Be that as it might, when the smoke was blown aside, a great breach or opening (now called the cannon-hole) was visible in the face of the keep, where the side of one of the windows was partly torn away. The masonry was seen to fall in a crumbling mass into the barbican, and the shout of consternation which arose from the garrison was borne on the morning wind to the king's camp, and far beyond it.
The cannoniers now cast aside their helmets, cuirasses, and cuisses, that they might work with greater facility at the laborious task of reloading this great gun, which was discharged several times with equal success; and Sir Patrick Gray watched with agony the result of every shot; for the deep, hoarse boom of each explosion that seemed to rend the hills and sky found an echo in his heart. They seemed like the knell of her he loved.
The warlike James II. was in ecstasy with the success of this new piece of ordnance, and summoning the fabricator to his tent, he then, in presence of the chancellor, the constable, and the principal nobles, granted to him and his heirs for ever, the forfeited estate of Mollance, which lies between the rivers Urr and Dee.
Mollance was locally pronounced Mowans, hence the name of the great gun which he fashioned, and which is now in the castle of Edinburgh —Mowan's Meg; though unsupported assertion has assigned her origin to the town of Mons, in Flanders – an origin of which there is not a vestige of documentary proof.
Hastening from the king's tent, Sir Patrick Gray arrived at Knockcannon in time to see another mass of masonry beaten down; and this time the feeble shout from Thrave was drowned in the tumultuous cheer that rang along the slopes, which were covered by the camp of the royal army.
"Cor Jesu, in agonia factum, miserere morientum!" prayed the voice of one beside him.
He turned, and saw his old friend the abbot, who had just left his secluded abbey of Tongland and arrived in the camp.
"Ha, father abbot," said Sir John Romanno, while six of the sturdiest cannoniers, bare armed and all begrimed by perspiration, smoke, and gunpowder, swung another granite ball into Meg's capacious muzzle; "how are you? By the mass! if he you wot of were in Thrave, this would make him shake his horns and cry peccavi."
"He – who?" asked the abbot, in a tone of displeasure.
"Thy old friend – Mahoun – the fiend himself."
"Shame on thee, Sir John."
"I am but a plain soldier, good abbot," replied Romanno, who was in excellent humour with himself and every one else; "each man to his trade: thou to thy massbook and missal – I to my lintstock and quoin."
"A truce – a truce!" cried a hundred voices, as a white flag was displayed at the summit of Thrave, where a man waved it to and fro, though the Douglas banner was not yet drawn down. Then came the faint and distant sound of trumpets craving a parley.
The abbot immediately offered himself as a mediator; and, on obtaining the permission of the king, who was now weary of this protracted and destructive siege, and was anxious to return to his beautiful Fleming at Stirling, he left the camp for Thrave, accompanied by Sir Patrick Gray, whose anxiety for the safety of Murielle was now irrepressible.
CHAPTER LVI
THE PARLEY
Peace, lady; pause, or be more temperate:
It ill beseems this presence to cry aim
To these ill-timed repetitions.
Some trumpet summon hither to the walls
These men of Angiers; let us hear them speak,
Whose title they admit, Arthur's or John's.
Of this interview, during which there occurred one or two painful episodes, the old abbot has left a minute account in the MS. records of Tongland Abbey.
As he and Sir Patrick approached the castle-gate, they could perceive a great circular breach yawning in the face of the keep, where Meg's shot had beaten in the masonry. In many places the corbelled battlements were demolished or mutilated. The barbican wall had suffered considerably, and many dead bodies, with their armour buried or crushed by the cannon shot, were making the place horrible by their ghastly aspect, while great purple pools and gouts of blood indicated where others who had been removed had fallen, or where the wounded had crawled away.
For the first time the terrible gallows-knob was without a victim, the cord which had sustained the last having parted during the concussion of the ordnance.
Through the open gate of the fortress the abbot and captain of the guard were able to see all these details. The grating of the portcullis was raised, and in the archway beneath it stood Sir Alan Lauder, the lairds of Pompherston, Cairnglas, Glendoning, James Achanna, and others, all as usual in their armour, which was dimmed and dinted now by daily and nightly wear. The soldiers of the garrison, who crowded about them with their pikes, axes, crossbows, and arquebuses, seemed hollow-eyed, wan, and pale. Hunger appeared to have become familiar to them as danger and death; thus it was evident to the captain and abbot that the famous larder of Thrave, with its twenty-eight cattle, contributed by the twenty-eight parishes of the surrounding stewardry, was becoming exhausted; for the garrison and other inmates had far exceeded a thousand persons at the commencement of this protracted and destructive siege.
"We have come in the name of mercy and humanity," said the abbot, pausing at the gate.
"It is well," replied Douglas of Pompherston, in the hollow of his helmet; "we feared you had come simply in the name of the king, and we consider him a poor representative of either."
"In whosesoever name you have come," said Sir Alan Lauder, "I can treat but with my lord abbot alone."
"And why not with me who am captain of the king's guard?" demanded Gray haughtily, while throwing up his barred visor.
"Because the blood of Douglas is on your hands, as on those of your master."
"To save whom that blood was shed, else your earl of Douglas had died a regicide, as well as an outlawed traitor. But, whatever terms are given or accepted, I, Patrick Gray, of Foulis, here, in my own name, demand, that the ruffian named James Achanna be excepted therefrom, for I have resolved to slay him without mercy, and, I hope, without remorse, at kirk, at court, at market, or wherever I come within sword's point of him, so help me the holy Evangels, and Him who ever defends the right!"
Achanna grew pale at these threatening words, and on seeing the fierce and resolute aspect with which Gray spoke them; but recovering, he resumed his malignant smile, and uttered a scornful laugh.
"Thrave has not yet surrendered," said Sir Alan Lauder; "and while that white flag waves on its wall, even Achanna's life must be respected. He has been loudly recommending a surrender for some days past, if the young earl, our new chief, came not to our succour," added the white-bearded knight with an angry glance. "Perhaps he may be less eager now, when he learns that the avenging sword of Sir Patrick Gray awaits him."
"Sir Patrick Gray's hostility is nothing new to me, neither are his injustice and falsity," replied Achanna through his clenched teeth, while darting one of his covert glances full of hate at Lauder; "so be assured that I value his wrath as little as you may do, Sir Alan – "
"Then, as old Earl Archibald of Douglas said of Crichton and the Regent, 'twere fair sport to see a couple of such fencers yoked together," interrupted the old knight bluntly, "so please you to step forth six paces from this gate, and meet him hand to hand, on foot or horseback, and I shall be your umpire."
"Thanks from my soul, Sir Alan!" exclaimed Gray with stern joy; "for these words I pledge my honour that your life, fortune, and family shall be saved and protected, tide what may with Thrave."
Achanna bit his nether lip, and without advancing a pace towards Gray, who had reined back his horse and drawn his sword as if inviting him, replied doggedly:
"I have not forgotten the last orders of the earl, ere he rode to Stirling; among others we were to defend this stronghold to the last, should it ever be attacked, and to be wary how we risked our lives; but I can now see that if yonder devil of a great gun continues to pound and punch us thus we shall be forced to surrender, lest the roof of stone descend upon us."