The Changed Brides
9781465677020
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
A wild and wintry night, in a wild and wintry scene! The old turnpike road running through the mountain pass, lonely at the best times, seemed quite deserted now. The old Scotch toll-gate keeper sat shivering over his blazing hickory wood fire, and listening to the dashing rain and beating wind that seemed to threaten the destruction of his rude dwelling. His old wife sat near him, spinning yarn from a small wheel that she turned with the united action of hand and foot. “Ugh!” shuddered the old man, as a blast fiercer than ever shook the house, “it ’ill ding down the old dwelling next, and no harm done! An it were once blown away, the company would behoove to build us anither strong enough to stand the storms o’ these parts. Hech! but it’s awfu’ cold.” “Pit anither log on the fire, gudeman. Wood’s plenty enough, that’s a blessing,” said the old woman, without ceasing to turn her wheel. “Wha’s the use, Jenny? Ye’ll no warm sic an old place as this. Eh, woman, but whiles my knees are roasting, my back is freezing.” “Aweel, then gae away to bed wid ye, Andy, and I’ll tuck ye up warm, and bring ye your hot toddy.” “Nay, Jenny, worse luck, I maun sit up to let the bridegroom through the gate.” “The bridegroom? Hoot, man! He’ll no pass the road on sic a wild night as this.” “Will he no, and his bonny bride waiting? Jenny, woman, what like o’ wind or weather would ha’ stopt me the day we were gaun to be married? So ye maun gie me my pipe, gudewife, for I bide here to open the gate for the blithe bridegroom to pass through.” “But he maun see that no tender lassie can take the road in sic a storm as this, and they were to be married by special license at nine, and gae away in a grand travelling carriage at ten, to meet the steamboat at eleven. But that can no be now, for the rain is comin’ down like Noah’s flood, and the wind blowing a hurricane, to say naething o’ the roads all being turned into rinning rivers,” argued Jenny. “It will be for her to decide whether it can or canna be. It will be for him to take the road in the worst weather that ever fell from heaven, if it be to keep his tryst with his troth-plighted bride. So gie me my pipe, Jenny, for I’se stop up to let the bridegroom gae by.” “He willna come now, and so ye’ll see, gudeman,” said the wife, as she filled his pipe, and pressed the tobacco well down into the bowl with her big fore finger. “An he does na come through wind or rain or snow, or ony ither like o’ weather the Lord please to send this night, and I were Miss Anna Lyon, I’d cast him off in the morn like old shoes,” nodded Andy, as he took the pipe from his wife and put it into his mouth. “But don’t ye see, gudeman, that it’ll be nae use. She canna travel on sic a night as this.” “I’m no that sure she will be called upon to travel the night. I heard a rumor they had changed all that. And there was to be a grand wedding at the old Hall, and a hall and a supper, and that the bonny bride and bridegroom wouldna gae away till the morn. And I’se believe it,” said Andy, taking the big tongs, picking up a live coal, and beginning to light his pipe. “Hoot, man, that will be no decent. She’ll behoove to marry and gae away like ither brides, but she’ll no be married and gae away the night. The wedding maun be pit off,” said Jenny, resuming her place at the wheel. “Pit off! It hae been pit off twice a’ready, once when the old Judge Lyon died, then when the old lady died. An it be pit off a third time, it ’ill never take place. But it will no be put off. He’ll keep his tryst, and she’ll keep her word. Worse luck that I hae to bide up to let him through.”
