The entire arrangements were agreed on that evening, the laird chalking them out very much according to his vagrant fancy, Peggy and her mother assenting with meek, swelling hearts, simply entering a humble protest and venturing on a mild amendment when he suggested a clean impossibility. It would be far pleasanter as well as safer, since the marriage was not to be made public immediately, for the affair to take place from home. Peggy had a cousin--a decent man--a cow-keeper near Edinburgh. She could go on a visit to his wife. Such a visit would be made worth the couple’s while; in fact, they were likely to be filled with importance at the part they were called on to play. Drumsheugh and Balcairnie could easily take a ride to town treading on Peggy’s heels early one fine morning, or late one propitious evening; Peggy, with her cousins to bear her company, and the laird, with Balcairnie as his supporter, would join in a stroll to look at the shop windows or admire the big houses, until they reached the particular house the laird spoke of as the Temple of Hymen, to the mystified ears hanging on his words. There Peggy and he would take the half-merk together in the most popular mode. They would acknowledge themselves man and wife, and sign the lines before some queer sort of mass-John and a notary, as well as before Peggy’s cousins and Balcairnie; and the knot would be so securely tied that only death could sever it. Peggy would come back to her mother and the Cotton, and he would return to his mother and Drumsheugh. Nobody need be any wiser till the couple chose to proclaim what had been accomplished, when he should be at liberty to put his wife into his mother’s seat. But he felt sure his Peggy would not refuse to bide a wee for her honours, and would not weary while she had his love and care. And Mrs. Hedderwick would not seek to come between the pair when they were man and wife. Peggy would not weary, would not refuse to wait a hundred years--always supposing she lived a century and retained Drumsheugh’s unshaken love and faith while the years lasted. Was she to dictate terms and exact favours which were far beyond her original estate? She would be well off if Drumsheugh owned her for his wife, though it were but with his dying breath. As for Luckie Hedderwick, she would no more interfere with the laird’s rights when he had established them, than she would challenge the prerogative of the King. It all came to pass as Drumsheugh had ordained it. In an irregular and yet in a deliberate, formal manner, quite legal according to the liberal law of Scotland, and with ancient custom to justify the act, by no mock marriage, but by a binding rite, as both knew, Jamie Ramsay wedded Peggy Hedderwick. No exposure followed the event, though it did not go unattended by vague suspicions and fitful rumours. Such marriages were not so unheard of as to prevent the signs of their recurrence from being quickly noted and eagerly caught up.