Two alone were grave; viz., old Lord Drummond, because he was somewhat perplexed, or felt that he cut rather a foolish figure, and was about to have for sons-in-law two men on whom James dared not yet bestow nobility for fear of raising the anger of older patentees; and on the young king's brow a cloud was resting, for on the morrow he was to receive from the Bishop's hand "the sackcloth shirt and iron belt," which he was to wear as the self-imposed penance of filial disobedience;
"While for his royal father's soul,
The chanters sung, the bells did toll;"
and kindly and consolingly the white-haired bishop sought to soothe the sorrow and disperse the gloom which the young monarch strove in vain to overcome.
Could it be that a mysterious presentiment of approaching evil was hovering in his heart? In Scotland, we often hear of such forebodings still.
On the day following the intended sentence of excommunication, Margaret was to behold one sister wedded to Robert Barton and another to David Falconer; and on that day the Yellow Frigate and her consorts would startle the broad blue Firth that rolls before Dundee by a loud and merry salvo from their brass culverins and iron arquebusses à croc.
Already had each beautiful bride playfully tried the espousal ring—the emblem of eternity—upon her pretty finger—that third finger of the left hand from which, according to an old superstition, there ran one mysterious fibre directly to the heart; and now we may inform our fair readers, whom such items may interest, that the said rings were not the plain hoops used in our own day, but each was massive and chased, inscribed by a holy legend, and having on it two ruby hearts, surmounted by a little crown of diamonds, for such was the fashion in the olden time.
And now, as the day on which the sisters were to receive communion at mass in the cathedral, dawned in sunny glory and splendour, lighting up the painted lattices, the grey walls, and green woods of the old episcopal palace, and tinting with its brightest hues the rapid waters of the Allan, the old bishop patted their silken tresses, and called them his "good children," as they knelt to receive his morning blessing in the dining-hall, reminding them with a smile, that "happy was the bride whom the sun shone on, and that he hoped the god of day would not rise less brightly on the morrow."
And they all smiled to each other timidly and fondly, for, alas! they little knew that for some of them to-morrow was—eternity.
Margaret, the Queen of Scotland—for such indeed was she now—was to receive the communion with her sisters; but Barton and Falconer having, we may suppose, obtained it but recently, or for some other reason now unknown, did not share it with them, which will account for their escaping the perilous web which English guile and Scottish treason were weaving around them all.