at a duchess might have
envied. Moreover, the reader will have the goodness to imagine that Job
Houghton and his dame were suitably provided for, although they could
never be persuaded that their son fell otherwise than fighting by the
young squire's side; so that Alick, who, as a lover of truth, had made
many needless attempts to expound the real circumstances to them, was
finally ordered to say not a word more upon the subject. He indemnified
himself, however, by the liberal allowance of desperate battles,
grisly executions, and rawhead and bloody-bone stories, with which he
astonished the servants' hall.

But although these important matters may be briefly told in narrative,
like a newspaper report of a Chancery suit, yet, with all the urgency
which Waverley could use, the real time which the law proceedings
occupied, joined to the delay occasioned by the mode of travelling at
that period, rendered it considerably more than two months ere Waverley,
having left England, alighted once more at the mansion of the Laird of
Duchran to claim the hand of his plighted bride.

The day of his marriage was fixed for the sixth after his arrival. The
Baron of Bradwardine, with whom bridals, christenings, and funerals,
were festivals of high and solemn import, felt a little hurt, that,
including the family of the Duchran, and all the immediate vicinity who
had title to be present on such an occasion, there could not be above
thirty persons collected. 'When he was married,' he observed, 'three
hundred horse of gentlemen born, besides servants, and some score or
two of Highland lairds, who never got on horseback, were present on the
occasion.'

But his pride found some consolation in reflecting, that he and his
son-in-law having been so lately in arms against Government, it, might
give matter of reasonable fear and offence to the ruling powers, if
they were to collect together the kith, kin, and allies of their houses,
arrayed in effeir of war, as was the ancient custom of Scotland on these
occasions--'And, without dubitation,' he concluded with a sigh, 'many of
those who would have rejoiced most freely upon these joyful espousals,
are either gone to a better place, or are now exiles from their native
land.'

The marriage took place on the appointed day. The Reverend Mr. Rubrick,
kinsman to the proprietor of the hospitable mansion where it was
solemnized, and chaplain to the Baron of Bradwardine, had the
satisfaction to unite th