“Oh, Jean, Jean! what is this ye’ve been about? or what has brocht you to Edinburgh?”
“Lord have a care of us!” exclaimed at this juncture another venerable peer, who had just come up, “what has brocht my sonsie son, Richie Livingstone, to Edinburgh, when he should have been fechtin’ the Dutch by this time in Transylvania?”
The two lovers, thus recognised by their respective parents, stood with downcast looks, and perfectly silent, while all was buzz and confusion in the brilliant circle around them; for the parties concerned were not more surprised at the aspect of their affairs, than were all the rest at the beauty of the far-famed but hitherto unseen Lady Jean Fleming. The Earl of Linlithgow, Richard’s father, was the first to speak aloud, after the general astonishment had for some time subsided; and this he did in a laconic though important query, which he couched in the simple words,—
“Are ye married, bairns?”
“Yes, dearest father,” said his son, gathering courage, and coming close up to his saddle-bow; “and I beseech you to extricate Lady Jean and me from this crowd, and I shall tell you all when we are alone.”
“A pretty man ye are, truly,” said the old man, who never took anything very seriously to heart, “to be staying at hame, and getting yoursel married, all this time you should have been abroad, winning honour and wealth, as your gallant granduncle did wi’ Gustavus i’ the thretties! Hooever, since better mayna be, I maun try and console my Lord Wigton, who, I doot, has the worst o’ the bargain, ye ne’er-do-weel!”
He then went up to Lady Jean’s father, shook him by the hand, and said, that “though they had been made relations against their wills, he hoped they would continue good friends. The young people,” he observed, “are no that ill-matched; and it is not the first time that the Flemings and the Livingstones have melled together, as witness the blithe marriage of the Queen’s Marie to Lord Fleming in the fifteen-saxty-five. At ony rate, my lord, let us put a good face on the matter, afore thae glowerin’ gentles, and whipper-snapper duchesses. I’ll get horses for the two, and they’ll join the riding’ down the street; and de’il hae me, if Lady Jean doesna outshine the hale o’ them!”
“My Lord Linlithgow,” responded the graver and more implacable Earl of Wigton, “it may set you to take this matter blithely, but let me tell you, its a muckle mair serious affair for me. What think ye am I to do wi’ Frances and Grizzy noo?”
“Hoot toot, my lord,” said Linlithgow with a sly smile, “their chance is as gude as ever it was, I assure you, and sae will everybody think that kens them. I maun ca’ horses though, or the young folk will be ridden ower afore ever they do more gude, by thae rampaugin’ young men.” So saying, and taking Lord Wigton’s moody silence for assent, he proceeded to cry to his servants for the best pair of horses they could get, and these being speedily procured, Lord Richard and his bride were requested to mount; after which they were formally introduced to the gracious notice of the Duke and Duchess of York, and the Princess Anne, who happened to attend Parliament on this the last day of its session, when it was customary for all the members to ride both to and from the House in an orderly cavalcade.
The order was given to proceed, and the lovers were soon relieved in a great measure from the embarrassing notice of the crowd, by assuming a particular place in the procession, and finding themselves confounded with more than three hundred equally splendid figures. As the pageant, however, moved down the High Street in a continuous and open line, it was impossible not to distinguish the singular loveliness of Lady Jean, and the gallant carriage of her husband, from all the rest. Accordingly, the trained bands and city guard, who lined the street, and who were in general quite as insensible to the splendours of “the Riding” as are the musicians in a modern orchestra to the wonders of a melodrama in its fortieth night,—even they perceived and admired the graces of the young couple, whom they could not help gazing after with a stupid and lingering delight. From the windows, too, and the “stair-heads,” their beauty was well observed, and amply conjectured and commented on; while many a young cavalier endeavoured, by all sorts of pretences, to find occasion to break the order of the cavalcade, and get himself haply placed nearer to the exquisite figure, of which he had got just one killing glance in the square. Slowly and majestically the brilliant train paced down the great street of Edinburgh—the acclamations of the multitude ceaselessly expressing the delight which the people of Scotland felt in this sensible type and emblem of their ancient independence.