Page:Penelope's Progress.djvu/281

Rh and says that the Edinburgh jail would have been just as fine architecturally (it is, in truth, a building beautiful enough to tempt an æsthete to crime), and a much more fitting symbol for a wedding-cake,—unless, indeed, she adds, Salemina intends her gift to be a monument to my folly.

Pettybaw kirk is trimmed with yellow broom from these dear Scottish banks and braes; and waving their green fans and plumes up and down the aisle where I shall walk a bride, are tall ferns and bracken from Crummylowe Glen, where we played ballads.

As I look back upon it, the life here has been all a ballad from first to last. Like the elfin Tam Lin, The queen o' fairies she caught me
 * In this green hill to dwell,"

and these hasty nuptials are a fittingly romantic ending to the summer's poetry. I am in a mood, were it necessary, to be "ta'en by the milk-white hand," lifted to a pillion on a coal-black charger, and spirited "o'er the border an' awa'" by my dear Jock o' Hazledean. Unhappily, all is quite regular and aboveboard; no "lord of Langley dale" contests the prize with the bridegroom, but the marriage is at least unique and unconventional; no one can rob me of that sweet consolation. So "gallop down the westlin skies," dear Sun,