ever, we made a night of it at
his marriage.

Wedding chariots were not in those days, though I know of Auld Lichts
being conveyed to marriages nowadays by horses with white ears. The
tea over, we formed in couples, and--the best man with the bride, the
bridegroom with the best maid, leading the way--marched in slow
procession in the moonlight night to Tibbie's new home, between lines
of hoarse and eager onlookers. An attempt was made by an itinerant
musician to head the company with his fiddle; but instrumental music,
even in the streets, was abhorrent to sound Auld Lichts, and the
minister had spoken privately to Willie Todd on the subject. As a
consequence, Peter was driven from the ranks. The last thing I saw
that night, as we filed, bare-headed and solemn, into the newly-married
couple's house, was Kitty McQueen's vigorous arm, in a dishevelled
sleeve, pounding a pair of urchins who had got between her and a muddy
ha'penny.

That night there was revelry and boisterous mirth (or what the Auld
Lichts took for such) in Tibbie's kitchen. At eleven o'clock Davit
Lunan cracked a joke. Davie Haggart, in reply to Bell Dundas's
request, gave a song of distinctly secular tendencies. The bride (who
had carefully taken off her wedding gown on getting home and donned a
wrapper) coquettishly let the bridegroom's father hold her hand. In
Auld Licht circles, when one of the company was offered whisky and
refused it, the others, as if pained even at the offer, pushed it from
them as a thing abhorred. But Davie Haggart set another example on
this occasion, and no one had the courage to refuse to follow it. We
sat late round the dying fire, and it was only Willie Todd's scandalous
assertion (he was but a boy) about his being able to dance that induced
us to think of moving. In the community, I understand, this marriage
is still memorable as the occasion on which Bell Whamond laughed in the
minister's face.

CHAPTER V

THE AULD LICHTS IN ARMS

Arms and men I sing: douce Jeemsy Todd, rushing from his loom, armed
with a bed-post; Lisbeth Whamond, an avenging whirlwind; Neil Haggart,
pausing in his thanks-offerings to smite and slay; the impious foe
scudding up the bleeding Brae-head with Nemesis at their flashing
heels; the minister holding it a nice question whether the carnage was
not justified. Then came the two hours' sermons of the following
Sabbath, when Mr. Dishart, revolving like a teetotum in the pulpit