"Dost thou still stand to thy objection to the match?" again asked James.
"If your Royal Highness, as Wat Wilson," replied the farmer, smiling, "could command me and the hail household o' Cairnkibbie to do your bidding, and turn us round your finger like a piece o' packthread, I micht hae sma chance o' resistin yer authority as king o' Scotland. I hae nae objection noo to the match, seem that a king gies oot the bans."
"William Hume," resumed the laughing monarch, "hear thy doom. For the love thou didst extend and show to our royal person, we give thee a free grant of the lands of Cairnkibbie, upon this one condition—that thou consentest to the union of Lilly Hume with Will Carr, to whom we shall, out of our royal purse, give, as a marriage portion, two hundred marks."
"I canna disobey the command o' Wat Wilson," replied William with a dry smile. "He has already exercised great authority owre us a', and we winna throw aff our allegiance in this eventfu day."
A general laugh wound up the scene. The young couple were married, and a merry wedding they had of it; but there was one great exception to the general joy, and that was, that although there was many a good dancer present, and Tam Lutar was not absent, there was not to be seen or heard the jolly beggar who had, on the former occasion, been the soul of the Maiden. James became afterwards engaged in more serious concerns, and there were few who knew anything of his nocturnal exploit. The Humes were told to keep it a secret; and the lords who were present had too much regard for their king to expose his good-humoured eccentricities. When Hume became proprietor of Cairnkibbie, the people speculated; but little did they know, so well had the secret been kept, that the grant proceeded from the farmer's supposed misfortune, or that Wat Wilson the beggar, who danced so jovially at the Maiden, was the individual who had transformed William Hume from a simple farmer to one of the small Border lairds who held their heads so high in those days; and far less was it known that the same individual had brought about the marriage of Lilly Hume and Will Carr.
Thus have we attempted to describe one of those wild frolics in which the young King James V. of Scotland occasionally indulged. If he had lived to an advanced age, his subjects might have had as much reason to admire the king as they had to love the royal gaberlunzie, who, wherever he took up his quarters, whether "in a house in Aberdeen," or in the barn of Cairnkibbie, sent the fire of his spirit of love and fun throughout all with which he came in contact.