in a voice that made roof and rafters ring,
"bring ben the speerits, and get on the kettle--here's a cousin that I
ne'er saw in my life afore."

A few minutes served mutually to confirm and explain our
newly-discovered relationship.

"Man," said he, as we were filling a second glass, "ye've just come in
the very nick o' time; an' I'll tell ye how. Ye see I'm gaun to be
married the day after the morn; an' no haein' a friend o' ony kin-kind
in this quarter, I had to ask an acquaintance to be the best man. Now,
this was vexin' me mair than ye can think, particularly, ye see, because
the sweetheart has aye been hinting to me that it wadna be lucky for me
no to hae a bluid relation for a best man. For that matter, indeed,
luck here, luck there, I no care the toss up o' a ha'penny about omens
mysel'; but now that ye've fortunately come, I'm a great deal easier,
an' it will be ae craik out o' the way, for it will please her; an' ye
may guess, between you an' me, that she's worth the pleasin', or I wadna
had her; so I'll just step ower an' tell the ither lad that I hae a
cousin come to be my best man, an' he'll think naething o't."

On the morning of the third day, the bride and her friends arrived. She
was the only child of a Lammermoor farmer, and was in truth a real
mountain flower--a heath blossom; for the rude health that laughed upon
her cheeks approached nearer the hue of the heather-bell, than the rose
and vermillion of which poets speak. She was comely withal, possessing
an appearance of considerable strength, and was rather above the middle
size--in short, she was the very belle ideal of a miller's wife!

But to go on. Twelve couples accompanied the happy miller and his bride
to the manse, independent of the married, middle-aged, and grey-haired
visitors, who followed behind and by our side. We were thus proceeding
onward to the house of the minister, whose blessing was to make a couple
happy, and the arm of the blooming bride was through mine, when I heard
a voice, or rather let me say a sound, like the croak of a raven,
exclaim--

"Mercy on us! saw ye e'er the like o' that!--the best man, I'll declare,
has a black coat on!"

"An' that's no lucky!" replied another.

"Lucky!" responded the raven voice--"just perfectly awfu'! I wadna it
had happened at the weddin' o' a bairn o' mine for the king's
dominions."

I observed the bride steal a glance at my shoulder; I felt, or thought I
felt, as if she shrunk fro