Gowrie paused for an instant till the steel cap was clasped under his chin, and then hurried on to the entrance of the Great House.
But a change had taken place. The gates were wide open; the servants and retainers who had followed the king from Falkland, were all either in the house or at the further side of the court; and without pausing to ask any question, Gowrie rushed to the narrow stair at the foot of the southwest tower, and ran up, followed close by his faithful attendant, Cranston.
The door at the top, leading into the gallery chamber, was partly closed, and a shoulder placed against it; but Gowrie pushed it open, exclaiming, "Where is the king?--I come to defend him with my life," and at once entered the room with the two naked swords in his hands. Before him lay a dead body bleeding profusely, and partly covered with the king's cloak.
"You have killed the king, our master," cried Herries, "and will you now take our lives?"
Gowrie's strength seemed to fail him in a moment--His brain reeled--and pausing suddenly in his advance, he dropped the swords' points to the floor, exclaiming, "Ah, woe is me! Has the king been slain in my house?"
Without reply, Ramsay sprang fiercely upon him, and, unresisted, drove his dagger into the young earl's heart.
Gowrie did not fall at once, but for one instant leaned upon the sword in his right hand, without attempting to strike a blow. Cranston sprang forward to support him, and caught him in his arms; but the earl sank slowly to the ground, and with the indistinct murmur of one well-loved name, expired.
The murderers gazed upon their victim for a moment in silence; but it was no time now for hesitation or inactivity. They were four in number, it is true, and there remained but one living man opposed to them in the gallery chamber; but the sound of persons ascending the turret-staircase was heard, and Erskine rushed upon Cranston with his sword drawn.
Cranston, furious at the base treatment of a lord he loved and reverenced, instantly repelled the attack, and, no mean swordsman, wounded Erskine in hand and arm; but all the others fell upon him, and drove him back to the head of the staircase. Succour, however, was near; for three gentlemen, headed by Hugh Moncrief, who had dined with the earl that day, alarmed by the tumult, and the vague rumours that were circulated below, were now rushing up--unhappily, too late--to the assistance of the noble friend whom they had lost for ever. Unprepared for meeting immediate hostility, however, they were encountered at the very entrance of the room by those who were too ready to receive them, and after a sharp but short encounter were driven down, as well as Cranston, into the court-yard. Hugh Moncrief, Patrick Eviot, and Henry Ruthven of Freeland, forced their way into the street, and joined a small knot of the dead earl's friends collected under the window; but Cranston, less fortunate, was taken in the court-yard.
The situation of the king, however, was less safe than he had imagined it would be. There was much tumult in the streets of Perth, where the family of the dead had ever been extremely popular; and when James, informed that the deed he had long meditated was fully executed, came forth from the cabinet, it was with a pale face, for seditious cries were rising up from beneath the windows, and one of the most loyal towns in Scotland was well nigh in a state of insurrection.