ad been paved with faces, and windows over
windows, roofs and lum-heads, were clustered with women and children.
All temporal cares and businesses were that day suspended: in the
accents and voices of men there was an awful sobriety, few speaking, and
what was said, sounded as if every one was affected with the sense of
some high and everlasting interest at stake.

When the Lords went down into the street, there was, for a brief
interval, a stir and a murmur in the multitude, which opened to the
right and left as when the waves of the Red Sea were opened, and through
the midst thereof prepared a miraculous road for the children of Israel.
A deep silence succeeded, and Sandilands, with his hoary head uncovered,
bearing in his hand the supplication and remonstrance, walked forward;
and the Lords went after also all bareheaded, and every one with them
followed in like manner as reverentially as their masters. The people,
as they passed along, slowly and devoutly, took off their caps and
bonnets, and bowed their heads as when the ark of the covenant of the
Lord was of old brought back from the Philistines; and many wept, and
others prayed aloud, and there was wonder, and awe, and dread, mingled
with thoughts of unspeakable confidence and glory.

When Sandilands and those with him were conducted into the presence of
the Queen Dowager, she was standing under a canopy of state, surrounded
by many of the nobles and prelates, and by her maidens of honour. My
grandfather had not seen her before, and having often heard her
suspected of double-dealing, and of a superstitious zeal and affection
for the papal abominations and cruelties, he had pictured to himself a
lean and haggard woman, with a pale and fierce countenance, and was
therefore greatly amazed when he beheld a lady of a most sweet and
gracious aspect, with mild dark eyes beaming with a chaste dignity, and
a high and fair forehead, bright and unwrinkled with any care, and lips
formed to speak soft and gentle sentences. In her apparel she was less
gay than her ladies, but nevertheless she was more queenly. Her dress
and mantle were of the richest purple Genoese unadorned with embroidery,
and round her neck she wore a ruff of fine ermine and a string of
princely pearls. A small golden cross of curious graven gold dangled to
her waist from a loup in the vale of her bosom.

Sandilands advanced several paces before the Lords by whom he was
attended, and falling on his knees,