"Nae wonder the fiddles made us come, it's the gypsy band, factor;" and
Jessie pointed out five or six dark, handsome fellows with tumbled black
hair, and half-shut gleaming eyes, who had ranged themselves with sullen
shyness and half-rebellious order at the upper end of the room. But how
wondrously their slim, supple fingers touched the bow, or the strings!
They played like magicians, and wrought the slow, grave natures before
them up to a very riot of ravishing motion. Faster and faster flew the
bounding, sliding feet; the dancers being stimulated by the musicians, and
the musicians driven to a passion of excitement by those exhilarating
cries, and those snappings of the fingers, through which the canny Scot
relieves the rapture of his delicious dancing.
But mere physical delight never satisfies even the humblest gathering of
this douce nationality. In a few hours the fiddles were stopped, and the
table set out, and the great bowl of wedding punch brought in, to brighten
wit, and song, and story. It was then very near the close of the day, and
with it came Mary Campbell to give the bridal toast. She had been dancing
with her own friends, and her cheeks were like a delicate flame, and her
eyes like twin stars. Never had she looked so beautiful, as when standing
amid the standing crowd, she raised the tiny glass above her head, and
said in the sudden stillness--
_"Here's to the bonnie Bride!
Long may she live! and happy may she be!"_
Then hand clasped hand, and glass touched glass, and heart touched heart,
and from every lip rang out, again and again, the loving, joyful
invocation--
"Here's to the bonnie Bride!
Long may she live! and happy may she be!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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