Banner after banner, with the various devices and coats of this ancient
family and its connexions, followed each other in mournful procession
from under the low-browed archway of the courtyard. The principal gentry
of the country attended in the deepest mourning, and tempered the
pace of their long train of horses to the solemn march befitting the
occasion. Trumpets, with banners of crape attached to them, sent
forth their long and melancholy notes to regulate the movements of the
procession. An immense train of inferior mourners and menials closed
the rear, which had not yet issued from the castle gate when the van had
reached the chapel where the body was to be deposited.
Contrary to the custom, and even to the law, of the time, the body was
met by a priest of the Scottish Episcopal communion, arrayed in his
surplice, and prepared to read over the coffin of the deceased the
funeral service of the church. Such had been the desire of Lord
Ravenswood in his last illness, and it was readily complied with by the
Tory gentlemen, or Cavaliers, as they affected to style themselves, in
which faction most of his kinsmen were enrolled.
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