"Remove this cloth," said the earl to some of his people who were near; and on their doing so, there was seen the body of a headless man—a body which Gray knew too well to be that of his friend and kinsman, for on the breast of the soiled and faded pourpoint was embroidered a gold scutcheon, with the three black chevrons of MacLellan.
"Sir Patrick, you have come a little too late," said the sneering earl; "here lies your father's sister's son; but, unfortunately, he wants the head, and a head is an awkward loss. The body, however, is completely at your service."
Grief and indignation almost choked Gray's utterance. He knelt down and kissed the cold right hand, which yet bore the mark of an iron fetter, and then turning to the earl, said, "My lord, you may now dispose of the body as you please; but the head——"
"Behold it on the battlement above you!"[4]
Gray mounted his horse, which was at that moment led to the outer gate by the earl's grooms; and mistrusting them, though feeling as one in a terrible dream, before putting his foot in the stirrup he carefully examined his bridle, girths, and crupper. Then, says Sir Walter Scott in his history, "his resentment broke forth in spite of the dangerous situation in which he was placed":—
"My lord," said he, shaking his gauntleted hand close to the earl's beard, "if I live you shall bitterly pay for this day's work; and I—Patrick Gray of Foulis—tell thee, that thou art a bloodthirsty coward—a disgrace to knighthood and nobility!"
He then wheeled round his horse, pressed the sharp Rippon spurs into its flanks, and galloped off.
"To horse and chase him!" cried the earl, furiously. "I will ride to Stirling, false minion, with your head at my saddle-bow! To horse and follow him—this venturesome knight must sleep beside his kinsman!"
"But he came on the king's service," urged Sir Alan Lauder, as he put his foot in the stirrup of his horse, when some twenty or thirty mounted moss-troopers came hurriedly from the stable court.
"Bah! love-lured and destiny dragged him hither. Let slip Souyllard the sleuth-bratch. Horse and spear, I say, Lauder and Achanna—a hundred crowns for the head of yonder minion! I swear by St. Bryde of Douglas and Kildara, by the Blessed Virgin and her son, never to eat at a table, sleep in a bed, to rest under a Christian roof, or to lay aside sword and armour, till I have passed my dagger through the heart of Patrick Gray, dead or alive!"——"If you break this terrible vow," said Sir Alan, aghast at the earl's fury, and the form it took in words.