf,' said Cecil, 'I was so powerless; but Miss Graham thought nothing to help me with her oun arm. Jemmy and I may be lucky,' continued she, with a boding sigh; 'but I am sure it was an unchancy place where we had luck to meet;—just where the road goes low down into Dorch'thalla[17]; the very place where Kenneth Roy, that was the laird's grandfather, saw something that he followed for's ill; and it beguiled him over the rock, where he would have been dashed in pieces though he had been iron. The sun never shines where he fell, and the water's aye black there. Well, it was just there that Jemmy had luck to get sight of us; so then, ye see, he ran forward to meet me, as the custom is in our country. Oh, I'll never forget that meeting!' Cecil stopped, shuddering with a look of horror, which I dared not ask her to explain. 'He took off his bonnet,' she continued, 'to take, with your leave, what he never took off my mouth before; but,—oh, I'll never forget that cry! It was like something unearthly. "Cecil! Cecil!" it cried; and when I looked up, there's Robert, just where the eagle's nest was wont to be; he was just setting back's foot, as he would that moment spring down.'
'Did you save him?'
'I, lady! I could not have saved him though he had lighted at my foot. I could do nothing but hide my eyes; and my hands closed so hard, that the nails drew the very blood!'
'Dreadful!' I exclaimed, Cecil's infectious horror making the scene present to me,—'could nobody save him?'
'Nobody had power to do ought,' answered Cecil, 'save Mr Henry, that's always ready for good. He spoke with a voice that made the craigs shake again; and they that saw his eyes, saw the very fire, as he looked steadily upon Robert, and waved him back with's arm. So then the poor lad was not so unsensible, but he knew to do his bidding, for they're no born that dare gainsay him. And then Mr Henry rounded by the foot of the craig, and up the hill as he'd been a roe; and he caused Robert go home with him to the Castle, and caused keep him there, because he could no settle to work. No' that he's unsensible, except when a notion takes him. There's a glen where we were used to make carkets[18] when we were herds; and he'll no let the childer' pluck so much as a gowan there; and ever since the lightning tore the great oak, he'll sit beside her sometimes the summer's day, and calls her always "Poor Robert."'