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, is Turris 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 rusty grille of 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, and his most 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——"

"Dowager Countess," 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—"

"Of justice?" 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—from me, 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 particular shall 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.