about two o'clock in the
afternoon
Despite the general invitation carried thus from house to house throughout the parish , good-breeding , which is extremely conservative among the peasantry , requires that only two persons in each family should take advantage of it , -- one of the heads of the family to represent the household , one of their children to represent the other members . The invitations being delivered , the fiancés and their relations went to the farm and dined together . Little Marie tended her three sheep on the common land , and Germain turned up the ground as if there were nothing in the air . On the day before that fixed for the marriage , about two o'clock in the afternoon , the musicians arrived , that is to say , the bagpipers and viol-players , with their instruments decorated with long floating ribbons , and playing a march written for the occasion , in a measure somewhat slow for the feet of any but natives , but perfectly adapted to the nature of the heavy ground and the hilly roads of that region . Pistol-shots , fired by youths and children , announced the beginning of the ceremony . The guests assembled one by one and danced on the greensward in front of the house , for practice . When night had come , they began to make strange preparations : they separated into two parties , and when it was quite dark , they proceeded to the ceremony of the _ livrées _ .