Scotland Street Volume 18, Chapter 44: In the Thistle Chapel

By Alexander McCall Smith

Published 3rd Apr 2025, 07:00 BST

“Really!” Mrs Forbes muttered. “These people!”

Had she looked further up the Lawnmarket, her disapproval might have doubled. The ancient street, with its echoes of centuries of Scottish history, had been allowed to become an open bazaar, selling the products of distant foreign factories, painted in garish tartan: plastic models of the Loch Ness Monster; tea towels emblazoned with the image of Robert Burns; thistle-topped porridge spurtles; children’s nylon kilts in Black Watch tartan; no depths were left unplumbed.

But her gaze was directed elsewhere, past the tolerant statue of David Hume towards the doors of the cathedral itself. And there the wedding guests could be singled out, even at this distance, by the hats, the kilts, the flurry of silk caught in the slight breeze from the east – from the Firth and beyond, from Norway.

The cars drew up. The last guests hurried into the cathedral. The tourists pointed and chattered. The bride, barely visible underneath quantities of voile, stepped out on the arm of her father, a stout, bandy-legged man in a kilt. Camera flashes dazzled. The bride’s father looked away. He was a potato farmer from Angus. What was wrong with the local kirk, he had demanded of his daughter. Nae tourists there. Could they not do a good enough wedding? But it was the groom who had prevailed: he came from Edinburgh, and he had persuaded his fiancée to make this an Edinburgh occasion. His family was well-connected, and both the New Club and Muirfield had emptied for the occasion.

“I think this is definitely a wedding,” Ranald whispered to Bertie.

Bertie nodded, but did not say anything.

Mrs Forbes was fussing around the bridesmaids, and Ranald decided to make conversation, to put Bertie at his ease. This whole situation, after all, was his fault – or his father’s fault, perhaps – and he felt he should try to do something.

“Do you think this is where you’ll get married, Bertie?” he asked.

Bertie looked about him. “I don’t think so, Ranald.”

“Mind you,” Ranald continued. “It’ll probably depend on Olive, don’t you think? She may want St Giles’.”

Bertie shook his head. “I’m not going to marry Olive, Ranald. I never said I would.”

Ranald looked apologetic. “She says that you did, Bertie. It’s not me making it up – she told everyone you were engaged.”

“But we’re not engaged,” Bertie protested. “Olive can marry somebody else. She can find somebody else who wants to marry her.”

Ranald considered this. “But that’s not the way it works, Bertie. It’s not up to the boy – it’s girls who decide. They see this boy and they say I’m going to marry him, and they do. The only way you can avoid it – if you’re a boy – is to join the Foreign Legion. That’s what my dad says. I heard him. He told one of his friends that he tried to join the Foreign Legion but my Mummy got him before he managed to join.”

Mrs Forbes interrupted the conversation. “Ready now, boys,” she said. “You walk behind the bride and hold her train. This is it here. You take that bit, Ranald, and you hold here, Bertie.”

The bridal party entered the cathedral. The organist paused and then, with appropriate stops full out, plunged into Jeremiah Clarke’s The Prince of Denmark’s March. Slowly, the bride, her red-faced father, Bertie and Ranald, and the four bridesmaids began to make their way up the aisle. Heads turned; necks craned; exhalations of admiration were like a gentle wind among the cathedral’s great pillars.

To Bertie and Ranald, it seemed an eternity, during which, at any point, the real pageboys might stand up in the congregation and denounce the usurpers. But no such thing happened, and eventually the bride and her father stopped, and the two boys were able to abandon the bridal train and retreat into the wings.

“We can get away now, Bertie,” whispered Ranald. “Nobody’s looking at us.”

Bertie hesitated. He was a considerate boy, and he did not want to do anything that would spoil the bride and groom’s day. At that same time, he and Ranald had performed the duties that had been set out for them, and he did not think that anybody would miss them very much if they were to absent themselves. He decided to agree to Ranald’s suggestion.

“There’s a door over there,” he said to Ranald, pointing to a door at a underneath a commemorative plaque. “Let’s try that.”

As quietly as he could, Bertie pushed at the large oak door. It did not resist, and as it opened an adjoining chapel was revealed.

“Look at all those flags,” Ranald whispered, pointing at the standards suspended above the row of stalls.

Bertie knew exactly where they were. “The Thistle Chapel,” he announced in awed tones. “This is where the Knights of the Thistle have their meetings, Ranald.”

Ranald looked worried. “What if they catch us, Bertie?”

Bertie reassured him there would no adverse consequences. “The Knights of the Thistle are harmless,” he said. “They’re nice people, Ranald. They’re just people who’ve done important things.”

“Is it a club?” asked Ranald Braveheart Macpherson.

“I think so,” Bertie replied. “There are all sorts of clubs in Edinburgh. Lots of grown-ups don’t have all that much to do, you see. There’s the Royal Company of Archers, Ranald. They have a big clubhouse near the Meadows. It’s called Archers’ Hall.”

Ranald Braveheart Macpherson remembered that club. They had seen the Archers shooting their arrows on the Meadows in some sort of competition, and one of their stray arrows had hit Ian Rankin in the arm while he was walking along a path (he had been very nice about it). That was the sort of thing that happened when people who should know better played around with bows and arrows.

“Grown-ups are a bit odd, aren’t they, Bertie?” said Ranald.

Bertie nodded. Ranald was absolutely right. But he had no time to think about that now: he had seen a door in the side of the chapel and a small sign saying Tunnel. Edinburgh was full of clubs, but it was also full of tunnels. This one, with any luck, would enable them to leave the Chapel and St Giles’ without being seen by Mrs Forbes, the bekilted potato farmer, the bridesmaids, or any of the congregation.

“Let’s go down those steps, Ranald,” said Bertie. “It’s our best chance, I think.”