Therefore, bathing our feet in beauty, we went bounding over the flowery fields and broomy braes to the grove-girdled Craig-Hall. During the long noisy day, we thought not of the coming evening, happy as we knew it was to be; and during the long and almost as noisy evening, we forgot all the pastime of the day. Weeks before, had each of us engaged his partner for the first country dance, by right his own when supper came, and to sit close to him with her tender side, with waist at first stealthily arm-encircled, and at last boldly and almost with proud display. In the churchyard, before or after Sabbath-service, a word whispered into the ear of blooming and blushing rustic sufficed; or if that opportunity failed, the angler had but to step into her father's burnside cottage, and with the contents of his basket leave a tender request, and from behind the gable-end carry away a word, a smile, a kiss, and a waving farewell.
Many a high-roofed hall have we, since those days, seen made beautiful with festoons and garlands, beneath the hand of taste and genius decorating, for some splendid festival, the abode of the noble expecting a still nobler guest. But oh! what pure bliss, and what profound, was then breathed into the bosom of boyhood from that glorious branch of hawthorn, in the chimney--itself almost a tree, so thick--so deep--so rich its load of blossoms--so like its fragrance to something breathed from heaven--and so transitory in its sweetness too, that as she approached to inhale it, down fell many a snow-flake to the virgin's breath--in an hour all melted quite away! No broom that nowadays grows on the brae, so yellow as the broom--the golden broom--the broom that seemed still to keep the hills in sunlight long after the sun himself had sunk--the broom in which we first found the lintwhite's nest--and of its petals, more precious than pearls, saw framed a wreath for the dark hair of that dark-eyed girl, an orphan, and melancholy even in her merriment--dark-haired and dark-eyed indeed, but whose forehead, whose bosom, were yet whiter than the driven snow. Greenhouses--conservatories-- orangeries--are exquisitely balmy still--and, in presence of these strange plants, one could believe that he had been transported to some rich foreign clime. But now we carry the burden of our years along with us--and that consciousness bedims the blossoms, and makes mournful the balm, as from flowers in some fair burial-place, breathing of the tomb. But oh! that Craig-Hall hawthorn! and oh! that Craig-Hall broom! they send their sweet rich scent so far into the hushed air of memory, that all the weary worn-out weaknesses of age drop from us like a garment, and even now--the flight of that swallow seems more aerial--more alive with bliss his clay-built nest--the ancient long-ago blue of the sky returns to heaven--not for many a many a long year have we seen so fair--so frail--so transparent and angel-mantle-looking a cloud! The very viol speaks--the very dance responds in Craig-Hall: this--this is the very Festival of the First Day of the Rooks--Mary Mather, the pride of the parish--the county--the land--the earth--is our partner--and long mayest thou, O moon! remain behind thy cloud--when the parting kiss is given--and the love-letter, at that tenderest moment, dropped into her bosom!