CHAPTER LV
MOWAN'S MEG
Seven orbs within a spacious round they close,
One stirs the fire, and one the bellows blows;
The hissing steel is in the smithy drown'd,
The grot with beaten anvils groans around.
By turns their arms advance in equal time;
By turns their hands descend, and hammers chime.
They turn the glowing mass with crooked tongs,
The fiery work proceeds with rustic songs.
Virgil, Æneid viii.
For many days salvoes (i. e., discharges of heavy ordnance fired in concert by sound of trumpet) were sent against Thrave without success, and yells of triumph and derision, when the balls of iron and whinstone rebounded from the massive walls – the triple yells of the Galwegians, the same terrible war-cry which their forefathers raised amid the heart of the Saxon host at the Battle of the Standard, were borne upward on the wind to the king's battery at the Carlinwark.
"This devil of a tower is invulnerable!" said Romanno, casting down his truncheon in anger; "it is a veritable maiden castle – strong in virtue and unassailable."
"Virtue, said ye?" growled the old chancellor, under his barred aventayle; "ah, but our court-rakes aver that even the most virtuous woman has always one weak point, if we can only find it out."
"Out upon thy white beard, chancellor!" said the young king, laughing; "what mean you to say?"
"That, like a fair court lady, this castle of Thrave may have a weak point too."
"But, unless we attempt an escalade, the capture of the place is impossible by battering," said the general of the ordnance.
"Impossible!" reiterated the young king, his face and eyes glowing together, while the red spot on his cheek assumed a deeper hue.
"Pardon me, your highness," said Sir John Romanno; "but I humbly think so."
"Think; but you said impossible."
"Under favour, yes."
"There is no such word in a soldier's vocabulary," replied the spirited monarch; "and while our hearts beat under our breastplates there is hope."
"But the idea of an escalade," said Gray, "with the Dee to cross, and a wall to mount, exposed to a fire of cannon and arqubuses à croc, with long bows and arblasts to boot, and thereafter mauls, lances, and two-handed swords in the mêlée, is not to be thought of – at least until, by dint of cannon, we effect a breach."
"A breach!" exclaimed Sir John Romanno; "by my forefathers' bones ye are little likely to see that, sirs, when the shot of our heaviest culverins, even those of the Lion, our chief bombarde, rebound like silken balls from the stone rampart, and our cannoniers seem no better than court-ladies at palm play."
A loud and somewhat hoarse but hearty laugh close by made all turn towards the offender. They perceived a man of vast and herculean proportions, with a shock head of black hair, which the absence of his scarlet hood (as it hung down his back) displayed in all its shaggy amplitude, a swarthy visage, with lurid black eyes, and a long beard. He wore a doublet of black bull's hide, a rough kilt dyed with heather, and he leaned upon the shaft of a ponderous iron mace, which, with a long buck-horn-hilted dagger and fur pouch or sporran, formed his only appurtenance.
"Art thou the knave who laughed?" asked Romanno, furiously, with his hand on his sword.
"And in this presence!" added the chancellor, whose wrath was also kindled.
"Dioual! I did laugh," replied the man, in a strong and guttural Galloway accent; "is it a crime to laugh at the folly or bewilderment of others?"
"Thou base varlet!" began Romanno, in a towering passion, clenching his gauntleted hand, when Sir Patrick Gray interposed, saying, "By my faith, it is my friend, the strong smith of Thrave, who saved me from the white sleuth-bratch. Come hither, carle, and remember that you stand in the presence of the king."
Malise MacKim was too much of a primitive Celt to be abashed even before a king, though he had frequently quailed under the eye of Douglas, and the tongue of his own wife, Meg, who was proverbial in Galloway as a fierce virago; so he came boldly forward and stood erect, with an inquiring expression of eye, as if waiting to be addressed.
"Whence is it that your king's perplexity excites your laughter?" asked James, gravely.
"Speak quickly, carle," added the chancellor, pointing ominously to a branch of one of the thorn trees under which they stood.
"Threats will not force me to speak; but I answer the king, not you, my lord," replied the unabashed Galwegian.
"We are not used to be laughed at, sirrah," said James; "therefore, if you do not give us a fair reason for your untimely merriment, by the holy rood! I shall begin to threaten too."
"I am Malise MacKim, surnamed the Brawny, and I am the father of seven sons, each a head taller than myself – "
"Thou art a lucky dog, would I were the same," said the king; "but is this a reason for laughter?"
"What the devil is all this to us, fellow?" asked Romanno.
"This much; they are all smiths, and can each wield a fore hammer forty pounds in weight, as if it were a kettle-drum stick. Ochoin! Mhuire as truadh! Ochoin! There was a time when we never thought to swing our hammers in the service of mortal man, save Douglas. But vengeance is sweeter than bread in famine; so, if your grace will give us but iron enough, I will be content to forfeit my head, or to hang by the neck from that thorn tree, if, within the space of seven summer days, my seven brave bairns and I fail to fashion you a bombarde which, at the first discharge, will pierce yonder wall like a gossamer web, so aid us Heaven and St. Cudbrecht?"
"This is a brave offer," said the general of the ordnance, mockingly; "and what weight may the balls of this proposed cannon be?"
"Each one shall be the weight of a Carsphairn cow," replied the smith slowly, as if reflecting while answering; "and if each fails to shake Thrave to its ground-stane, the king's grace may hang me, as I have said, on that thorn branch, as a false and boasting limmer."
"You speak us fairly, good fellow," said the king, who seemed pleased and amused by the burly smith's bluntness and perfect confidence. "We are not in a position to reject such loyal offers. Fashion this great gun for me, and if it does the service you promise, by my father's soul! you shall have a fair slice of yonder fertile land between the Urr and Dee."
As he spoke, James drew off his gauntlet, and presented his hand to the gigantic smith, who knelt and kissed it respectfully, but with the clownish air of one alike unused to kneeling and to courtesy.
On MacKim requiring material, each of the principal burghers of Kirkcudbright contributed a gaud or bar of iron, in their anxiety to serve the king, and to have the death of Sir Thomas MacLellan more fully avenged. As a reward for this contribution, King James made the town a royal burgh, and in memory of it, his gallant grandson, on the 26th of February, 1509, granted the old castle of the MacLellans as a free gift to the corporation.
At a place named the Buchancroft, a rude but extensive forge was soon erected, and there, stripped to their leathern girdles, the brawny MacKim and his seven sturdy sons, like Vulcan and the Cyclops, plied and swung their ponderous hammers on great resounding anvils, while welding the vast hoops and forming the long bars that were to compose the great cannon which was to demolish the famous stronghold of Thrave.
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.
"Now – now," exclaimed Malise MacKim, in grim triumph, as he wiped the beads of perspiration from his swarthy brow; "unless my lady of Douglas can fly through the air like an eagle, or swim down the Dee like a grilse, she and the false brood who slew my kinsman and stole his daughter shall exchange their steel gloves for steel fetters!"
All in the king's host were eager to observe the effect produced by this mighty engine of destruction, the first discharge of which, when Sir John Romanno applied the match, seemed to split the welkin, and the recoil of the wheels tore deep ruts in the turf, while many averred that they could trace the course of the ball like a great globe of stone in the air, through which it hummed and whistled.
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.
Shakespeare.
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."
"Well, and what then?" asked Lauder bitterly.
"To surrender is to hang."
"Well?"
"By my soul thou takest it very coolly, Sir Alan Lauder," said Achanna, glad to change the subject, and elude Gray's unanswered challenge.
"I do so, Master Achanna, because I foresaw that when King James entered Galloway, with the royal banner displayed, it would end in hanging for some, and beheading for others – hanging especially for thee."
"And beheading for thee, so I care not whether we surrender to-night or a week hence."
"You play but ill the jovial desperado," said the Castellan with contempt, as he turned from him.
"Yet he fights for his own hand and commoditie, as Hal o' the Wynd fought," said the abbot of Tongland.
"I am weary of this," exclaimed Sir Patrick Gray; "coward, will you not advance to meet me?"
"And fight with a flag of truce flying; I am not so ignorant of the rules of war," replied Achanna, who felt that the crowd of brave and reckless men about the castle-gate viewed him with derision; "My courage has never failed me, sirs, though I knew the fate in store for me, as – as – "
"As what, fellow?" demanded Lauder.
"A follower of the conquered Douglas and his outlawed adherents."
"Conquered – outlawed!" muttered those who heard him.
"Well, sir, doth not that breach in the castle wall look as if we shall soon be the first, as surely as we are the second."
"Jibing villain," exclaimed Lauder, "beware lest I spare the doomster all trouble, by passing my sword through thee!"
The Scots of those days had but vague ideas on the subject of homicide, so Achanna became alarmed, and said:
"Sir Alan Lauder, remember my years of faithful service."
"And what have those years done for you?"
"Converted me from a boy to a man."
"From a rascal of one age to a rascal of one more mature; but thou shalt hang, if Sir Patrick wills it," said the castellan, with growing wrath; for in fact Achanna, perceiving that matters were going against his friends, had found Thrave less comfortable for some time past, and was anxious to escape or make his peace with the king.
"Enough of this, sir," said Sir Patrick, sheathing his sword; "let us resume the subject of a capitulation."
"The countess – here comes the countess!" exclaimed several voices, as the crowd of armed men divided and drew back; and Margaret, leaning on the arm of Maud Douglas of Pompherston, approached. Eagerly and anxiously Gray looked beyond them, but in vain.
"Oh," thought he in his heart, "where is Murielle?"
The hateful Achanna seemed to divine the thought; for a cold smile curled his thin white lips, and a colder still as he surveyed the countess, and remembered the proud derision with which she had long ago repelled his boyish affection. The lovely face of Margaret was deadly pale – white as the ruff or tippet of swansdown, which guarded her delicate throat and bosom. She was muffled in a long black dule-weed, or mourning habit, the folds of which fell to her feet, and on the left shoulder of which was sewn a white velvet cross. In many places this sombre garment was spotted by blood!
Her beautiful black eyes were bloodshot, and an unnatural glare shone in them. She seemed scarcely able to stand; thus old Sir Alan Lauder hurried to her side, and tenderly placed a mailed arm around her for support.
"Well, Monk, thou who forsook, in his sore extremity, thy chief and master," she sternly said to the abbot, "what seek you here?"
"Douglas was my chief, but not my master. He is in Heaven," replied the abbot calmly, pointing upward.
"Well, shaven juggler, who hast added his precious prayers to the cause of the strongest," continued the imperious beauty, "say what you would, and quickly. What errand brings you here?"
"Peace and good will. Oh, madam – madam," exclaimed the meek old abbot, stretching his withered and tremulous hands towards her, "in the name of Heaven and of mercy end these horrors – an aged man, a priest of God implores it of you! James and his soldiers have sworn to take the keys of Thrave at the point of the sword; but our young king is a knight, alike gentle and generous, and from your hands I am assured he will take those keys in peace, if peacefully bestowed."
"From my hands," she reiterated, in an unearthly voice; "alas – "
"What can she mean?" thought Gray, as a dreadful idea flashed upon his mind; "is this sad, this wild and stern bearing the result of remorse? can she have attempted – "
He thrust aside the thought, and listened attentively.
"From my right hand – never!" added Margaret, with bitter emphasis.
"From the hands of whom, then?"
"My youngest bower-maiden; she deserves the honour, for her father, Sir Alan, has made a valiant and vigorous defence."
"The king would prefer them from the hands of the Lady Murielle," said Gray, with more anxiety than caution.
"Speak not to me of Murielle!" exclaimed the countess, with a shriek, as her head drooped; and she fainted in the arms of Lauder.
"What has happened – speak for mercy, sirs! what horror do you conceal from us?" exclaimed Sir Patrick Gray and the abbot together.
"Look here," said the old knight, in whose keen grey eyes there mingled a curious expression of commiseration and ferocity. He drew aside the countess's dule-weed, and then the Captain of the Guard and the abbot perceived that her white neck was stained with blood, her shoulder covered with hideous ligatures, and that her right hand and arm were gone —gone from the elbow!
"Who – what has done this?" asked Gray, as his sun-burned cheek grew pale.
"See you, sirs, what the first shot from yonder hellish engine hath achieved?" replied Lauder, reproachfully.
"The first," reiterated Gray.
"And I would give the last blood in my heart to have the seven makers of it hanging in a bunch from yonder gallows knob!"
Local history records that this terrible mutilation occurred when the countess was seated at table in the hall, through one of the windows of which the great bullet passed; and some years before the battle of Waterloo, when Thrave, like several other Scottish castles, was undergoing repair, as a barrack for French prisoners, a favourite gold ring which the countess wore upon the forefinger of her right hand, inscribed Margaret de Douglas, was found among the ruins, with one of Meg's granite balls beside it; and the old peasantry in Galloway yet aver, that in this terrible mutilation "the vengeance of Heaven was evidently manifested, in destroying the hand which had been given in wedlock unto two near kinsmen."[5]
By a strange coincidence, or an irresistible fatality, at the same moment that the countess was borne away, it came to pass that the man-at-arms who held the white flag let it drop from the summit of the keep into the barbican below. Then Sir John Romanno and his impatient cannoniers, perceiving that the flag was gone, and that some commotion had ensued about the gate of Thrave, supposed (in those days there were no telescopes), that the parley was broken, and that violence was offered to the envoys, so a shot was fired from the great brass bombarde named the Lion of Flanders.
With a mighty sound, between a whiz and a boom, it passed betwixt Sir Patrick Gray and the abbot, entered the archway, and, by a singular combination of retributive justice and fatality, struck James Achanna just at the girdle, and doubling him up like a crape scarf, literally plastered his body, armour and all, a quivering mass of blood, bones, steel plates and splints, upon the wall of the keep, into which it was imbedded.
The white pennon was again hoisted; but this terrible episode and appalling spectacle hastened the conclusion of the truce and the siege.
"Bid King James ride to the gate of Thrave, and a woman's hand shall give him the keys – withered be mine in its socket ere it shall do so!" said the sturdy old laird of the Bass, as he broke his sword across his right knee, and cast the glittering fragments into the moat, just as he had done after the seizure of Earl William, in the castle of Edinburgh.
"What terms seek you?" asked the abbot.
"The lives, the liberties, and fortunes of all."
"The king is merciful, and in his name we promise these shall be given to you," replied the two envoys, as they returned with all haste to Knockcannon, where the king was still on horseback, attended by Crichton, Glammis, and the principal lords of his council and army.
"You have promised over much, my good friends," said he, on hearing the terms and the relation of what had passed at the castle gate; "yet it would ill become me to bruise the bruised. I cannot restore this gallant dame's dainty right arm; but by the Black Rood of Scotland, I can wed her to a more loyal husband, with the hand she still possesses!"
And King James kept his word.