"But there is mud, and the ways are deep and soft."
"True; but who is here to do it for me?"
"The smith at the forge."
"Nay, nay, good father," said Gray, shortening his reins; "hear you that!" a whoop and a bugle blast, came together on the night breeze; "I must even trust me to my good Brechin blade and Clydesdale nag; for both are our good king's gift," and he set forth with renewed speed.
He had good reason for declining to loiter, for just as he rode off, the mountain pass, which opens into the valley, rang with shouts and the rush of many iron hoofs, as the laird of Hawkshaw and the Hunters of Palmood, with Sir Alan Lauder and a band of Douglas moss-troopers, came galloping down.
On, on, rushed the fleet horse, with its small head outstretched, and cutting the night air, as the prow of a ship cleaves the water. The taper ears lay flat on its neck, the mane streamed behind like smoke from a funnel, and the quivering nostrils shot forth white puffs of steamy breath at every bound; while foam and blood mingled together on its flanks, as the sharp Rippon spurs of the daring rider urged it fast and furiously on.
This flight of Sir Patrick Gray from Thrave suggested to Scott the escape of Marmion from the future chief of the Douglases—the earl of Angus, at Tantallan.
FOOTNOTES:
[4]One account states that the body of MacLellan was interred in the church of Kirkconnel, and some old inscription is quoted in proof; another, that he was conveyed to the abbey church of Dundrennan, where a monument was erected to his memory; but it is much more probable that he would be interred in the church of Kirkcudbright.
[4]One account states that the body of MacLellan was interred in the church of Kirkconnel, and some old inscription is quoted in proof; another, that he was conveyed to the abbey church of Dundrennan, where a monument was erected to his memory; but it is much more probable that he would be interred in the church of Kirkcudbright.
Black is my steed as a cloud of rain,There's a star of white on his brow;The free gales play with his feathery mane,And lightnings gleam round his feet of snow.Polish Poetry.
Dark foliaged glens and heathy hills, furrowed fields and wayside cottages, with the pale smoke curling through their roofs of yellow thatch and emerald moss; rock-perched towers, with corbelled battlements and grated windows; deep fordless rivers, pathless woods, and uncultivated wolds, seemed to fly past, and still the steed with its bare-headed rider rushed on at a frightful pace, as if it was enchanted, or bestrode by an evil spirit, like that of Lenore in the ballad of Burger.
The moon was shining brightly now.
Near Stobo the pursuers came so close upon Gray that he began to fear escape was impossible—the more so, as fresh blood-hounds were baying on his track. On reaching the Tweed, instead of crossing it by a ford—the river was deeper everywhere then than now—he waded or swam his horse up the current for about a hundred yards, andbackedit into a low-browed fissure or cavern which he discovered amid the rocks.
Dismounting, he drew his sword and dagger, threw the bridle over his left arm, and stood at the cavern mouth to confront all or any who might come near, and resolved if they discovered his lurking place to sell his life dearly; but he felt how much the long ride in heavy armour over rough ground had impaired his natural strength. His sinews were stiffened, his overtasked muscles were swollen with pain, and his mind was as weary as his body.
On the silver current of the Tweed, as it brawled over its broad bed of pebbles, the moon shone bright and clearly; close by, a tributary from the hills rushed over a brow of rock, and formed a feathery cascade, which plunged into a deep pool. There the peasantry affirmed that a kind fairy was wont to appear at times, and to bend over the cascade, mingling her white arms and floating drapery with the foam, as she sought to save those wayfarers whom the evil kelpie in the darksome linn below sought to drown and devour.
Nor hideous kelpie, nor lovely fairy were visible to-night; but now came the hoarse grunting bark of four large sleuth-bratches, as they leaped with heavy plunges to the margin of the stream: there the scent was lost, and they were once more, as at every running water, at fault, so they ran snorting and sniffing to and fro among the leaves, reeds, and water-docks, with the breath curling up from their fierce red nostrils like white steam in the clear moonlight.
Then came furious surmises and angry oaths as a dozen or more moss-troopers galloped down to the bank of the stream, and rode in an excited manner hither and thither, seeking to put the dogs upon a track or trail. Through the leafy screen of his hiding-place, Gray could see their fierce and sun-burned faces, their rusty helmets and battered trappings, their long reed-like lances that glittered in the moonshine; for those moss-troopers, in their well-worn and half-barbaric accoutrements, were the very Cossacks of the Scottish borders.
James Achanna now came up and spurred his horse across to examine the ford, and uttered a shout of exultation on discovering the trace of horses' hoofs recently impressed in the soft mud.
Gray drew a long breath, and felt the edge of his sword, for he thought the critical moment was at hand! But now a trooper, with an oath expressive of disappointment, drew the attention of all to the circumstance that the marks were those of a horse which had gonetowardsthe ford and must have crossed it for the south, and that, if they were made by the hoofs of the fugitive's nag, he must have doubled like a hare. On hearing this, Gray blessed his own foresight in having backed his horse upward from the stream.
The moment this hint was given to the rest, who had no particular views of their own on the subject, they put spur to their horses and galloped away, almost in the direction from whence they had come. As soon as they were gone, Gray came forth from his lurking-place, mounted, and rode off towards the north leisurely and at an easy pace.
He was soon on the border of the fertile Lothians; the far-stretching range of the Pentlands rose upon his left, with their heathy summits tipped by the rising sun; the long ridge where the trenches of Agricola's camp overlooked the woods of Dalhousie, the Dalkeith of the Douglases, and the vale of the two Esks, was soon surmounted, and afar off, "piled deep and massy, close and high," he could see old grey Edinburgh rising in the distance.
Haggard, wan, and wild in aspect, weary and torn,—minus a helmet and with his dark hair streaming behind him; his armour rusted with perspiration, and by frequent immersion in the rivers he had forded or swam; his spurs dripping with blood, and his sinking horse covered with foam and quivering in every fibre; his embroidered surcoat frittered by brambles and thorns—the Captain of the King's Guard passed through the streets of Edinburgh, and reached the castle, thus actually returning, as the old gate-ward had shrewdly predicted, "faster than he gaed awa."
The Master of Crichton (the chancellor's eldest son), the favourite page of James, conducted him at once to the latter, who was in the same apartment of David's Tower, and occupied with the same translated romance of Sir Gilbert the Haye.
"What of MacLellan?" said he, starting up.
"MacLellan is dead, sire," replied Gray in a scarcely audible voice, and in a burst of grief and excitement "My kinsman—my friend—he has gone to heaven; but he was foully murdered, and in cold blood, by the base Lord Douglas, and I shall avenge him—yea, fearfully, I swear it by Him at whose throne he is now perhaps kneeling!"
"And I will aid your vengeance, Gray," added the king, pressing his hand.
Then, when Sir Patrick had related his story, James vowed deeply in his heart, if he could not conciliate Douglas, toCRUSHhim and break his terrible bond, or let himself be crushed in the contest.
Ye towers within whose circuit dread,A Douglas by his sovereign bled;And thou, oh sad and fatal mound,That oft has heard the death-axe sound.—Scott.
To Gray it seemed as if Heaven or fate had conspired with Douglas to keep him and Murielle separate for the period of their natural lives; though King James assured him that his day of retribution, if not of happiness, must soon come now.
The king of Scotland was most anxious to avoid the horrors of a civil war with those obnoxious peers, who openly boasted, that on a day's notice, by the Fiery Cross, they could array forty thousand men against his throne and authority. He was really, and naturally so, alarmed by the bond or league of the Douglases and their confederates; but the summer passed, and the spring of the next year drew on, before the haughty earl would agree to meet his sovereign in solemn conference at Stirling. Then James promised Gray that all disputes would be ended, and that the wish which lay nearest his heart—the surrender of his wife to him—would be granted.
How vain were the hopes of the good young king; and how little could he or any one foresee the terrible sequel to that long-wished-for interview!
An ample letter of safe conduct was sent to the earl of Douglas, in custody of Sir William Lauder of Hatton, a knight of Lothian, one of his chief friends and followers; and thus armed and, as he deemed, protected, he entered the quaint and beautiful old town of Stirling, where James was then residing; for then, and for five generations after, Stirling was the Aranjuez, or Versailles of the Scottish kings, and on its decorations they were unsparing of treasure and of care.
It was on the morning of Shrove Tuesday, the 20th of February, 1451, that the earl arrived, accompanied by Hugh Douglas, earl of Ormond; Dunbar, earl of Murray; James, Lord Hamilton of Cadzow; Sir Alan Lauder; the lairds of Pompherston, Glendoning, Cairnglas, and, of course, James Achanna,—in all they were many hundred horsemen. They made no parade or show, save of war; for all these nobles, knights, and their followers, were mounted, mailed, and armed to perfection, so as to be in readiness for any emergency; and they were all men of approved and even reckless valour.
The early winter was past; the vast valley or plain, through which the wondrous links of Forth wind like a silver snake towards the German Sea, was assuming that brilliance of green which is the first indication of reviving nature.
The notes of the woodlark and throstle-cock were heard in the woods of Craigforth; the moles were busy on the fallow uplands, and the gnats swarmed in the sunshine about the budding hedgerows; in the park below the castle walls of Stirling, the bare-legged urchins of the town were busy "throwing at cocks" tied to stakes—a barbarous custom by which Shrovetide was always celebrated in Scotland, as well as in south Britain; others were playing at foot-ball, or shooting at the butts with little arblasts; and the shouts of their merriment rang upward in the clear and almost frosty air, to where Mary of Gueldres and her ladies were seated at the windows of the royal dwelling, many hundred feet above the grassy glen. But all left their sports, and hastened to the gate which opened towards the old Druid oaks of the Torwood, when the brass bombardes of the fortress rolled their thunder on the still atmosphere, and made the Ochil mountains echo in salute to the doughty earl of Douglas, while the clarions and trumpets of his train rang before the barrier-porte of the ancient burgh.
His family banner, twelve trumpets, with a royal herald and pursuivant, preceded him; and as he passed up the quaint streets, where the burghers at their windows, galleries, turrets, and forestairs, hung out pennons, tapestry, and garlands, and received him with acclamations, he deemed it all a tribute to his rank, and to his mighty feudal and mightier political power; although this display was merely the joyous outpouring of their hearts at the prospect of an amicable end being put to the jealousy and hate which had separated the chief of the Douglases—that line of glorious old historic memory—from a brave and high-spirited monarch whom they loved. It was all in the spirit of the old ballad—
God save the king, and bless the landIn plenty, joy, and peace;And grant henceforth that foul debate'Twixt noblemen may cease.
The earl's cuirass was of Milan steel, magnificently damascened, studded with gilt nails, and furnished at the armpits with little espalettes of gold. From under his open helmet, which was surrounded by a coronet, he looked around him with a smile of surly satisfaction; but his most powerful friend, Sir James, the lord Hamilton of Cadzow, said, solemnly and sternly,
"Let not all this delude you, Douglas, to forget on this day the wrongs of your race."
"Forget?" reiterated the other, grimly; "forget, said ye, Cadzow? If I forget my father and my kinsmen, so may God, his blessed Mother, and St. Bryde of Douglas, forget me! No, Hamilton, never shall I forget the good and doughty Douglases who have gone before me, for their lives were lives of danger, and their mail-clad breasts were Scotland's best bulwarks in the stormy days of old."
"I know all that; but our bond—and the king"—said Hamilton, hesitatingly.
"Well, he is neither priest, philosopher, nor exorcist, like that old knave of Tongland, who has left me to my own sins and devices; so what can he make of the matter?"
"When we are within yonder castle on the rock, he may perhaps term it treason."
"He dare not!" was the bold reply.
"I beseech you to beware, my lord earl," said Lord Hamilton; "I have a strange foreboding in my heart, and I warn you now—even as the good Sir Malcolm Fleming warned Earl William—to remember that before the gate of Stirling lies a mound, on which have rolled the heads of Murdoch of Albany, of his two sons, of Duncan, earl of Lennox, and many others."
"What of that?" asked the earl impatiently, as if he disliked the subject.
"In one minute more, you will be at the mercy of the king," said Hamilton, who was alike bold and wary.
But the earl laughed scornfully and rode on, while the majority of his vast retinue separated to seek quarters in the town, as the castle could not have held them.
"There is yet time to pause—even to return," resumed Hamilton, as he all but seized the earl's rein.
"I know not what you mean, Cadzow; but I care not, andhe dare not," said Douglas, as he reined up his horse and dismounted at the gate of the castle.
Before it was a strong palisade, within which the soldiers of the king's guard were under arms, with their helmets, corslets, plate sleeves, and partisans glittering in the sun. At their head were Sir Patrick Gray, and his kinsman, Gray of Balgarno, clad, not in state dresses, but complete armour, as if for battle.
Sir Patrick and the earl exchanged angry and hostile glances as they passed each other. There was a considerable pressure about the gate, as the chief followers of Douglas crushed after him through the narrow outer wicket; and there a strange fracas took place between Cadzow and the grim old Sir Alexander Livingstone of Callender, who, after he had relinquished the regency, had been appointed justice-general of Scotland, with a peerage in perspective.
Sir Alexander snatched a partisan from the hands of his son, Sir James Livingstone, who was captain of the castle of Stirling, and when Hamilton (his own kinsman and friend) attempted to enter, he placed the shaft across the wicket, and roughly thrust him back.
Inspired by a sudden fury, Hamilton shut down the visor of his helmet, and, sword in hand, was rushing upon Livingstone; but the strong and determined old knight resolutely held him back till the gates were shut, and thus he, with many more of the earl's train who might have proved troublesome from their number and disposition, were excluded.
"Sir James Hamilton," says history, "was very angry at this usage at the time; but afterwards learned that Livingstone acted a friendly part in excluding him from the probable danger into which Douglas was throwing himself." It was a conference the end of which none could foresee.
It is somewhat remarkable that, after a brawl which seemed so significant of perils yet to come, Douglas (unless he was ignorant of its occurrence) should have passed through the embattled porch of the fortress; but now all the barriers were closed, and no course was open but todree his weird—to follow his destiny!
Little honour it won theeFor smooth was thy greeting;Thou wast bid to the feast,In the hall was your meeting.In the hall was your meeting,But thou stained it with slaughter;When there's blood on the hearth,Who can wash it with water?From the Gaelic.
Veiling his just indignation under a bland exterior, King James II. received the turbulent earl kindly and with condescension; and after some amicable expostulations on the subject of the men he had so lawlessly put to death in Thrave and elsewhere—the ravages he had committed upon the lands of his enemies—the towns he had burned and the castles he had stormed, all seemed to become cordiality between him and his much-too-powerful subject.
Of these startling acts they conversed as quietly and easily as modern men may do of an election, a bill before parliament, or any ordinary and everyday affair; yet they were dangerous topics to comment upon at such a time, for by the king's side were still the Lord Chancellor Crichton, Sir Alexander Livingstone of Callender, the Lord Glammis, Sir Patrick Gray, and others; while near Douglas were the Earls of Crawford, Murray, and Ormond, with Pompherston, Glendoning, and others, all, more or less, involved personally; but now, on looking round, the earl missed the powerful chief of the house of Hamilton.
"Is not Cadzow here?" he asked, changing colour.
"He remains in the town," said Sir Alexander Livingstone with a smile which there was no analyzing; "but if it please you, lord earl, I shall send him a message."
"Do so, Laird of Callender," replied the earl, "and for the first time in my life I shall thank you."
"We shall see," replied Livingstone as he withdrew to an antechamber, where he disengaged the gold spur from his right heel, and giving it to James's page, the Master of Crichton bade him "see the Lord Hamilton, of Cadzow, and give him this spur, with a kinsman's best wishes for its speedy use."
The spur was duly delivered—the hint was accepted, and the brawl at the gate seemed explained; for within an hour, Hamilton andhisfollowers were far on the road to Clydesdale and the castle of Cadzow.
At the hour of seven, the king, Douglas, and their retinue sat down to a banquet, or rere-supper, in the castle-hall. It was sumptuous, and what it lacked in genuine hilarity was made up in rude and antique splendour. At that banquet friends and foes seemed united for the time—though like Scotsmen in general, the moment it was over, and while the hall yet echoed with the flourish of trumpets as the king rose, they drew into cliques and coteries, who talked and scowled at each other. The king, Crichton, and Livingstone earnestly desired a compromise and coalition with Douglas.
On one hand the latter wished to scare them by a display of his power, and on the other to fathom their ulterior plans without revealing his own; thus during the banquet he carefully avoided the perilous subject of his rebelliousbond.
Gray, as he leaned on his partizan, at the back of the king's chair, kept the visor of his helmet half closed, to conceal the emotions of his heart, which his face might have betrayed. Not even the image of Murielle, pale, gentle, and sad-eyed, could soften at that time the bitterness that burned within him. His long separation from her; his wounds inflicted by the hands of the earl and his followers; his many wrongs; the snares of Achanna; the long captivity in the Flemish castle of Bommel; his kinsman's murder, and the terrors of that desperate flight from Thrave, all swelled up like a flood of fiery thoughts within him, and he actually conceived the idea of smiting Douglas on the face with his iron glove in the king's presence, and challenging him to mortal combat in the hall.
Night had set in—a dark and gusty night of February, when the wind howled loudly and drearily round the towers of Stirling, and when the moon cast its fitful gleams with the shadows of the fast-flying clouds, on the wide vale of Forth, and the mighty masses of the Ochil Mountains. The pages were lighting the sconces and chandeliers in the great hall, while the yeomen of the cellars were supplying the guests with more wine, when James, impatient to broach the subject of the bond, privately invited the earl to accompany him into a closet, which is still shown in the north-western corner of the castle—the same quarter of the royal residence in which he first saw the light. In golden letters, on its cornice, may yet be seen his name:
jacobus rex
Jacobus II. Rex Scottorum.
Its walls were then covered with gilded Spanish leather; a fire of perfumed wood burned cheerfully on the hearth; but the poker and tongs, though each surmounted by an imperial crown, were chained to the jambs, as if in the house of a simple citizen.
After trimming the lights, the pages, on a sign from the king, withdrew backwards, bowing at every step, and he was left with the earl, who found himself alone, or unattended, and in the closet were the Lords Crichton, Glammis, Sir Patrick Gray, a gentleman of the bedchamber, named Sir Simon Glendinning, and one or two others, who were the chosen friends of James.
Aware that their sovereign was about to take the earl calmly but severely to task, they all drew somewhat apart, and Gray, with soldier-like instinct, leaned in silence on his partizan near the door. On perceiving these little movements, a smile of disdain crossed the earl's swarthy face, and he played significantly with his jewelled dagger.
James resumed the subject of his general conduct, and if Master David Hume of Godscroft, the historian of the house of Douglas, can be credited, the earl answered submissively enough, and craved the royal pardon, often alleging that the slaughter of Sir Herbert Herries of Teregles, Sir Thomas MacLellan of Bombie, and others, werenotacts against the crown, but lawful raids against his own personal enemies.
"But how came you to slay the Gudeman of my mills at Carluke?" asked the king."——Carluke—ha! ha!"
"The death of a good man is no laughing matter," said James, with a frown on his handsome face.
"He was accused of having weeds on his land."
"Weeds!" was the perplexed rejoinder.
"Yes, your highness—weeds. It was statute and ordained by Alexander II., that he who poisoneth the king's lands with weeds, especially the corn marigold, was a traitor."
"By my faith! that should make clean garden-work in the realm of Scotland," said the old chancellor, bitterly; "but the law says, that he who hath a plant of this kind found on his lands may be fined a sheep, or the value thereof, at the goul-court of the baron; whereas the miller died, or was found murdered—hewn to pieces by Jethart axes, within the Holy Gyrth of Lesmahago—a crime against the Church as well as State."
"I came not here to talk of peasant carles and their modes of dying," said Douglas, with a terrible frown at Crichton, his hatred for whom he cared not to conceal; "and since when, my lord chancellor, has a slaughter, committed in the form ofRaid, been termed amurderin Scotland?"
"Enough about the poor miller," resumed the king, with growing severity; "my lord, I have another complaint; you have lawlessly separated a faithful subject, the captain of our guard, from his wedded wife, and thus have torn asunder, for many long years, those whom your own father-confessor united before the altar with every due solemnity."
"I hope to separate them yet more surely," replied the earl, with a glance of unutterable hate at Gray.
"This, in my presence?" exclaimed the king; "thou heart of iron!"
"In any man's presence, and to any man who mars or meddles with my domestic affairs; but I beseech your majesty to change the ungracious subject."
"Be it so," replied the king, with a gentleness he was very far from feeling, as his temper was fiery in the extreme. "All these are matters for after consideration; but what say you to that most treasonable confederation, into which you have entered with the earls of Crawford, Ormond, Ross, the lords Hamilton, Balvenie, and many others? By that bond you seek to array one half my kingdom against me—a kingdom over which my dynasty has ruled in strength for so many generations."
"So much the worse," sneered the insolent peer; "for all dynasties begin in strength and end in weakness."
"I pledge my royal word," continued the king, trembling with suppressed passion, "that when I first heard of your league, and of its terrible tenor, I could scarcely give it credence."——"Possibly, your grace—but what then?"
"Simply, that bond must be broken."
"Must!" reiterated the earl, incredulously.
"Yes must, andshall, by the soul of St. Andrew! No such leagues can be tolerated in a realm, without the express sanction of its sovereign; and by abandoning this confederacy, Douglas, you will remove every suspicion from my mind."——"Suspicion!—of what?"
"Secret motives, whose aim we cannot see."
"Sire!" began Douglas, loftily, but paused.
"Notwithstanding all that has passed, I am unwilling to believe the evil which men impute to you," said James, with a most conciliating manner; "but you must expect neither favour nor mercy from me if you continue to show such examples to my people, and teach them to live as if there were neither law nor justice in the kingdom."
Douglas heard this bold remonstrance (in which we follow the words of history) with surprise; but recovering himself, replied plausibly; and in the pauses of this conference the sounds of laughter, hilarity, and the clinking of cups and goblets came from the adjoining hall, with the notes of the harps in the gallery.
"Your Majesty's favour I shall certainly endeavour to preserve," said the earl. "You are aware that I have the honour to command many who obey me faithfully and fearlessly, and I trust you are also aware that I know well how to render dutiful obedience to you. None of your subjects in Scotland possess higher rank or greater power than I, the Earl of Douglas, do; nor is there one who will more freely peril life and fortune in defence of your majesty's throne and honour. But," he added, suddenly relinquishing his adopted suavity, and glancing malignantly at Crichton, Gray, and others; "thosewho lay snares for my life—even as they snared my kinsmen in 1440—are now your majesty's constant attendants, friends, and advisers, so that I dare not trust myself in your royal presence, without a letter of safe conduct, as if I were an Englishman, or any other subject of a foreign king."
"And without an army of followers," added the chancellor, who, remembering the ambush in which he had so nearly perished before his own gate, was confounded by the stolid effrontery of his enemy.
"But the bond," said the king; "the bond, my lord!"
"As for that league of mutual friendship, formed by certain nobles and myself, I can assure your majesty, that, for any purpose which pleased us, we should adhere together quite wellwithoutits existence."
"Did friendship alone produce the bond?" asked James with an eagle glance in his keen hazel eyes.
"No—we were driven to seal and sign it,—not with intent to attack our enemies, but to defend ourselves against them."
"Lord Earl," said the king, gravely, "deeds, not words, evince the affection and submission of a subject; and there can be no greater security for him, than the justly administered laws of the realm. Such men as you, my lord of Douglas, have ever raised those factions which have subverted the authority of your kings and the laws of your country; and now I am resolved to tolerate no subjects of any rank or condition who dare to form leagues, offensive and defensive, against all persons."
"My ancestors——" began the earl furiously.
"Oh, my lord," said James; "what is all your mad pride of ancestry, when compared——"
"With yours, your majesty would say!"
"No," replied the king, with a bitter smile, while growing pale with rage.
"What then?"——"Withpersonal worth."
The daring Douglas gave his young monarch a glance of profound disdain; and during this species of altercation, it was with difficulty that Crichton, Gray, Glammis, and Sir Simon Glendinning restrained the desire for falling on the earl sword in hand. "Proceed," said the latter with a sigh of mock resignation.
"The objects of your bond are to disclaim all rule, to do what you please, to commit treason, and by your own swords to justify your ultimate views, until you rush upon the throne itself. So I, as a king, whose power comes direct from God and the people, demand that this most dangerous league, with Ross, with Crawford, Ormond, and Balvenie, be instantly broken!"
"The bond was formed with the mutual consent of many; and unless they meet for consultation, which they may do ona day's notice, it cannot be renounced without dishonour by any one of us."
James, who knew their boast, that "on a day's notice" they could array forty thousand men in their helmets against him, gave the crafty peer a withering glance as he replied, "My lord, the first example of renunciation shall be set byyou. No man—not even though earl of Douglas and lord of Galloway—dare disclaim my authority, and you shall not stir a single pace from this chamber until, in presence of these loyal lords and gentlemen, you retract your adherence to this treason."
"Your grace must remember that I came hither upon the public assurance and letters of safe conduct."
"No public letter can protect a man from the punishment due to private treason!"
Then, says history, "as this last reply of James implied a threat of personal violence, the native pride of Douglas betrayed him into the most imprudent passion. He broke into a torrent of reproaches, upbraiding the king for depriving him of the office of lieutenant-general of the kingdom, declared that he cared little for the name of treason, with which his conduct had been branded; that, as to his confederacy with the earls of Ross and Crawford, he had it not in his own power to dissolve it, and that if he had, he would be sorry to offend his best friends to gratifythe boyish capricesof a king. James, naturally fiery and impetuous, became furious with rage at this rude defiance, uttered in his own palace by one whom he regarded as his enemy." He drew his dagger, and, animated by a gust of temper far beyond his control, exclaimed, "False traitor! if thou wilt not break the bond,THIS SHALL!"
With these words he drove the weapon into the earl's breast—the keen and glittering blade passing between his cuirass and the gold espalette at his left armpit. Choking in blood, the fierce and fearless earl fell back for an instant. Then, maddened by pain, and perhaps by the prospect of immediate death, he unsheathed his own poniard, and was rushing upon James, when—as we are told by Buchanan—Gray interposed and struck him down by a blow on the head with his partisan. "This for MacLellan!" he exclaimed, in a hoarse voice.
"Villain!" sighed the earl, as he sank on the rush-covered floor, and struggled vainly to rise again.
"I struck but to save my king, lord earl," said Gray, bending over him, "and for no private wrong of my own, nathless my words, so Heaven be my judge! but say, shall Murielle, my wife, be surrendered to me?"
The earl gave Gray a ghastly smile as the blood flowed darkly over his bright armour, and a livid pallor overspread his swarthy face.
"Speak, I conjure you," urged Gray; "speak, ere it be too late—Murielle—"
"Shall never be thine," muttered the dying earl, with quivering lips and uncertain accents; "for when this news reaches Thrave, Achanna—James Achanna—has—has my orders—orders to—to——"
"What?" implored Gray, bending low his ear; "what?"——"To strangle her!"
These terrible words were scarcely uttered, when many who were the earl's enemies rushed in with their swords and daggers, and, holding back the king, Gray, Crichton, and Glendinning, who—now that their first gust of fury was over, would have saved him—speedily ended his life by the infliction of six-and-twenty wounds.
They then opened the window, and flung the yet warm and sorely mangled corpse of that mighty earl, who was the rival of his king, into the nether baillerie of the castle; and from the terrible deed of that night of Shrove Tuesday, the 20th of February, the apartment in which it took place is still named the "Douglas Room."
As a sequel to it, the Edinburgh newspapers of the 14th of October, 1797, have the following paragraph:—
"On Thursday se'nnight, as some masons were digging a foundation in Stirling Castle, in a garden adjacent to the magazine, they found a human skeleton, about eight yards from the window over which the earl of Douglas was thrown, after he was stabbed by King James II. There is no doubt that they were his remains, as it is certain that he was buried in that garden, and but a little distance from the closet window."
Well, then, to work; our cannon shall be bentAgainst the brows of this resisting town;Call for our chiefest men of disciplineTo cull the plots of best advantages:We'll lay before this town our royal bones,Wade to the market-place in Frenchmen's bloodBut we will make it subject to this boy.—King John.
The unfortunate Sir Patrick Gray knew the atrocities of which the castle of Thrave had been the scene during the late earl's lifetime; and he also knew the cruelty of which Achanna, his tool and minion, was capable; thus the dying words of Douglas made his soul tremble with terror for the safety of Murielle, in such butcherly and unscrupulous hands. But how was she to be saved?
All the vassals of the crown were not numerous enough to penetrate into Galloway and storm Thrave, amid a land of pastoral wilds and pathless forests, swarming with freebooting lairds, fierce moss-troopers, and half-savage Celts. Of venturing therealone, like a knight-errant, his recent expedition had fully illustrated the danger, and after the last terrible deed in Stirling the peril would be greater than ever.
That stern deed of the young king filled the Douglases with rage; but it was not without a salutary effect upon their adherents, as it evinced that he would no longer brook their insulting and rebellious conduct.
Posterity can have little sympathy for the fate of Douglas, "whose career from first to last," says Mr. Tytler, "had been that of a selfish, ambitious, and cruel tyrant, who, at the moment when he was cut off, was all but a convicted traitor, and whose death, if we except the mode in which it was brought about, was to be regarded as a public benefit."
His friends and his adherents, however, were not disposed to take this calm view of the matter. His younger brother succeeded to his titles and estates, and was styled "Earl of Douglas and Duke of Touraine;" and he, with the earls of Murray, Ormond, Lord Balvenie, and others, all Douglases, proposed to storm the castle of Stirling, and put all within it to the sword, not even excepting James and his young queen, Mary of Gueldres; but a little reflection convinced them of the peril of such an enterprise, and, moreover, that they were without cannon or other resources to attempt it.
However, six hundred nobles, barons, and gentlemen, of the house of Douglas, mustered in full array, with all their vassals, within the town of Stirling, on the 25th day of March—the feast of St. Benedict—and dragged through mud and mire the king's safe conduct, which they nailed on a wooden truncheon, and tied to the tail of a sorry old jaded cart-horse. They then burned it publicly at the Market Cross, where after four hundred horns and twenty brass trumpets had proclaimed defiance, they stigmatized "the king, the lord Crichton, Sir Alexander Livingstone, Sir Patrick Gray, and all who adhered to them, as false and perjured traitors!"
They bade formal defiance to the royal garrison. Then, after completely pillaging the town, they set it on fire in every quarter, and, leaving it in flames and ashes, retired through the adjacent country, which they filled with tumult and outrage. Having thus expended their fury on all that came in their way, they retired each to his own fortress, to prepare for what might follow.
Not long after this, the new earl, with his brothers, friends, and kinsmen, daringly fixed on the doors of the parish churches a document, in which they solemnly renounced their allegiance to the king "as a perjured traitor, a violator of the laws of hospitality, and an ungodly thirster after innocent blood."
The parliament now resolved to aid their justly-incensed monarch in punishing these contumacious nobles, and in a short time he found himself at the head of thirty thousand carefully-selected men, who assembled on Pentland Muir, and with them he resolved to advance against the Douglases. Sir Patrick Gray and the royal guard, of course, accompanied him on this expedition.
The king had with him, William, the lord high constable, whom he had just created earl of Errol, and leader of feudal cavalry; Lord Crichton's son, whom he had created earl of Caithness and lord high admiral of the kingdom; the lords Hailes, Fleming, Boyd, and many other loyal nobles, with all their followers.
He had a fine train of artillery (as artillery was viewed in those days), under Romanno of that ilk, the principal cannon beingthe Lion, a great gun cast in Flanders and shipped at Bruges, for Scotland, by order of his father, James I., in 1430. It was of polished brass, covered by beautiful carvings and ornaments, and bore the following inscription:—
cannon
"Illustri Iacobo Scottorum, principe digno,Regi magnifico, dum fulmine castra reduco,Factus sum sub eo, nuncuper ergo Leo."
The white or gaudily-striped and bannered tents of the royal army covered all the great tract of land known as Pentland Muir, and clustered by the margin of lonely Logan Burn, which flows through a green sequestered vale, the solitude of which was now broken by the hum of the camp, the hourly din of horn and trumpet, the clanging of the hammers and anvils of the farriers and armourers; thus, the shepherd on the Pentland slopes could see the red glow of many a forge and watch fire reddening the sides of the hills by night, and in his shealing he could hear the unwonted sounds, that scared his herds and hirsels from their pasture, the eagle from its eyrie in Torduff, and broke the silence of the pastoral waste:—
Piercing the night's dull ear; and from the tentsThe armourers accomplishing the knights,With busy hammers closing rivets up,Give note of dreadful preparation.
The wiry music of the harp might also be heard at times amid the camp, for many minstrels accompanied the king's army. Thelasttime its notes were heard in a Scottish host was when Argyll marched to the battle of Benrinnes, in 1594.
After hearing solemn mass said in the old rectory kirk of Pentland, where whilom was a settlement of theGillian Chriosd(followers of the Lord)—whence comes the name of Gilchrist—the order was issued by James to strike the tents, and then the whole army marched against the Douglases. The king wore at his helmet the glove of his beautiful Mary d'Egmont, and a knot of her neck-ribbons decorated his lance. The task his troops had undertaken was somewhat arduous, as they had to penetrate into wild districts destitute of roads, where every laird and peasant, every yeoman and hind, felt it his duty to defend his chief against all mankind, even the king, if he came in a hostile guise.
With the ghastly smile of the dead earl yet before him, and the terrible words he had uttered yet lingering in his ear, Sir Patrick Gray longed to be at Thrave; and his heart sickened with impatience during the tardy passage of the king's army through Ettrick Forest and Annandale, the home of powerful and predatory Border clans, into Galloway; for malcontents and marauders were to be punished on every hand; the growing cornfields were swept by fire; towers were stormed and castles dismantled, by having their gates unhinged and their battlements thrown down.
Many of the Douglas adherents, on seeing the determination of James and the number of his host, implored forgiveness; and he, being by nature too fiery and impetuous to be vindictive, pardoned them; but the young earl had fled, no one knew whither save his own friends.
At last the king approached the banks of the Dee, and saw before him the famous stronghold of Thrave. The vanguard of his army, the vassals of Lord Glammis, gave a shout when they first came in sight of it, and that shout found an echo in the heart of Gray, as it did in the hearts of the Douglas garrison; for in Thrave, at least a thousand men, under Sir Alan Lauder, prepared to defend themselves to the last, and literally to fight with ropes around their necks.
When the vanguard halted, and the army began to encamp, the king, accompanied by Sir Patrick Gray, Lord Crichton, and others, rode forward to examine this strong and spacious castle, on which the Douglas banner was waving, and all the ramparts of which, from the outer barbican wall to the summit of the keep, seemed full of armed men, glittering, moving, and instinct with animation, all save one who hung from the gallows knob, and he was still enough.
The mighty fabric, with its moat and bridge, its grated windows and battlements bristling with steel pikes, brass sakers, and long arquebuses, was as grim, as gloomy, as dark and stern as ever, and its shadow was cast by the evening sun far along the surface of the Dee. A white puff of smoke floated suddenly from the keep in the sunshine, and with the sharp report of a culverin, souse came an iron ball, which struck the earth beneath the forefeet of Sir Patrick's horse, causing it to rear wildly.
"A narrow chance of death," said he, with a dark smile.
"There are some chances that do not happentwicein a man's lifetime," said the king laughing; "so we had better change our ground."
As they rode towards the three thorn trees at the Carlinwark (one of which still survives, though gnarled, knotted, and old, with the lapse of, perhaps, ten centuries), a shout rose from the half-formed camp, and the soldiers began to rush to their standards, for now a large body of troops were seen debouching from the woods in their rear, and a rumour instantly spread that they were English forces under the young earl of Douglas, advancing to raise the siege. But the momentary alarm was soon quelled on the return of Lord Glammis and the Master of Crichton, who, by the king's order, had advanced to meet them and reconnoitre.
"They are fresh troops from Ayr, who are come to join your highness," said Glammis, "the men of the three Baileries of Kyle, Carrick, and Cunningham."
"Under whom?"
"The Lord Montgomerie of that Ilk and Sir Robert of Kilmaurs, who request permission to kiss your hand."
"Good—'tis well."
"And better still, there have come in with them, the three Wards of Etterick, Yarrow, and Tweed."
"The archers of our old Royal Forest of Selkirk! Thank Heaven, despite this Douglas war, there are loyal and true hearts in Scotland yet!" exclaimed the king. "And now to summon this devil of a fortress. Who will ride forward with the sign of truce?"
"That will I, readily," said Gray.
Others who were of higher rank might have claimed the perilous service; but all knew how Sir Patrick was situated, or connected with the family then in rebellion against the throne, so none came forward to dispute the errand with him.
"I thank you my faithful friend," said James. "You know the terms I offer; instant surrender, and that if the garrison resist, every man found within the walls shall suffer by the edge of the sword."
Thou a young king art, Alfonso,New thy sceptre in the land;Establish well at home thy power,Ere thou drawest forth the brand.—The Cid.
Sir Patrick Gray laid aside his helmet and gauntlets, and with a freshly peeled willow rod, the old Scottish symbol of peace and truce in his right hand, rode boldly forward, and while scanning every window with eager eyes for one beloved face and form, he found himself before the formidable gate of Thrave. No faces but those of armed and helmeted men were visible.
At his approach the drawbridge was lowered and the gates were unclosed; but the portcullis, which was composed of iron bars welded together in harrow-fashion by the ponderous hammer of Malise MacKim, remained closed, and within, or beyond it, he saw the Lairds of Pompherston, Cairnglas, and Glendoning, with James Achanna, and Sir Alan Lauder, who was governor of Thrave, and as a symbol of that office wore a silver key suspended at his neck by a chain of the same metal. All were in complete armour, but wore their helmets open. Anxiety and anger, but also resolution, were expressed in all their faces.
"In the name of his majesty the king!" exclaimed Gray, reining in his horse.
"Well—what ware bring you here, sir, in the name of his majesty the king?" asked Lauder, sternly but mockingly.
"I, Patrick Gray, of Foulis, knight, commander of the royal guard, summon you, knights, gentlemen, and others, adherents of the umquhile and forfeited Earls of Douglas, Murray, Ormond, and of the Lords Hamilton and Balvenie, to yield up this strength unto the king, or otherwise to abide our cannon, and the fate in store for all who are guilty of treason and rebellion!"
"Sir Patrick Gray," replied Lauder, a grim old man with a long silver beard and a severely knitted brow, "you have come to the wrong quarter to offer such hard terms. My name is Alan Lauder, of the Auld Craig o'Bass; my shield bears a double treasure, to show that I and mine have been faithful to our trust, and my motto, as the monks have it, isTurris prudentia custos, and by it shall I abide. The garrison of Thrave believe in their patron, St. Bryde of Douglas, and, perchance, rather more in their arblasts and arquebuses; and this house shall we defend to the last, so help us God!" he added,
"Reconsider your words, rash man! The wise may change their minds on reflection, but fools never."
"Begone, lest a ball from an arquebus end this parley," replied Lauder, whose grey eyes sparkled with anger.
"Be it so," said Gray, gathering up his reins and turning his horse; "but the king desires me to add, that the Countess of Douglas, the Lady Murielle, their ladies, and all women and children now here in Thrave, may depart in peace to Tongland Abbey, or the College of Lincluden. If not, that they should repair to the quarter of her bower-chamber, whereon, if a white pennon be displayed, our cannon shall respect it."
"Good—for that small boon; as I have a fair daughter, I, in the name of my brother outlaws, thank this most clement king," said Douglas of Pompherston, bitterly.
"Is the Lady Murielle with the Countess?" asked Gray, with too visible anxiety.
They all exchanged cold smiles, but no one answered. Then a page, a pretty boy, to whom Murielle had frequently been kind, was about to speak, when Achanna suddenly put a drawn sword across his mouth, saying sternly: "One word, ye false gowk, and it is your last!"
Gray was about to address Sir Alan again, when a voice exclaimed: "Place for the Countess of Douglas!"
Then, through the rustygrilleof the portcullis, Gray saw the countess approach, attended by the fair-haired daughters of Sir Alan Lauder. His emotion increased on seeing this twice-widowed dame—widowed so young and so prematurely; she who was whilome the Fair Maid of Galloway, the sister of Murielle, andhismost bitter enemy; yet, withal, he instinctively bowed low at her approach.
Full in stature, and magnificently formed, she was a woman whose natural grace and the tragic character of whose beauty were greatly increased by her dress, which, though all of the deepest black, was richly jewelled with diamonds, and the same stones sparkled on the hilt of a tiny dagger that dangled at her girdle. Her dignity was enhanced by the amplitude of her skirts, the satin waves of which filled up the eye; but her pale and lovely face, her short upper lip and quivering nostrils, expressed only scorn and aversion for poor Gray, while with one white hand, after throwing back a heavy braid of her jet hair, which she knew well to be one of her greatest beauties, she swept up her flowing train, and with the other pointed towards the camp of the king, as a hint for his envoy to begone, and as she did so, her bright black eyes flashed with latent fire.
"Countess of Douglas——"
"DowagerCountess," she interrupted Gray, with a derisive bow, and with a voice that almost hissed through her close white teeth.
"Madam, King James has now assumed the sword—"
"Ofjustice?" she asked bitterly, interrupting him again; "you should say the dagger of the assassin, Sir Patrick Gray, as it better becomes his hand; but we hope to test the temper of both his weapons. Twice has he widowed me—"
"He, madam?"
"Yea, even he; this James Stuart, who comes hither to waste our lands, to dishonour our name, to raze our castles, and to quench our household fires," she continued, in a voice which though piercing was singularly sweet, and reminded Gray of the gentler accent of Murielle. "Not content with slaying my husband cruelly and mercilessly under tryst, he has sworn by his royal crown and the Black Rood of Scotland, that the plough-share shall pass under the ground-stone of Thrave, and that the place where it stands shall be salted with salt."
"I came not hither to threaten you, madam, neither was I desired to confer with you, but with Sir Alan Lauder and those misguided men who are now in arms here; and my answer——"
"Shall be this—fromme, Margaret, countess dowager of Douglas, umquhile duchess dowager of Touraine, and lady of Longueville, Annandale, and Galloway, that James Stuart and the Gueldrian his wife may reign where they please, but I shall be queen on this side of the Nith, and woe to the man, be he lord or loon, who says me nay!"
Her glance of flame, her lovely little lip that curled with hate and scorn; her proud face, with its unearthly wrath and beauty—so fair in its proportions, yet so fearful in its aspect of passion—haunted the Captain of the Guard long after they had parted.
"Enough of this," said old Sir Alan Lauder, coming brusquely forward and taking her hand; "away, Sir Patrick—back to him, or them who sent you, and say, that though our lord the earl was foully slain under tryst in Stirling, his spirit is with us here in Thrave, and shall inspire us in resisting to the last of our breath and the last of our blood, a king who has falsely wronged us!"
"And in every particularshall the earl's last orders be obeyed," added Achanna, with an malignant glance at Gray, whose head grew giddy with rage, while his blood ran cold at the terrible inference he drew from these words; and the bars of the portcullis alone prevented him from cleaving the wretch to the chin. So ended the conference.
In this exasperated mood he rejoined the king, who, with many of the nobles, awaited him at the three thorns of the Carlinwark.
The siege now began with great vigour.
On the 8th July, James wrote to Charles VII. of France, announcing that all the fortresses of the Douglas family had surrendered to him except Thrave, which his troops were then besieging; but August came, and still the defiant banner with the bloody heart waved from the vast keep that still overshadows the Dee.
The season was a lovely one.
The oak, the ash, and the beech were still in full foliage of the richest green; the white blossoms of the hawthorn were past, but the bright scarlet berries of the rowan hung in thick bunches over the trouting pools of the Dee in many a copsewooded glen. The grain, where not burned by the king's troops, was ripening on the sunny upland and lowland, contrasting in its golden tints with the dark-green of the thickets, the purple of the cornflower, and the gaudy scarlet of the poppies. The gueldre-rose and the sweet-briar filled the air with perfume; the wild pansies and wallflowers, the pink foxglove and bluebell, grew by the old fauld-dykes on many a Galloway muir and lea; and the gorgeous cups of the long yellow broom waved on the wild hill-side, and by the wimpling burn that gurgled through the rushy hollows, and under many an "auld brig-stane," in farmtown and clachan; but still the brass culverins of King James, from the three great thorns of the Carlinwark, thundered against Thrave, while old Sir Alan Lauder and his garrison replied with carthoun, arquebuse à croc, and crossbow bolt; and now the black gled and the ravenous hoodiecraw kept high aloft on the blue welkin, watching for the inhuman feast that usually followed such unhallowed sounds.
The troops of James had invested the castle on every side; tents covered all the vicinity; trenches and mounds, where spears and armour glittered, crossed all the roads and approaches. Supplies, succour, and hope, seemed all cut off together. More than a month had elapsed since the siege began, and still the vigour of the besieged was undiminished; and in the royal ranks the loss of life by their missiles was very great.
The balls of the king's artillery—even those of the boasted Lion of Flanders—were rained in vain upon the solid face of that vast donjon-keep, for they were too light. The great art of projectiles seemed yet in its infancy, and Sir John Romanno of that ilk, the general of the ordnance, rent his beard in despair.
Seven orbs within a spacious round they close,One stirs the fire, and one the bellows blows;The hissing steel is in the smithy drown'd,The grot with beaten anvils groans around.By turns their arms advance in equal time;By turns their hands descend, and hammers chime.They turn the glowing mass with crooked tongs,The fiery work proceeds with rustic songs.Virgil,Æneidviii.
For many days salvoes (i.e., discharges of heavy ordnance fired in concert by sound of trumpet) were sent against Thrave without success, and yells of triumph and derision, when the balls of iron and whinstone rebounded from the massive walls—thetriple yellsof the Galwegians, the same terrible war-cry which their forefathers raised amid the heart of the Saxon host at the Battle of the Standard, were borne upward on the wind to the king's battery at the Carlinwark.
"This devil of a tower is invulnerable!" said Romanno, casting down his truncheon in anger; "it is a veritable maiden castle—strong in virtue and unassailable."
"Virtue, said ye?" growled the old chancellor, under his barred aventayle; "ah, but our court-rakes aver that even the most virtuous woman has always one weak point, if we can only find it out."
"Out upon thy white beard, chancellor!" said the young king, laughing; "what mean you to say?"
"That, like a fair court lady, this castle of Thrave may have a weak point too."
"But, unless we attempt an escalade, the capture of the place is impossible by battering," said the general of the ordnance.
"Impossible!" reiterated the young king, his face and eyes glowing together, while the red spot on his cheek assumed a deeper hue.
"Pardon me, your highness," said Sir John Romanno; "but I humbly think so."
"Think; but yousaidimpossible."
"Under favour, yes."
"There is no such word in a soldier's vocabulary," replied the spirited monarch; "and while our hearts beat under our breastplates there is hope."
"But the idea of an escalade," said Gray, "with the Dee to cross, and a wall to mount, exposed to a fire of cannon and arqubuses à croc, with long bows and arblasts to boot, and thereafter mauls, lances, and two-handed swords in themêlée, is not to be thought of—at least until, by dint of cannon, we effect a breach."
"A breach!" exclaimed Sir John Romanno; "by my forefathers' bones ye are little likely to see that, sirs, when the shot of our heaviest culverins, even those of the Lion, our chief bombarde, rebound like silken balls from the stone rampart, and our cannoniers seem no better than court-ladies at palm play."
A loud and somewhat hoarse but hearty laugh close by made all turn towards the offender. They perceived a man of vast and herculean proportions, with a shock head of black hair, which the absence of his scarlet hood (as it hung down his back) displayed in all its shaggy amplitude, a swarthy visage, with lurid black eyes, and a long beard. He wore a doublet of black bull's hide, a rough kilt dyed with heather, and he leaned upon the shaft of a ponderous iron mace, which, with a long buck-horn-hilted dagger and fur pouch or sporran, formed his only appurtenance.
"Art thou the knave who laughed?" asked Romanno, furiously, with his hand on his sword.
"And in this presence!" added the chancellor, whose wrath was also kindled.
"Dioual! I did laugh," replied the man, in a strong and guttural Galloway accent; "is it a crime to laugh at the folly or bewilderment of others?"
"Thou base varlet!" began Romanno, in a towering passion, clenching his gauntleted hand, when Sir Patrick Gray interposed, saying, "By my faith, it is my friend, the strong smith of Thrave, who saved me from the white sleuth-bratch. Come hither, carle, and remember that you stand in the presence of the king."
Malise MacKim was too much of a primitive Celt to be abashed even before a king, though he had frequently quailed under the eye of Douglas, and the tongue of his own wife, Meg, who was proverbial in Galloway as a fierce virago; so he came boldly forward and stood erect, with an inquiring expression of eye, as if waiting to be addressed.
"Whence is it that your king's perplexity excites your laughter?" asked James, gravely.
"Speak quickly, carle," added the chancellor, pointing ominously to a branch of one of the thorn trees under which they stood.
"Threats will not force me to speak; but I answer the king,notyou, my lord," replied the unabashed Galwegian.
"We are not used to be laughed at, sirrah," said James; "therefore, if you do not give us a fair reason for your untimely merriment, by the holy rood! I shall begin to threaten too."
"I am Malise MacKim, surnamed the Brawny, and I am the father of seven sons, each a head taller than myself——"
"Thou art a lucky dog, would I were the same," said the king; "but is this a reason for laughter?"
"What the devil is all this to us, fellow?" asked Romanno.
"This much; they are all smiths, and can each wield a fore hammer forty pounds in weight, as if it were a kettle-drum stick. Ochoin! Mhuire as truadh! Ochoin! There was a time when we never thought to swing our hammers in the service of mortal man, save Douglas. But vengeance is sweeter than bread in famine; so, if your grace will give us but iron enough, I will be content to forfeit my head, or to hang by the neck from that thorn tree, if, within the space of seven summer days, my seven brave bairns and I fail to fashion you a bombarde which, at the first discharge, will pierce yonder wall like a gossamer web, so aid us Heaven and St. Cudbrecht?"
"This is a brave offer," said the general of the ordnance, mockingly; "and what weight may the balls of this proposed cannon be?"
"Each one shall be the weight of a Carsphairn cow," replied the smith slowly, as if reflecting while answering; "and if each fails to shake Thrave to its ground-stane, the king's grace may hang me, as I have said, on that thorn branch, as a false and boasting limmer."
"You speak us fairly, good fellow," said the king, who seemed pleased and amused by the burly smith's bluntness and perfect confidence. "We are not in a position to reject such loyal offers. Fashion this great gun for me, and if it does the service you promise, by my father's soul! you shall have a fair slice of yonder fertile land between the Urr and Dee."
As he spoke, James drew off his gauntlet, and presented his hand to the gigantic smith, who knelt and kissed it respectfully, but with the clownish air of one alike unused to kneeling and to courtesy.
On MacKim requiring material, each of the principal burghers of Kirkcudbright contributed agaudor bar of iron, in their anxiety to serve the king, and to have the death of Sir Thomas MacLellan more fully avenged. As a reward for this contribution, King James made the town a royal burgh, and in memory of it, his gallant grandson, on the 26th of February, 1509, granted the old castle of the MacLellans as a free gift to the corporation.
At a place named the Buchancroft, a rude but extensive forge was soon erected, and there, stripped to their leathern girdles, the brawny MacKim and his seven sturdy sons, like Vulcan and the Cyclops, plied and swung their ponderous hammers on great resounding anvils, while welding the vast hoops and forming the long bars that were to compose the great cannon which was to demolish the famous stronghold of Thrave.
Seven days and seven nights these muscular smiths worked almost without cessation, and the lurid glow of their great forge was nightly seen from the doomed fortress to redden the sky above, the waters of the Dee below, and the tented camp of the besieging army; and only a few years ago, when the new road was made past Carlinwark, a vast mound of cinders and ashes, which formed thedébrisof their work, was discovered and cleared away.
Meanwhile, a band of artificers, with hammer and chisel, were fashioning the balls, which were quarried on the summit of the Binnan hill; these when finished were permitted to roll thundering to its base; and it is remarkable that the great stone-shot for this gun, which yet remain in the castle of Edinburgh, are of Galloway granite from the same eminence.
At last the vast bombarde or cannon was complete in all its bars, hoops, and rivets; it weighed six tons and a half, exclusive of the carriage, and measured two feet diameter in the bore.
During its formation, Sir Patrick Gray endured an mount of mental torture and anxiety which temporary inaction rendered greater.
Would Achanna dare to put in execution the terrible order of the ferocious earl? Would her sister, unrelenting as she was, permit it? He feared that the deed might be done when the castle surrendered, and his feverish and active imagination pictured the gentle, timid, and delicate Murielle writhing in the grasp of an assassin.
But if some dark deed had not beenalreadydone, why did Achanna place his drawn sword across the mouth of the page, who was about to speak of Murielle, during the parley at the portcullis.
Had knighthood and common humanity fallen so low among those outlaws, that her life would be no longer safe in her sister's household; or were the last words of the dying earl a falsehood, merely meant to sting and embitter the soul of one whom he hated with a tiger's hatred?
Gray afflicted himself with thoughts and surmises such as these, and while the siege was pressed by the king and his troops, his days and nights were passed in misery.
On viewing the great piece of ordnance, James II. promised again that if it proved more successful than the Lion and his other culverins, he would nobly reward the artificer, who, with his seven sons and the royal cannoniers, dragged Meg—for so MacKim named the gun, after his own wife, whose voice, he affirmed, "her roar would resemble"—to the summit of an eminence which, unto this day, is named from that circumstance Knockcannon. Royal heralds with their glittering tabards, and pursuivants with their silver collars of SS, marched in front, while trumpets were blown and kettle-drums beaten; pipers blew, and minstrels played upon their harps; the king's jester swung his bladder and cracked his jokes; and thus, amid music, merriment, and acclamations, the mighty cannon was dragged up the slope and brought into position.
It was then loaded with an old Scottish peck of powder and one of its granite balls, and thereafter was levelled at the fortress of the rebellious Douglases.
"Now—now," exclaimed Malise MacKim, in grim triumph, as he wiped the beads of perspiration from his swarthy brow; "unless my lady of Douglas can fly through the air like an eagle, or swim down the Dee like a grilse, she and the false brood who slew my kinsman and stole his daughter shall exchange their steel gloves for steel fetters!"
All in the king's host were eager to observe the effect produced by this mighty engine of destruction, the first discharge of which, when Sir John Romanno applied the match, seemed to split the welkin, and the recoil of the wheels tore deep ruts in the turf, while many averred that they could trace the course of the ball like a great globe of stone in the air, through which it hummed and whistled.
Be that as it might, when the smoke was blown aside, a great breach or opening (now called the cannon-hole) was visible in the face of the keep, where the side of one of the windows was partly torn away. The masonry was seen to fall in a crumbling mass into the barbican, and the shout of consternation which arose from the garrison was borne on the morning wind to the king's camp, and far beyond it.
The cannoniers now cast aside their helmets, cuirasses, and cuisses, that they might work with greater facility at the laborious task of reloading this great gun, which was discharged several times with equal success; and Sir Patrick Gray watched with agony the result of every shot; for the deep, hoarse boom of each explosion that seemed to rend the hills and sky found an echo in his heart. They seemed like the knell of her he loved.
The warlike James II. was in ecstasy with the success of this new piece of ordnance, and summoning the fabricator to his tent, he then, in presence of the chancellor, the constable, and the principal nobles, granted to him and his heirs for ever, the forfeited estate of Mollance, which lies between the rivers Urr and Dee.
Mollance was locally pronounced Mowans, hence the name of the great gun which he fashioned, and which is now in the castle of Edinburgh—Mowan's Meg; though unsupported assertion has assigned her origin to the town of Mons, in Flanders—an origin of which there is not a vestige of documentary proof.
Hastening from the king's tent, Sir Patrick Gray arrived at Knockcannon in time to see another mass of masonry beaten down; and this time the feeble shout from Thrave was drowned in the tumultuous cheer that rang along the slopes, which were covered by the camp of the royal army.
"Cor Jesu, in agonia factum, miserere morientum!" prayed the voice of one beside him.
He turned, and saw his old friend the abbot, who had just left his secluded abbey of Tongland and arrived in the camp.
"Ha, father abbot," said Sir John Romanno, while six of the sturdiest cannoniers, bare armed and all begrimed by perspiration, smoke, and gunpowder, swung another granite ball into Meg's capacious muzzle; "how are you? By the mass! if he you wot of were in Thrave, this would make him shake his horns and crypeccavi."
"He—who?" asked the abbot, in a tone of displeasure.
"Thy old friend—Mahoun—the fiend himself."
"Shame on thee, Sir John."
"I am but a plain soldier, good abbot," replied Romanno, who was in excellent humour with himself and every one else; "each man to his trade: thou to thy massbook and missal—I to my lintstock and quoin."
"A truce—a truce!" cried a hundred voices, as a white flag was displayed at the summit of Thrave, where a man waved it to and fro, though the Douglas banner was not yet drawn down. Then came the faint and distant sound of trumpets craving a parley.
The abbot immediately offered himself as a mediator; and, on obtaining the permission of the king, who was now weary of this protracted and destructive siege, and was anxious to return to his beautiful Fleming at Stirling, he left the camp for Thrave, accompanied by Sir Patrick Gray, whose anxiety for the safety of Murielle was now irrepressible.