penny
wedding, which her thrifty mother bewailed, penny weddings starting a
couple in life. I can recall nothing more characteristic of the nation
from which the Auld Lichts sprung than the penny wedding, where the
only revellers that were not out of pocket by it, were the couple who
gave the entertainment. The more the guests ate and drank the better,
pecuniarily, for their hosts. The charge for admission to the penny
wedding (practically to the feast that followed it) varied in different
districts, but with us it was generally a shilling. Perhaps the penny
extra to the fiddler accounts for the name penny wedding. The ceremony
having been gone through in the bride's house, there was an adjournment
to a barn or other convenient place of meeting, where was held the
nuptial feast; long white boards from Rob Angus's sawmill, supported on
trestles, stood in lieu of tables; and those of the company who could
not find a seat waited patiently against the wall for a vacancy. The
shilling gave every guest the free run of the groaning board, but
though fowls were plentiful, and even white bread too, little had been
spent on them. The farmers of the neighbourhood, who looked forward to
providing the young people with drills of potatoes for the coming
winter, made a bid for their custom by sending them a fowl gratis for
the marriage supper. It was popularly understood to be the oldest cock
of the farmyard, but for all that it made a brave appearance in a
shallow sea of soup. The fowls were always boiled--without exception,
so far as my memory carries me; the guid-wife never having the heart to
roast them, and so lose the broth. One round of whisky-and-water was
all the drink to which his shilling entitled the guest. If he wanted
more he had to pay for it. There was much revelry, with song and
dance, that no stranger could have thought those stiff-limbed weavers
capable of; and the more they shouted and whirled through the barn, the
more their host smiled and rubbed his hands. He presided at the bar
improvised for the occasion, and if the thing was conducted with
spirit, his bride flung an apron over her gown and helped him. I
remember one elderly bridegroom, who, having married a blind woman, had
to do double work at his penny wedding. It was a sight to see him
flitting about the torch-lit barn, with a kettle of hot water in one
hand and a besom to sweep up crumbs in the other.

Though Sam'l had no penny wedding, how