The holms and woodland spaces of Balmaghie were indeed a sight to see that glorious morn of the tenth of September, in the year of Christ, His Grace, 1689. There was scarce accommodation in the wide stables of the mansion for the horses of the guests. The very byres were crowded with them. The kye were milked on the edge of the wood to give the horses stalling-room in their places. As for Mistress Crombie, she was nearly driven out of her wits by the foreign cooks whom the new lady of the house had brought with her—some of them from Edinburgh and some of them all the way from London itself—to do justice to the great occasion.
Alisoun Begbie had a host of assistants. Every gentleman's house in the neighborhood had supplied its quota—given willingly, too, for there was no saying how soon the time might come to solicit an equivalent, either from the social kindness of the great lady of Balmaghie, or from the important political influence of the bridegroom, Murdo, Lord of Barra and the Small Isles.
Down the moorland road, by the side of which the humblebees were droning in the heather bushes, and the blithe blackcock spreading his wings and crowing as if the spring had come again, yet another guest was riding to the wedding—and one, too, arrayed in the wedding garment.
Wat Gordon of Lochinvar flashed like a dragon-fly in gay apparel above the lily-clad pools of Loch Ken. But he had no invitation—no "Haste-to-the-Wedding"—unless, perhaps, the little heart of gold which he carried in his breast could be accounted such a summons. He rode slowly, often walking his horse long distances, like one who is not anxious to arrive over early at an important meeting-place. After he had passed the Bridge of New Galloway, and had ridden, to the astonishment and delight of those early astir in the ancient borough town, down the long, straggling, pig-haunted street, he dismounted and allowed his horse to walk by the loch-side, and even at intervals to crop the sweet grasses of the road-side.
Yet it was from no consuming admiration of the supreme beauties of that fair pathway that Wat Gordon lagged so long upon it that September morn. To no purpose the loch rippled its deepest blue for him. In vain the heather ran back in league on league of red and purple bloom to the uttermost horizon, that Bennan frowned grimly above, and that the Black Craig of Dee fulfilled the promise of its name in gloomy majesty against the western sky. For Wat Gordon kept his pale face turned anxiously on his charger.
"Ah, Drumclog," he said, thinking aloud, "thou art a Whig's horse, but if ever thou didst carry a cavalier on a desperate quest, it is surely this fair morning. Speed to thy legs, nimbleness to thy feet, for thou carriest more than the life of one this day."
[CHAPTER LI]
THE BRIDE'S LOVING-CUP
But just at the weary traverse across the moor of the Bennan, after the shining levels of Loch Ken were left behind, and before the sylvan quietnesses of the Lane of Grenoch had been encountered, Wat Gordon came suddenly on a troop of cavalry that rode northward, tinkling spur and jingling bit. So long had the country folk of Galloway been in the habit of fleeing at the sound, that, as the troop advanced, riding easily, heads were hastily popped out of the whitewashed cottages of Mossdale, where it sits blithely on the brae. There came a rush of white-headed bairns; then a good-wife who took the heather rather more reluctantly, like a motherly hen disturbed from off her comfortable nest; and then, last of all, followed the good-man, keeping well behind the yard dike, and driving the family pig before him. For this picture, in sixteen hundred and eighty-nine, affords the exact estimate of the character and conduct of his Majesty's dragoons, which the experience of thirty years had taught the moorland folk of Galloway.