"Because they who did that deed, the most foul murder of God's anointed king, perished miserably on the scaffold more than twenty years ago. Their ashes have long since mingled with the earth, for fire consumed and the wind of heaven scattered them; but their names exist in the execration of all good men and true."
"Hard words," said the other, scoffingly; "hard words, sir, for us, who are on the eve, perhaps, of a most just rebellion against his son, if he and his Flemish princess, with that old fox, Crichton, push us too severely; and then I think his dainty Falkland knights, and well-fed Lothian infantry, may find it perilous work to march through Nithsdale and penetrate among the wild hills of Galloway."
Gray did not answer; they had now emerged from the wood, and the Loch of Carlinwark was shining like a mirror in the full splendour of the moonlight. At some distance he could discern the three old thorn-trees, where, on a similarly calm and lovely moonlit night, he had first plighted love, life, and hope, to Murielle; and now, as then, he could see Thrave, her home and her prison, casting its long black shadows on the Dee.
"Here is Thrave," said the stranger, reining up his powerful horse beside the barbican-gate.
"And you, sir?——"
"I am James, earl of Douglas," replied the other, sternly and loftily; "you are on the king's errand, Sir Patrick Gray—'tis well; I bid you welcome; but remember, save for that tabard which you wear, by the bones of St. Bryde, I would hang you by the neck from that stone knob above the gate!"
Gray bowed and smiled bitterly, as they rode into the court-yard, and he found himself inclosed by the gates and surrounded by the followers of his mortal enemy.
He had shuddered on passing under the barbican-gate, for a man was hanging at the gallows-knob above it. Gray knew the dread custom there—that each culprit or victim was replaced by another, and he knew not who the next "tassel" might be.
The night-wind lifted the dead man's hair at times as the body swung mournfully to and fro. Beneath this ghastly object, in the blaze of the torches which were upheld by a crowd of liveried serving-men and savage-looking kilted Galwegians, there shone a great shield of carved and painted stone. It bore the arms of the ancient lords of Galloway—azure a lion rampant, argent crowned with an imperial diadem, impaled with the countless quarterings of the Douglases.
The moon was waning now; but the number of torches, as they flared on the walls and grated windows of the vast keep, made the court-yard seem light as if the night was noon.