Leddy Grippy having been, as she herself observed, ‘cheated baith o’ bridal and infare by Charlie’s moonlight marriage,’ was resolved to have all made up to her, and every jovial and auspicious rite performed at Walter’s wedding.--Accordingly, the interval between the booking and the day appointed for the ceremony was with her all bustle and business. Nor were the preparations at Kilmarkeckle to send forth the bride in proper trim, in any degree less active or liberal. Among other things, it had been agreed that each of the two families should kill a cow for the occasion, but an accident rendered this unnecessary at Grippy. At this time, Kilmarkeckle and Grippy kept two bulls who cherished the most deadly hatred of each other, insomuch that their respective herds had the greatest trouble to prevent them from constantly fighting. And on the Thursday preceding the wedding-day, Leddy Grippy, in the multitude of her cares and concerns, having occasion to send a message to Glasgow, and, unable to spare any of the other servants, called the cow-boy from the field, and dispatched him on the errand. Bausy, as their bull was called, taking advantage of his keeper’s absence, went muttering and growling for some time round the enclosure, till at last discovering a gap in the hedge, he leapt through, and, flourishing his tail, and grumbling as hoarse as an earthquake, he ran, breathing wrath and defiance, straight on towards a field beyond where Gurl, Kilmarkeckle’s bull, was pasturing in the most conjugal manner with his sultanas. Gurl knew the voice of his foe, and, raising his head from the grass, bellowed a hoarse and sonorous answer to the challenger, and, in the same moment, scampered to the hedge, on the outside of which Bausy was roaring his threats of vengeance and slaughter. The two adversaries glared for a moment at each other, and then galloped along the sides of the hedge in quest of an opening through which they might rush to satisfy their rage. In the meantime, Kilmarkeckle’s herd-boy had flown to the house for assistance, and Miss Betty, heading all the servants, and armed with a flail, came, at double quick time, to the scene of action. But, before she could bring up her forces, Bausy burst headlong through the hedge, like a hurricane. Gurl, however, received him with such a thundering batter on the ribs, that he fell reeling from the shock. A repetition of the blow laid him on the ground, gasping and struggling with rage, agony, and death, so that, before the bride and her allies were able to drive Gurl from his fallen antagonist, he had gored and fractured him in almost every bone with the force and strength of the beam of a steam-engine. Thus was Leddy Grippy prevented from killing the cow which she had allotted for the wedding-feast, the carcase of Bausy being so unexpectedly substituted.