Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/139

 eaten, and some sherbet drunk, the bride’s father takes her right hand, places it in that of the bridegroom, and bids him to be kind to her. Upon this the four young men hasten up, a fifth brings the jennet, the trumpeters blow their trumpets, the music plays, and the bride seats herself astride on the saddle; the one walks beside her leading the horse, and the four bear the canopy over her. Her nurse, or the female servant for whom she entertains most affection, rides on a horse after her, but no one leads her horse, or bears a canopy over her. Very large wax candles, like altar-tapers, adorned with divers beautiful flowers, gilt and painted, six in number, more or less, are also carried before the bride. The bridegroom rides with his male friends and those of the bride in front, the bride in the midst, and the women in a line behind her, with great joy and triumph, and making their horses curvet merrily to the bridegroom’s house. On arriving there he assists her from her horse, leaves her with his female friends, and rides away again among his male friends.

Well, when the above-mentioned chiaous came with a great number of his male friends on horseback, and female friends in carriages, to the Christian’s house to fetch his bride, everything was done splendidly, according to the custom above-mentioned. Mules carried presents of clothes in red leather trunks covered with carpets, and the lady was conducted under a canopy from her father’s house to his on a beautiful horse, white as snow, with abundance of music of different kinds, and with very large tapers. It was said then that she had turned Mahometan, and that, therefore, the chiaous, having other wives, had immediately assigned her a