Scotch Marriages, Volume 1 by Sarah Tytler

There came a crisis to all those thoughtless daring doings, and it did / not proceed from the old Lady of Drumsheugh, much as she loved to lead / in life. She had ruled with a high hand her old husband, who, if all / tales were true, was not an easy person to guide; but his young son, / with his easy temper and pleasant speech to the world at large, though / he was a good son at home when he was let alone, threatened to prove / too much for her.

There was another mother in the case, as has been signified, -- poor / old Luckie Hedderwick -- who had never been considered more than a / sickly ‘feckless' body in her best days, and who was now bed-ridden / and dependent on her daughter's industry for her daily bread. Whether / Luckie had been from the first an accomplished and hardened deceiver / so that she could at last bring forward a strategy worthy of the rival / mother -- the Lady of Drumsheugh; whether the approach of death began to / unseal her dim and dull eyes, and to teach the foolish, ignorant old / woman wisdom beyond all earthly sagacity; whether the former dominie / who visited his aged and sick parishioner at the cottage in Peggy's / unavoidable absence, was secretly at the bottom of the manœuvre, Luckie / Hedderwick suddenly set an interdict on all future friendship and / love-making between Peggy and the laird. The old woman had been till / then as silly and inconsiderate as any lass in her teens in taking the / greatest pride and pleasure in Peggy's triumphs and conquests, and in / encouraging the girl in what other people held to be Peggy's sins of / vanity and unwarrantable ambition; but she now forbade her child, under / pain of her mother's lamentations and reproaches -- which were worse than / her wrath -- so much as to have a meeting with the gentleman, if she / could possibly foresee and prevent it.

Peggy was broken-hearted and in despair, but she never dreamt of / defying, and still less of cheating, her mother.

The laird, arrested in the full force of his passion, was goaded / to the brink of madness and driven half beside himself. No more / well-understood foregatherings with Peggy; no more interceptings of / the girl on her way to the well, or the shop, or a neighbour's house; / no more strolls among the whins and broom[3] in the twilight, careless / who saw; no more walking of his horse -- or leaping from the saddle / and walking himself -- beside her when he came up with her, which he / was pretty sure to do, on the return of both from Craigie market; no / more climbing of the breezy, heathery hill and descending on the other / side where the green trees shaded the road, throwing a white shower of / blossom there in the spring, being full of birds singing as they rifled / the fruit in summer, and in autumn dropping blood-shot leaves among / the mud and mire. The laird would gallantly insist on placing Peggy's / basket before him on the saddle, or would carry it for her. Balcairnie / either trotting on with a passing nod, or falling discreetly into the / background, determined to show that he was not curious over much, or / bent on spoiling sport.

The spectacle had hardly been an improving one. The young laird had / been demeaning himself in some lights, trifling with a poor country / girl, and exposing her, as he ought not to have done, to serious / misconstruction and harm. Peggy, like a senseless girl, had been laying / herself open to scandal and slander and a hundred graver dangers. / Still the pair had been a pretty pair, however ill-matched -- there is / no denying it. The laird in his riding-coat and boots and tops, gaily / flourishing his silver-mounted whip; Peggy in her blue-and-red striped / linsey-woolsey petticoat, white apron, blue-and-buff striped jacket, / and her duffle mantle if it chanced to be wintry weather; her fair / hair either bare and tied up with a riband -- the relic of the old snood / or cockernonie, or else covered by a Bessie-kell-a quilted cotton or / woollen hood -- under the curtains of which the bonnie face beamed with / the mingled shyness and gladness of a child's face.

In a similar manner the larger groups, in which many minor figures had / been represented with varying effect, were effaced from the canvas. / These had shown Peggy on the harvest field where the laird, like / Boaz of old, shared the labour and the mid-day meal of his servants. / Detaching Peggy from the rest, he would act as ‘bandster' to her / shearing, or he would sit at her feet, and decree that as an equivalent / to dipping her morsel in the vinegar, she should have her choice of the / scones in the basket and the first draught of ale from the pitcher. In / those days Peggy was the queen of the autumn fields -- a gentle queen / who bore the honours thrust upon her meekly. Still she did not fail to / arouse animadversion, and the entire _tableau_ tended rather to the / entertainment than the edification of the spectators.

The sensations of the company were not of a much more generous or / amiable description when Peggy was persuaded to fling her handkerchief / to Drumsheugh in the coquettish old dance of ‘The Country Bumpkin; ' or / when, at the entreaty of her lover, she sang with her flute-like pipe / to a decorously hushed assembly, or sat as mute as a mouse while he / sang in his trumpet tones. Her song might be ‘Ye Banks and Braes,' or / ‘Aye wauken O! wauken aye and weary' -- both of which ditties held tender / warnings to heedless girls, if they would but have taken the hints -- or / it might be some blyther measure. But his song never varied. It was / always the bold, barefaced declaration --

/ Young Peggy blooms our bonniest lass, / Her breath is like the morning, / The rosy dawn, the springing grass / With early gems adorning.

with a peculiar emphasis on the verse --

/ Ye powers of honour, love, and truth, / From every ill defend her; / Inspire the highly-favoured youth / The destinies intend her.