But married was the dame; and home she was carried, to
bear rule over her home and her husband, as an honest woman should.
Now ye maun ken that though the flesh and blood lovers of Alexander's
bonnie wife all ceased to love and to sue her after she became another's,
there were certain admirers who did not consider their claim at all
abated, or their hopes lessened, by the kirk's famous obstacle of
matrimony. Ye have heard how the devout minister of Tinwald had a fair
son carried away, and bedded against his liking to an unchristened
bride, whom the elves and the fairies provided; ye have heard how the
bonnie bride of the drunken laird of Soukitup was stolen by the fairies
out at the back-window of the bridal chamber, the time the bridegroom
was groping his way to the chamber-door; and ye have heard-- But why
need I multiply cases? such things in the ancient days were as common
as candle-light. So ye'll no hinder certain water-elves and
sea-fairies, who sometimes keep festival and summer mirth in these old
haunted hulks, from falling in love with the weel-faured wife of Laird
Macharg; and to their plots and contrivances they went how they might
accomplish to sunder man and wife; and sundering such a man and such
a wife was like sundering the green leaf from the summer, or the
fragrance from the flower.
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