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 land
In 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, and he 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 to dree his weird—to follow his destiny!