A general laugh wound up the scene. The young couple were married, and a merry wedding they had of it; but there was one great exception to the general joy, and that was, that although there was many a good dancer present, and Tam Lutar was not absent, there was not to be seen or heard the jolly beggar who had, on the former occasion, been the soul of the Maiden. James became afterwards engaged in more serious concerns, and there were few who knew anything of his nocturnal exploit. The Humes were told to keep it a secret; and the lords who were present had too much regard for their king to expose his good-humoured eccentricities. When Hume became proprietor of Cairnkibbie, the people speculated; but little did they know, so well had the secret been kept, that the grant proceeded from the farmer's supposed misfortune, or that Wat Wilson the beggar, who danced so jovially at the Maiden, was the individual who had transformed William Hume from a simple farmer to one of the small Border lairds who held their heads so high in those days; and far less was it known that the same individual had brought about the marriage of Lilly Hume and Will Carr.
Thus have we attempted to describe one of those wild frolics in which the young King James V. of Scotland occasionally indulged. If he had lived to an advanced age, his subjects might have had as much reason to admire the king as they had to love the royal gaberlunzie, who, wherever he took up his quarters, whether "in a house in Aberdeen," or in the barn of Cairnkibbie, sent the fire of his spirit of love and fun throughout all with which he came in contact.
EARLY RECOLLECTIONS OF A SON OF THE HILLS.
I have oftentimes thought, what, I dare say, has been thought again and again by thousands before I was born, and will be thought by as many millions after I have ceased both to think and speak--I have thought that, if any one were to give an exact transcript of his feelings and experience, in early life in particular--without any connecting link even, beyond that of time and place--such a written record could not fail to be exceedingly interesting. The novelty of the scene; the uncloyed character of the feelings; the harpy-clutching nature of the imagination; the variety of sources within and without, from which pleasure is derived and is derivable--all these form a mine of delightful insight, which has not, perhaps, ever yet been exhausted--a mine conducting to, and losing itself in, that far-away central darkness which precedes perception, recollection, existence. I remember--and it is an awful remembrance--the death of my grandmother when I was only four years old. There she lies in that bed. Alongside of that sheet, there are my mother and the minister kneeling in prayer. The whisper is conveyed to the minister's ear--"Sir, she has win to _rest_!" Oh, that sweet word rest!--rest negative, rest positive--rest from, rest in, rest amidst a sea of troubles--rest in an ocean of glorious happiness! "Sir, she has win to rest!" I can never forget the words, nor the look, nor the place, nor the all which then constituted _me_. The minister pauses in the middle of a sentence, he rises from his knees, and, taking my mother's hand in his, as well as mine in the other, he approaches the bed of death; but, O my soul, what an impression is made upon me! My grandmother--the figure with the short cloak over her shoulders, the check apron, the tobacco-box, and the short cutty-pipe--the speaking, conversing, kind-hearted figure--what is _it now_? Asleep!--but the eyes are open, and frightfully unmeaning. Asleep!--but the mouth is somewhat awry, and there is an expression unknown, intolerable, terrible, all over the countenance.