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The Bridal of Janet
Dalrymple Miss Janet Dalrymple,
daughter of the first Lord Stair, and Dame Margaret Ross, had engaged
herself without the knowledge of her parents to the Lord Rutherford, who
was not acceptable to them either on account of his political principles,
or his want of fortune. The young couple broke a piece of gold together,
and pledged their troth in the most solemn manner; and it is said the
young lady imprecated dreadful evils on herself should she break her
plighted faith. Shortly after, a suitor who was favored by Lord Stair, and
still more so by his lady, paid his addresses to Miss Dalrymple. The young
lady refused the proposal, and being pressed on the subject, confessed her
secret engagement. Lady Stair, a woman accustomed to universal submission
(for even her husband did not dare to contradict her), treated this
objection as a trifle, and insisted upon her daughter yielding her consent
to marry the new suitor, David Dunbar, son and heir to David Dunbar of
Baldoon, in Wigtonshire. The first lover, a man of very high spirit, then
interfered by letter, and insisted on the right he had acquired by his
troth plighted with the young lady. Lady Stair sent him for answer, that
her daughter, sensible of her undutiful behavior in entering into a
contract unsanctioned by her parents, had retracted her unlawful vow, and
now refused to fulfil her engagement with him. The
lover in return declined positively to receive such an answer from anyone
but his mistress in person; and as she had to deal with a man who was both
of a most determined character, and of too high condition to be trifled
with, Lady Stair was obliged to consent to an interview between Lord
Rutherford and her daughter. But she took care to be present in person,
and argued the point with the disappointed and incensed lover with
pertinacity equal to his own. She particularly insisted on the Levitical
law, which declares, that a woman shall be free of a vow which her parents
dissent from. This is the passage of Scripture she founded on: “If
a man vow a vow unto the Lord, or swear on oath to bind his soul with a
bond; he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that
proceedeth out of his mouth. “If a woman
also vow a vow unto the Lord, and bind herself by a bond, being in her
father’s house in her youth; “And her
father hear her vow, and her bond wherewith she hath bound her soul, and
her father shall hold his peace at her: then all her vows shall stand, and
every bond wherewith she hath bound her soul shall stand. “But
if her father disallow her in the day that he heareth; not any of her
vows, or of her bonds wherewith she hath bound her soul, shall stand: and
the Lord shall forgive her, because her father disallowed
her.”—Numbers xxx. 2, 3, 4, 5. While the
mother insisted on these topics, the lover in vain conjured the daughter
to declare her own opinion and feelings. She remained totally overwhelmed,
as it seemed—mute, pale, and motionless as a statue. Only at her
mother’s command, sternly uttered, she summoned strength enough to
restore to her plighted suitor the piece of broken gold, which was the
emblem of her troth. On this he burst forth into a tremendous passion,
took leave of the mother with maledictions, and as he left the apartment,
turned back to say to his weak, if not fickle, mistress, “For you,
madam, you will be a world’s wonder”; a phrase by which some
remarkable degree of calamity is usually implied. He went abroad, and
returned not again. If the last Lord Rutherford was the unfortunate party,
he must have been the third who bore that title, and who died in 1685.
The marriage betwixt Janet Dalrymple and David
Dunbar of Baldoon now went forward, the bride showing no repugnance, but
being absolutely passive in everything her mother commanded or advised. On
the day of the marriage, which, as was then usual, was celebrated by a
great assemblage of friends and relations, she was the same—sad, silent,
and resigned, as it seemed, to her destiny. A lady, very nearly connected
with the family, told the author that she had conversed on the subject
with one of the brothers of the bride, a mere lad at the time, who had
ridden before his sister to church. He said her hand, which lay on his as
she held her arm round his waist, was as cold and damp as marble. But,
full of his new
The Bridal of Janet Dalrymple by Sir Walter Scott
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