To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm, than all the gloss of art.—Goldsmith.
Gentle reader! you, I doubt not, have seen many strange sights, and have passed through a variety of eventful scenes. Perhaps you have visited the Thames Tunnel, and there threaded your way under ground and under water, or you may have witnessed Mr Green’s balloon ascent, and seen him take an airing on horseback among the clouds.
Perhaps, too, you have been an observer of human life in all its varieties and extremes: one night figuring away at Almack’s with aristocratic beauty, and the next footing it with a band of gipsies in Epping Forest. But, pray tell me, have you ever seen an Orkney Wedding? If not, as I have just received an invitation to one, inclusive of a friend, you shall, if it so please you, accompany me to that scene of rural hospitality.
In conformity with the custom of the country, I have sent off to the young couple a pair of fowls and a leg of mutton, to play their parts upon the festive board; and as every family contributes in like manner, a general pic-nic is formed, which considerably diminishes the expense incident to the occasion; although, as the festivities are frequently kept up for three or four days by a numerous assemblage of rural beauty and fashion, the young people must contrive to live upon love, if they can, during the first year of their union, having little else left upon which to subsist, except the fragments of the mighty feast.
Well, then, away we go, and about noon approach the scene of festivity,—a country-seat built in the cottage style, thatched with straw, and flanked with a barn and a well-filled corn-yard, enclosed with a turf-dyke.
The wedding company are now seen making their way towards the place of rendezvous; and the young women, arrayed in white robes of emblematic purity, exhibit a most edifying example of economy. With their upper garments carried to a height to which the fashion of short petticoats never reached even at Paris, they trip it away barefooted through the mud, until they reach the banks of a purling stream, about a quarter of a mile distant from the wedding-house. Here their feet, having been previously kissed by the crystal waters, and covered with cotton stockings, which in whiteness would fain vie with the skin they enviously conceal, are inserted into shoes, in whose mirror of glossy black the enamoured youth obtains a peep of his own charms, while stooping down to adjust their ties into a love-knot.
Immediately in front of the outer-door, or principal entrance of the house, and answering the double purpose of shelter and ornament, stands a broad square pile, composed of the most varied materials, needless to be enumerated, and vulgarly denominated a midden, around the base of which some half-dozen of pigs are acting the part of miners, in search of its hidden treasures. It is separated from the house by a sheet of water, tinged with the fairest hues of heaven and earth, viz., blue and green, and over which we pass by a bridge of stepping-stones.
And now, my friend, before entering the house, it may be as well to consider what character you are to personate during the entertainment; for the good people in these islands, like their neighbours of the mainland of Scotland, take that friendly interest in other people’s affairs, which the thankless world very unkindly denominates impertinent curiosity.
If I pass you off as a lawyer, you will immediately be overwhelmed with statements of their quarrels and grievances; for they are main fond of law, and will expend the hard-earned savings of years in litigation, although the subject-matter of dispute should happen to be only a goose. You must not, therefore, belong to the bar, since, in the present case, consultations would produce no fees.