Chapter 12

But when she saw the bitter disappointment a quiet wedding would be to the prospective groom, she had not the heart to insist. For years Jimmie had buoyed up his sorely-tried courage by the ecstatic picture of himself and Kirsty dancing on their wedding night, he the envy of all the MacDonald boys, she the pattern for all the girls; and though neither he nor his bride were any longer young, he still cherished his youthful dream. And then Long Lauchie's girls came over in a body and demanded a wedding and a fine big dance, and even Big Malcolm's wife declared it would hardly be right not to have some public recognition of the fact that there was a wedding among the MacDonalds.

And so, laughing at what she called their foolishness, Kirsty yielded, and the girls came over and sewed and scrubbed and baked, and Scotty and Peter Lauchie gathered in the apples and turnips and potatoes and raked away all the dead leaves and made everything neat and tidy for the great event.

And the day actually dawned, in spite of Weaver Jimmie's anticipation that some dire catastrophe would befall to prevent it. A radiant autumn day it was, a Canadian autumn day, when all the best days of the year seem combined to crown its close. The dazzling skies belonged to June, the air was of balmiest May, and the earth was clothed in hues of the richest August blooms. The forest was a blaze of colour. The sumachs and the woodbine made flaming patches on the hills and in the fence-corners. The glossy oaks, with their polished bronze leaves, and the pale, yellow elms softened the glow and blended with the distant purple haze. But Canada's own maple made all the rest of the forest look pale, where it lined the road to the bride's house, in rainbows of colour, rose and gold and passionate crimson.

Early in the afternoon high double buggies, waggons, and buckboards began clattering up the lane to Kirsty's dwelling. And such a crowd as they brought! In the exuberance of his joy Weaver Jimmie had bidden all and sundry between the two lakes. And besides, everyone in the Oa went to a MacDonald wedding, anyway. Invitations were always issued in a rather haphazard fashion, and if one did not get a direct call, it mattered little in this land of prodigal hospitality, for one always bestowed a compliment upon one's host by attending.

Long Lauchie's girls took the whole affair out of Kirsty's hands and arranged everything to their hearts' desire. The cooking and washing of dishes was to be done in the old house, while the double ceremony of the marriage and the wedding dinner was to be performed in the new establishment.

This place was gaily decorated with the aromatic boughs of the cedar, dressed with scarlet berries and crimson maple leaves. A table at one end held the wedding presents. This was the work of the Lauchie girls, too, for Kirsty felt it was nothing short of ostentation to put up to the public gaze all the fine quilts and blankets and hooked mats the neighbours had given her towards the furnishing of the new home. But the girls had their way in this as in all other arrangements, and most conspicuous in the fine array were a Bible from the minister and a set of fine gilt-edged china dishes from Captain Herbert's family.

And amidst all this splendour sat the bride, sedate and happy, arrayed in a bright blue poplin dress and the regulation white cap.

Beside her sat Jimmie, his arm about her in proper bridegroom fashion, but loosely, for Kirsty was not to be trifled with, even on her wedding day. He sat up, erect and stiff, strangling ecstatically in a flaring white collar, and striving manfully to keep his broad smiles from overflowing into loud laughter, for poor Jimmie's belated joy bordered on the hysterical. His magnificent appearance almost eclipsed the bride. He wore a coat of black, such as the minister himself might have envied, a saffron waistcoat, and a pair of black and white trousers of a startlingly large check. His hair was oiled and combed up fiercely, his red whiskers waged a doubtful warfare for first place with the white collar, his big feet were doubly conspicuous in a pair of red-topped, high-heeled boots which, unfortunately, met the trousers halfway and swallowed up much of their glory. But as both could not be exposed, Jimmie, evidently believing in the survival of the fittest, had allowed the boots the place of honour.

Scotty drove his grandmother over to Kirsty's early in the morning, for the bride said she must have her mother's old friend with her all day; and when he returned in company with Hamish, his grandfather, and Old Farquhar, it was almost the hour set for the ceremony.

The wedding guests had already gathered in large numbers, many of them standing about the door or in the garden--matrons in gay plaid shawls, with here and there a fantastic "Paisley" brought out, for this festive occasion, from the seclusion of some deep sea-chest; men, weather-beaten and stooped, in grey flannel shirtsleeves, showing an occasional genteel Sabbath coat from the Glen; bright-eyed lasses, with gay touches of finery to brighten their young beauty; youths in heavy boots and homespun clothing, gathered in laughing groups as far from the house as possible; and everywhere babies of all sizes.

Scotty left a crowd of his friends at the barn and went up to the house to look for Monteith. The schoolmaster had spent the preceding Saturday and Sunday with his friends at Lake Oro, but had promised Jimmie faithfully that he would not miss the wedding. As the young man swung open the little garden gate and came up the pathway between rows of Kirsty's asters he caught sight of his friend standing in the doorway of the new house, and gave a gay whistle. Monteith looked up quickly, but instead of answering he turned to someone inside the house.

"Here he is at last," he called, "come and see if you think he's grown any."

And the same instant a vision flashed into the little doorway, a vision that nearly took away Scotty's breath--a tall young lady in a blue velvet gown with a sweet, laughing face and a crown of golden hair overshadowed by a big plumed hat, a lady who looked as if she had just stepped out of a book of romance; a high-born princess, very remote and unapproachable, and yet, somehow, strangely, enchantingly familiar.

The vision apparently did not want to be remote, for it came down the steps in a little, headlong rush, casting a pair of gloves to one side and a cape to the other, and caught hold of both Scotty's hands.

"_Scotty_! Oh, oh, Scotty, _dear_!" it cried; and then it was no longer an unapproachable heroine from a story-book, but just Isabel; Isabel, his old chum, and something more, something strangely wonderfully new.

Scotty did not return her welcome with the warmth he would have shown a few years earlier. He stood gazing down at her as if in a dream, and then the red came up under the dark tan of his cheek and overspread his face. He dropped her hands and looked around hastily, as if he wanted to escape. But Isabel dragged him up the garden path in her old way, deluging him with questions for which she never waited an answer. She had seen Granny Malcolm and Betty and Peter, and she had been afraid he wasn't coming. And, oh, wasn't it an awfully long time since she had seen any of them? And didn't he think he was very unkind not to have answered her last two letters? And she had been away at school all this endless time, not home to the Grange even in the summer! And, oh, how glad she was to get back! And how he had grown! Why, he was a giant! And had he missed her? She had missed him just awfully, for Harold was away all the time now. And wasn't it just too perfectly lovely for anything that Kirsty and Jimmie were getting married, and that he and she were together at the wedding?

Scotty stood and listened to these ecstatic outpourings, his head swimming. He was enveloped in a rose-coloured mist, a mist in which blue velvet and golden hair and dancing eyes surrounded and dazzled him. One moment he was a child again, and his little playmate had come back, and the next he was a man and Isabel was the lady of romance. And while he stood in this delightful daze someone came and took the vision away; he thought it was Mary Lauchie, but was not sure. When she had disappeared into the new house he awoke sufficiently to notice that Monteith was standing at the door regarding him with twinkling eyes, and for the second time that afternoon he blushed.

The crowd was beginning to gravitate towards the new house, and Scotty soon found an excuse to enter also. It hadn't been a dream after all, for she was there, sitting close by Kirsty, holding her hand, and surrounded by the people who made up the more genteel portion of society in the Oa and the Glen. A little space seemed to divide them from the common crowd, and she sat, the recognised centre of the group. Scotty noticed, too, that even Mrs. Cameron, the minister's wife, treated the young lady with bland deference, quite unlike her manner of kind condescension towards the MacDonald girls. As he watched the graceful gestures and easy well-bred air of his late comrade, Scotty was suddenly smitten with a sense of his own shortcomings; he was rough, uncouth, awkward. Isabel belonged to a different sphere; she was far removed from him and his people. It was the first time he had realised the difference, and he felt it just at the moment that it first had power to hurt him. He experienced a sudden return of the old wild ambition that used to shake him in his childhood when Rory played a warlike air. And then he wanted to slip out and go away from the wedding feast and never see Isabel again. He glanced at her again, and felt resentfully that she must surely be guilty of the sin of "pride," which so characterised the class to which she belonged.

But he had soon to change his mind. The blue eyes had been glancing eagerly about the room, and as soon as they spied him their owner arose and came crushing through the throng towards him. For though Scotty was distrustful, Isabel's frank simplicity of nature had not changed in her years of absence. Her happiest days had been spent in the Oa, and her return to her old home with its sense of welcome and freedom meant more to the lonely girl than he could realise. Practically she had been brought up among the MacDonalds, and at heart she was one of them.

Scotty saw her approach in combined joy and embarrassment, and just as he was trying to efface himself in a corner he found her at his side. She wanted to talk about the good old times, she whispered, as she pulled him down beside her on the low window sill. "They were just the loveliest old times, weren't they, Scotty? And don't you hate to be grown up?" she asked.

Hate it? Scotty gloried in it. It was a new birth. He tried to say so, but Isabel shook her head emphatically.

"Well, I don't, and you wouldn't in my place, for I can't run in the bush any more. Aunt Eleanor bewails me; she says I've been spoiled by Kirsty, for I can't settle down to a proper life in the city. The backwoods is the best place, isn't it, Scotty?"

He drew a long breath. "Do you mean you'd really like to come here and live with--with Kirsty again?" he asked.

"Oh, wouldn't I?" she cried, her eyes sparkling so that Scotty had to look away. "It was never dull here. Don't you wish I'd come back, too?"

Scotty felt his head reeling. "I--don't know," he faltered ungallantly.

"You don't know?" she echoed indignantly. "Scotty MacDonald, how can you say such a mean thing?"

Scotty looked up with a sudden desperate boldness.

"Because I wouldn't be doing any work if you were here," he exclaimed with a recklessness that appalled even himself.

Isabel laughed delightedly. "That's lovely," she cried. "Do you know, I was beginning to be afraid, _almost_, that you weren't just very glad to see me, and--and you always used to be. You _are_ glad I came, aren't you, Scotty?"

Like a timid swimmer, who, having once plunged in, discovers his own strength and gains courage, Scotty struck out boldly into the conversational sea.

"It was the best thing that ever happened in all my life," he answered deliberately.

She was prevented from receiving this important declaration with the consideration it deserved by a sudden silence falling over the room. The minister was standing up in the centre of the room, clearing his throat and looking around portentously. The ceremony was about to commence, and all conversation was instantly hushed. Mothers quieted their babies, and the men came clumsily tiptoeing indoors. Whenever possible the more ceremonious precincts of the house were left to the more adaptable sex, the masculine portion of such assemblies always retiring to the greater freedom of the barn and outbuildings. Now they came crowding in, however, obviously embarrassed, but when the minister stood up, book in hand, and a hush fell over the room, the affair took on a religious aspect and everyone felt more at home.

Mr. Cameron moved to a little open space in the centre of the room, and bade Kirsty and Weaver Jimmie stand before him. Mary Lauchie, pale and drooping as she always was now, stood at Kirsty's side, and Jimmie had the much needed support of Roarin' Sandy's Archie, now the most fashionable young man in the Oa, who was resplendent in aromatic hair oil and a flaming tie. Jimmie was white and trembling, but Kirsty was calm. Only once did she show any emotion, when she had to search for her neatly-folded handkerchief in the pocket of her ample skirt to wipe away a tear--a tear that, all the sympathetic onlookers knew, was for the little mother who had said so confidently she had no fears for Kirsty's future.

At last the minister pronounced them one, and the friends gathered about them with their congratulations, and, to the delight of all, what should Miss Herbert do, after hugging the bride, but fling her arms about the bridegroom's neck also and give him a sounding kiss! If anything could have added to Jimmie's pride and joy at that moment, this treatment by Kirsty's little girl would certainly have done so.

And then came the wedding supper, the tables set out with the precious new china dishes and weighed down and piled up with everything good the MacDonald matrons knew how to cook. The bride and groom sat close together at the head of the long table, Jimmie's affectionate demonstrations partially hidden by the huge wedding cake. The minister sat at the foot, and after a long and fervent grace had been said everyone drew a deep breath and proceeded to enjoy himself.

There was a deal of clatter and noise and laughter and running to and fro of waiters. In the old house where the work was going on, and where there was no minister to put a damper on the proceedings, there were high times indeed; for Dan Murphy was there, and wherever Dan was there was sure to be an uproar. Scotty was responsible for the young man's presence; he had invited Mr. Murphy on the strength of his own relationship to both contracting parties, knowing a warm welcome was assured. So, with an apron tied round his waist, Dan was making a fine pretence of helping Betty Lauchie wash dishes, his chief efforts, however, being directed towards balancing pots of boiling water in impossible positions, twirling precious plates in the air, and other outlandish feats that added a great deal to the enjoyment, but very little to the competence, of the assembled cooks.

Scotty joined the army of workers in the shanty, but he had left the blue vision seated at the table between his grandparents, and his culinary efforts were not much more successful than Dan's. His chum tried to rally him on his absent looks, and made a sly allusion to the effusive greeting of the young lady from Lake Oro. But Scotty met his well-meant raillery with such unwonted ferocity that he very promptly subsided.

In the new house, where the elder guests were gathered about the table, affairs were much more ceremonious, for all the genteel folk the neighbourhood could boast were there, and Jimmie's face shone with pride as he glanced down the splendid array.

The bridegroom's joy seemed to permeate the whole feast. There was much talk and laughter, and, among the elder women, a wonderful clatter of Gaelic. For only on such rare occasions as this had they a chance to meet, and there were many lengthy recountings of sicknesses, deaths, and burials.

Long Lauchie, as usual, was full of vague and ominous prophecies. His remarks were chiefly concerning the wedding feast to which those who were bidden refused to come, with dark reference to the man who had not on the wedding garment; neither of which allusions, surely, pointed to either Weaver Jimmie or his marriage festivities. Near him, in a little circle where English was spoken, Praying Donald and the minister were leading a discussion on the evidences of Christianity. There was only one quarter in which there were signs of anything but perfect amity, and that was where a heated argument had arisen between Old Farquhar and Peter Sandy Johnstone upon the respective merits of Ossian and Burns; a discussion which, in spite of the age of the disputants, would certainly have ended in blows, had it been in the old days when a marriage was scarcely considered binding without a liberal supply of whiskey.

But Kirsty's wedding, happily, belonged to the new era, and the minister, glancing round the well conducted assemblage and recalling the days, not so far past, when most of the Highlanders enlivened any and every social function, from a barn-raising to a burial, with spirits, heaved a great sigh of gratitude. And Store Thompson unconsciously voiced his sentiments when he declared, in a neatly turned little speech, that the occasion was "jist an auspicious consummation-like."

There were several other speakers besides the minister and Store Thompson, and each made the kindliest allusions to both bride and groom; but, like the true Scots they were, carefully refrained from paying compliments. There were songs and stories, too, stirring Scottish choruses, and tales of the early days and of the great doings in the homeland. Then Big Malcolm's Farquhar, who had long ago come to regard himself in the light of the old itinerant bards, sang, like Chibiabos, to make the wedding guests more contented. He had but a single English song in his repertoire, one which he rendered with much pride, and only on state occasions. This was a flowery love-lyric, entitled "The Grave of Highland Mary," and was Farquhar's one tribute to the despised Burns. It consisted of a half-dozen lengthy stanzas, each followed by a still lengthier refrain, and was sung to an ancient and erratic air that rose and fell like the wail of the winter winds in the bare treetops. The venerable minstrel sang with much fervour, and only in the last stanza did the swelling notes subside in any noticeable degree. This was not because the melancholy words demanded, but because the singer was rather out of breath. So he sang with some breathless hesitation:

"Yet the green simmer saw but a few sunny mornings Till she, in the bloom of her beauty and pride, Was laid in her grave like a bonnie young flower In Greenock kirkyard on the banks of the Clyde."

But, when he found himself launched once more upon the familiar refrain, he rallied his powers and sang out loudly and joyfully:

"Then bring me the lilies and bring me the roses, And bring me the daisies that grow in the dale, And bring me the dew of the mild summer evening, And bring me the breath of the sweet-scented gale; And bring me the sigh of a fond lover's bosom, And bring me the tear of a fond lover's e'e, And I'll pour them a' doon on thy grave, Highland Mary, For the sake o' thy Burns who sae dearly loved thee!"

It did not seem the kind of song exactly suited to a hymeneal feast, but everyone listened respectfully until the old man had wavered through to the end and called, for the last time, for the lilies, the roses and the daisies; and before he had time to start another Fiddlin' Archie struck up "Scots Wha Hae," and the whole company joined.

When everyone, even to the last waiter in the old shanty, had been fed and the tables were all cleared away, Scotty deserted Monteith, and once more took up his station on the window sill where he could catch glimpses of Isabel's golden head through the crowd. He could see she was the object of many admiring glances; the MacDonald girls stood apart whispering wondering remarks concerning the beauty of her velvet gown, and even Betty Lauchie seemed shy of her old playmate. Nevertheless, when, upon spying him in his corner, Isabel came again and seated herself beside him, Scotty forgot all differences between them and blossomed out into friendliness under the light of her eyes. For she had clear, honest eyes that looked beneath the rough exterior of her country friends and recognised the true, leal hearts beneath. Yes, she was the same old Isabel, Scotty declared to himself, and something more, something he hardly dared think of yet.

He sat and chatted freely with her of all that had happened since they had last met, her life in a ladies' boarding school and his progress under Monteith's instruction, and he found that with all her schooling he was far ahead of her in book knowledge. Then there were past experiences to recall; the playhouse they had built beneath the Silver Maple, the mud pies they had made down by the edge of the swamp, the excursions down the Birch Creek, and the part they had played in poor Callum's sad romance.

"And what are you going to be, Scotty?" she asked. "Don't you remember it was always either an Indian or a soldier, a 'Black Watcher' you used to call it? You ought to go to college, you must be more than prepared for it since you've learned so much from Mr. Monteith."

Scotty's eyes glowed. A college course was the dream of his life, sleeping or waking. But he shook his head.

"I'd like it," he said, trying to keep the gloom out of his voice, "but there's not much chance."

"Oh, dear," sighed the girl, "things seem to be all wrong in this world. There's Harold now; Uncle Walter fairly begged him to go to college, but he went only one year."

"Where is your cousin now?"

"He's in the English navy, and poor Uncle frets for him. He's an officer too. I can't imagine Hal making anybody mind him. I always used to be the 'party in power,' as Uncle Walter used to say when Hal was home."

Scotty laughed. "I expect he'd have a hard time if he didn't let you have your own way," he said slyly.

"Now, Scotty, you know you didn't let me have my own way, now, did you? But somehow, I think I was always in a better humour at Kirsty's here, I didn't have anyone to bother me."

"I know what I'd like most to be," said Scotty, with a sudden burst of feeling.

"What?"

"A Prince!"

"A Prince! Why, in all the world?"

"Because you are just like all the Princesses I have ever read about." Scotty was making headlong progress in a subject to which he had never been even introduced by Monteith.

The girl looked up at him with an expression of half-amused wonder in her eyes.

"Why, Scotty," she declared, "you're as bad as any society man for paying compliments. But you will be something great some day, I know. Mr. Monteith says so."

Scotty's face lit up. "If I'm ever worth anything I'll owe it all to him," he exclaimed enthusiastically. "Isn't he fine?"

"He's just a dear. If it hadn't been for his help I should never have been able to come for this visit. But he told Aunt Eleanor that we would elope if I wasn't allowed to come. Isn't he funny? And just think, Scotty, I'm going to stay a whole month, perhaps two!"

Scotty was speechless.