Seven days and seven nights these muscular smiths worked almost without cessation, and the lurid glow of their great forge was nightly seen from the doomed fortress to redden the sky above, the waters of the Dee below, and the tented camp of the besieging army; and only a few years ago, when the new road was made past Carlinwark, a vast mound of cinders and ashes, which formed the débris of their work, was discovered and cleared away.
Meanwhile, a band of artificers, with hammer and chisel, were fashioning the balls, which were quarried on the summit of the Binnan hill; these when finished were permitted to roll thundering to its base; and it is remarkable that the great stone-shot for this gun, which yet remain in the castle of Edinburgh, are of Galloway granite from the same eminence.
At last the vast bombarde or cannon was complete in all its bars, hoops, and rivets; it weighed six tons and a half, exclusive of the carriage, and measured two feet diameter in the bore.
During its formation, Sir Patrick Gray endured an mount of mental torture and anxiety which temporary inaction rendered greater.
Would Achanna dare to put in execution the terrible order of the ferocious earl? Would her sister, unrelenting as she was, permit it? He feared that the deed might be done when the castle surrendered, and his feverish and active imagination pictured the gentle, timid, and delicate Murielle writhing in the grasp of an assassin.
But if some dark deed had not been already done, why did Achanna place his drawn sword across the mouth of the page, who was about to speak of Murielle, during the parley at the portcullis.
Had knighthood and common humanity fallen so low among those outlaws, that her life would be no longer safe in her sister's household; or were the last words of the dying earl a falsehood, merely meant to sting and embitter the soul of one whom he hated with a tiger's hatred?
Gray afflicted himself with thoughts and surmises such as these, and while the siege was pressed by the king and his troops, his days and nights were passed in misery.
On viewing the great piece of ordnance, James II. promised again that if it proved more successful than the Lion and his other culverins, he would nobly reward the artificer, who, with his seven sons and the royal cannoniers, dragged Meg—for so MacKim named the gun, after his own wife, whose voice, he affirmed, "her roar would resemble"—to the summit of an eminence which, unto this day, is named from that circumstance Knockcannon. Royal heralds with their glittering tabards, and pursuivants with their silver collars of SS, marched in front, while trumpets were blown and kettle-drums beaten; pipers blew, and minstrels played upon their harps; the king's jester swung his bladder and cracked his jokes; and thus, amid music, merriment, and acclamations, the mighty cannon was dragged up the slope and brought into position.
It was then loaded with an old Scottish peck of powder and one of its granite balls, and thereafter was levelled at the fortress of the rebellious Douglases.