About a fortnight after, on a fine forenoon, the village grocer at Norham was standing at his door, and gazing after a crowd which had passed; as he stood looking, a man dressed like a grazier came up, and, after the accustomed salutation of "How's a' wi' ye the day?" asked him what he was "glowrin" at.
"I have just been lookin at the weddin which has passed," answered the grocer; "an' sic a braw sicht hasna been seen in the village for mony a day."
"Wha's weddin is it?" asked the grazier.
"It's the daughter of ane Mr Keveley, who has settled in this place for some time—and a bonny lassie she is; and they say, she's as guid as she's bonny. She's married to ane Jones, son o' auld Bill Jones, maister o' the smack which beat the Frenchman no very lang syne yet. Every one o' the smack's crew are at the weddin; an' sic a set o' merry jovial blades were never thegither in this place afore. The folks are like to stifle them wi' kindness. But what's the queerest thing of a' is, that they a' cam oot here, this mornin, in a boat."
"In a boat!" exclaimed the grazier, in amazement—"on dry land?"
"Ay, in a boat," replied the grocer—"a lang boat, mounted upon a lang cart; an' there were they a' seated in it, wi' ribbons fleein; an' wi' the Union, as they ca' the flag which hung at the ship's mast when they beat the Frenchman; an' the folks a' shoutin, an' the bairns skirling. I declare, thae sailors are a wheen born deevils for fun and frolic; but they are sic canty chiels, that ane canna help likin them the better for a' their nonsense. They ca' the lang boat the Whim; an', faith, she's weel named—for it's a whimsical idea."
The grocer and the grazier stood talking thus to each other, till the cavalcade returned from the church—Tom and his bride in an open, four-wheeled carriage, whilst the rest all followed in the boat already mentioned.
Little of our story now remains to be told. After his marriage, Tom went to sea for a few years, in command of the Tweed; but, on the death of Mr Keveley, he retired to Norham, where he took the cottage which the old gentleman had inhabited.
Passing lately through the churchyard of T——, we went up to the grave of old Bill Jones. A neat, marble tombstone had been raised to his memory, by his son and daughter. At the bottom was the following epitaph:—
"Though Neptune's waves and Boreas' storms
Have tossed me to and fro,
In spite of all, by God's decree,
I anchor here below."