‘Ere the smoke hath melted in air above.
Or the blood soaked in where the hoof hath trod,
The true heart beateth its last for its love,
And the soul is gone home to God.’
The moment was one of intense anxiety and terror. Concealed by the leaves of the old beech, every leap of the frantic bloodhound threatened to disclose the listener’s hiding-place. The Earls of Rothes and Argyle, with drawn swords and bent brows, looked high and low for the cause of the dog’s fury. Besides the dread of a violent death, all the more terrible at this his first hour of escape from captivity, Maxwell now felt that on him depended the liberty of his Queen; more than this, the life and honour of the woman he still so dearly loved. To do him justice he would willingly have died on the spot to be able to advertise his Sovereign of her danger.
For an instant the desperate expedient darted through his mind of leaping down on Argyle’s upturned face, wresting the sword from his grasp, and thus armed doing battle with Moray and Rothes; but, even then, he reflected, how surely the former, who was never surprised or at a loss, would run to the castle for assistance. If retaken, Walter shuddered to think, not of his own fate, but of Mary Carmichael’s capture on the morrow.
Nevertheless there seemed nothing else for it; he had even collected his breath, and nerved his muscles for the spring, when a trumpet sounded in the castle, and a puff of lurid smoke swept across the faces of the three noblemen, who were searching about with eager looks and bare blades, encouraging ‘Hubert’ the while with voice and gesture.
Again the smoke came rolling in a dun-coloured volume against the clear sky, and the bloodhound, his attention distracted by the new catastrophe, or his powers of scent dulled by the smell of fire, ceased to leap at the old tree, and lowering his stern, began to howl in abject terror and dismay.
Rothes could not forbear laughing, though he coughed and swore at the same time.
‘’Tis the alarm!’ said he, as the trumpet again rang out in the castle-yard. ‘Faith, Moray, I cannot but think they are burning the old house about our heads. Gentlemen both, I counted not to give ye so warm a reception as this!’