vered with cloth of the gorgeous purple and
glowing crimson, and decorated with ornaments of gold and silver. To and
fro, upon brave steeds, richly caparisoned, rode a hundred lords and
their followers, with many a score of gay and gallant knights and their
attendant gentlemen. Fair ladies, too, the loveliest and the noblest in
the land, were there. The sounds of music from many instruments rolled
over the heath. The lance gleamed, and the claymore flashed, and
war-steeds neighed, as the notes of the bugle rang loud for the
tournament. It seemed as if the genius of chivalry had fixed its court
upon the heath.

It may be meet, however, that we say a word or two concerning
Lamberton, for though, now-a-days, it may lack the notoriety of Gretna
in the annals of matrimony, and though its "_run of business_" may be of
a humbler character, there was a time when it could boast of prouder
visitors than ever graced the Gretna blacksmith's temple. To the reader,
therefore, who is unacquainted with our eastern Borders, it may be
necessary to say, that, at the northern boundary of the lands
appertaining to the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and about three miles, a
furlong, and few odd yards from that oft-recorded good town, a dry stone
wall, some thirty inches in height, runs from the lofty and
perpendicular sea-banks, over a portion of what may be termed the
fag-end of Lammermoor, and now forming a separation between the laws of
Scotland and the jurisdiction of the said good town; and on crossing to
the northern side of this humble but important stone wall, you stand on
the lands of Lamberton. Rather more than a stone-throw from the sea, the
great north road between London and Edinburgh forms a gap in the wall
aforesaid, or rather "dyke;" and there, on either side of the road,
stands a low house, in which Hymen's high priests are ever ready to make
one flesh of their worshippers. About a quarter of a mile north of
these, may still be traced something of the ruins of the kirk, where the
princess of England became the bride of the Scottish king, and the first
link of the golden chain of UNION, which eventually clasped the two
nations in one, may be said to have been formed.

The gay and gallant company were assembled on Lamberton, for within the
walls of its kirk, the young, ardent, and chivalrous James IV. of
Scotland was to receive the hand of his fair bride, Margaret of England,
whom Dunbar describes as a

"Fresche rose, of c