"He dare not!" was the bold reply.
"I beseech you to beware, my lord earl," said Lord Hamilton; "I have a strange foreboding in my heart, and I warn you now—even as the good Sir Malcolm Fleming warned Earl William—to remember that before the gate of Stirling lies a mound, on which have rolled the heads of Murdoch of Albany, of his two sons, of Duncan, earl of Lennox, and many others."
"What of that?" asked the earl impatiently, as if he disliked the subject.
"In one minute more, you will be at the mercy of the king," said Hamilton, who was alike bold and wary.
But the earl laughed scornfully and rode on, while the majority of his vast retinue separated to seek quarters in the town, as the castle could not have held them.
"There is yet time to pause—even to return," resumed Hamilton, as he all but seized the earl's rein.
"I know not what you mean, Cadzow; but I care not, and he dare not," said Douglas, as he reined up his horse and dismounted at the gate of the castle.
Before it was a strong palisade, within which the soldiers of the king's guard were under arms, with their helmets, corslets, plate sleeves, and partisans glittering in the sun. At their head were Sir Patrick Gray, and his kinsman, Gray of Balgarno, clad, not in state dresses, but complete armour, as if for battle.
Sir Patrick and the earl exchanged angry and hostile glances as they passed each other. There was a considerable pressure about the gate, as the chief followers of Douglas crushed after him through the narrow outer wicket; and there a strange fracas took place between Cadzow and the grim old Sir Alexander Livingstone of Callender, who, after he had relinquished the regency, had been appointed justice-general of Scotland, with a peerage in perspective.
Sir Alexander snatched a partisan from the hands of his son, Sir James Livingstone, who was captain of the castle of Stirling, and when Hamilton (his own kinsman and friend) attempted to enter, he placed the shaft across the wicket, and roughly thrust him back.