Cecil soon made me comprehend, that she meant a brideman; whose office, she said, was to accompany the bridegroom when he went to invite guests to his wedding, and to attend him when he conducted his bride to her home. She told me, that, according to the custom of her country, her wedding was not celebrated till some weeks after she had taken the vows of wedlock; the Highland husband, once secure of his prize, prudently postponing the nuptial festivities and the honey-moon, till the close of harvest brought an interval of leisure. Meanwhile, the forsaken lover, whose attachment had become respectable by its constancy, as well as pitiable by its disappointment, was removed from the scene of his rival's success by the humanity of Henry Graham, who contrived to employ him in a distant part of the country. But, in the restlessness of a disordered understanding, poor Robert left his post; wandered unconsciously many a mile; and reached his native glen on the day of Cecil's wedding. By means of much rhetoric and gesticulation upon Cecil's part, and innumerable questions upon mine, I obtained a tolerably distinct idea of the ceremonial of this wedding. Upon the eventful morning, the reluctant bride presided at a public breakfast, which was attended by all her acquaintance, and honoured by the presence of 'the laird himsel'.' I will not bring discredit upon the refinement of my Gael, by specifying the materials of this substantial repast, as they were detailed to me with _naïve_ vanity by Cecil; but I may venture to tell, that, like more elegant fêtes of the same name, it was succeeded by dancing. 'I danced with the rest,' said Cecil, 'tho', with your leave, it made my very heart sick; and many a time I thought, oh, if this dancing were but for my lykwake.'[16] The harbingers of the bridegroom, (or, to use Cecil's phrase, the _send_,) a party of gay young men and women, arrived. Cecil, according to etiquette, met them at the door, welcomed, and offered them refreshments; then turned from them, as the prisoner from one who brings his death-warrant, struggling to gather decent fortitude from despair.