n the morning he had quitted for the last time; but as I entered, he
half rose, and, seizing on a pair of new shoes which had been prepared
for the bride, and lay on a table beside him, he hurled them against the
wall, first the one and then the other, until they came rebounding back
across the room; and then, with an exclamation that need not be
repeated, he dashed himself down again. I did my best to comfort his
poor mother, who seemed to feel very keenly the slight done to her son,
and to anticipate with dread the scandal and gossip of which it would
render her humble household the subject. She seemed sensible, however,
that he had made an escape, and at once acquiesced in my suggestion,
that all that should now be done would be to get every expense her son
had been at in his preparations for housekeeping and the wedding
transferred to the shoulders of the other party. And such an arrangement
could, I thought, be easily effected through the bride's brother, who
seemed to be a reasonable man, and who would be aware also that a suit
at law could be instituted in the case against his sister; though in any
such suit I held it might be best for both parties not to engage. And at
the old woman's request, I set out with the carpenter to wait on the
bride's brother, in order to see whether he was not prepared for some
such arrangement as I suggested, and, besides, able to furnish us with
some explanation of the extraordinary step taken by the bride.

We were overtaken, as we passed along the street, by a person who was,
he said, in search of us, and who now requested us to accompany him;
and, threading our way, under his guidance, through a few narrow lanes
that traverse the assemblage of houses on the west bank of the Ness, we
stopped at the door of an obscure alehouse. This, said our conductor, we
have found to be the retreat of the bride. He ushered us into a room
occupied by some eight or ten persons, drawn up on the opposite sides,
with a blank space between. On the one side sat the bride, a
high-coloured, buxom young girl, serene and erect as Britannia on the
halfpennies, and guarded by two stout fellows, masons or slaters
apparently, in their working dresses. They looked hard at the carpenter
and me as we entered, of course regarding us as the assailants against
whom they would have to maintain their prize. On the other side sat a
group of the bride's relatives--among the rest her brother--silent, and
all apparently ve