IT WAS not often my father missed the Audit Dinner at the Dartmouth Arms, but for some reason I do not remember, he could not go to the November Audit of 1811. So I went in his place, as was but my due, seeing that in the course of time and nature the homestead would be mine, and I tenant to my lord in my father's stead. So to the dinner I went in great state and no little fluster, having donned my Sunday clothes, and showing as fine a leg (though I say it that should not) as ever passed Slaithwaite Church. I went by the churchyard corner where old Mr. Meeke rested in his grave, and I did not fail to doff my beaver, for was I not taught all I ever knew at the Free School, founded by Mr. Meeke, and I was, too, ever a lover of the Church, though we had joined the Hard-bedders. There had been a wedding that day, and I should have been there, but none were invited save only family friends, owing to times being so bad. Jack o' Jamie's had wed Sue Lumb, and I knew Jack o' Jamie's and Sue both, as indeed I knew every mother's son and lass in Slaithwaite; and my mother could tell their pedigree for generations back. Opposite the door of the Dartmouth Arms I came across a crowd different from ordinary, for in the midst was Jack donned in his Sunday best, and a great white rosette at his breast, and there was Sue with a white veil over her head and clinging to Jack's arm and crying and coaxing, and Jack fuming and swearing and waving his arms and shaking his fist at his own father. Sure a rare sight for a wedding day, and I stayed to hear what might be the meaning of it all. I knew Jack for a decent, hard working lad that kept his father, a drunken neer-do-weel, from the rates. Old Jamie had a hang-dog look to be sure, as he kept away from his son's reach and cowered behind his new daughter-in-law.