If the wedding was wanted at Melrose-and Buccleuch, as Hereditary Bailie of the Abbey lands, had fewer objections than usual to any idea not his own-then the congregation had to come armed, that was all. The Scotts and their allies, the twenty polite Frenchmen from Edinburgh, the Italian commander with the lame leg, had left their men at arms outside with their horses, the plumed helmets lashed to the saddlebows; and if there were a few vacant seats where a man from Hawick or Bedrule had ducked too late ten days before, no one mentioned it.
( Dorothy Dunnett )
[ The Disorderly Knights ]
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