The advent of November brought the day of the wedding. As was the custom, we called it a Penny Wedding, with all the guests contributing a penny to the festivities and most bringing food and drink to help the couple begin their journey through life.
Some of the local farmers attended the wedding on horseback. Others arrived on dogcarts crowded with farm-servants in their Sunday best, all shaved and groomed and in high good humour. Nearly everybody knew each other from the feeing-fairs or through a long acquaintance, with me being the only stranger.
The wedding was at the Free Kirk at Newtyle, a planned village a few miles to the east. Few of the bothy lads had much time for the established Church of Scotland, which they viewed as a tool of the establishment that had supported the forced
