service--the
days of my father glided over like the waters of a deep river that make
little noise in their course; so I do not know whether to lament or to
rejoice at having almost nothing to record of him. Had Buonaparte as
little ill to account for, it would be well this day for him:--but, losh
me! I had almost skipped over his wedding.

In the five-and-twentieth year of his age, he had fallen in love with my
mother, Marion Laverock, at the christening of a neighbour's bairn, where
they both happened to forgather; little, I daresay, jealousing, at the
time their eyes first met, that fate had destined them for a pair, and to
be the honoured parents of me, their only bairn. Seeing my father's
heart was catched as in the net of the fowler, she took every lawful
means, such as adding another knot to her cockernony, putting up her hair
in screw curls, and so on, to follow up her advantage; the result of all
which was, that, after three months' courtship, she wrote a letter out to
her friends at Loanhead, telling them of what was more than likely to
happen, and giving a kind invitation to such of them as might think it
worth their whiles to come in and be spectators of the ceremony.--And a
prime day I am told they had of it, having, by advice of more than one,
consented to make it a penny wedding; and hiring Deacon Laurie's maltbarn
at five shillings, for the express purpose.

Many yet living, among whom James Batter, who was the best-man, and
Duncan Imrie, the heelcutter in the Flesh-Market Close, are still above
board to bear solemn testimony to the grandness of the occasion, and the
uncountable numerousness of the company, with such a display of mutton-
broth, swimming thick with raisins,--and roasted jiggets of lamb,--to say
nothing of mashed turnips and champed potatoes,--as had not been seen in
the wide parish of Dalkeith in the memory of man. It was not only my
father's bridal day, but it brought many a lad and lass together by way
of partners at foursome reels and Hieland jigs, whose courtship did not
end in smoke, couple above couple dating the day of their happiness from
that famous forgathering. There were no less than three fiddlers, two of
them blind with the small-pox, and one naturally; and a piper with his
drone and chanter, playing as many pibrochs as would have deaved a mill-
happer,--all skirling, scraping, and bumming away throughither, the whole
afternoon and night, and keeping half the countryside