In the meantime, according to Barbour, Douglas had done some useful work on his account. Some time after Bruce went north, he proceeded to Douglasdale again and placed an ambush near his ancestral castle. He sent fourteen men with sackfuls of grass on horses' backs to pass along as if bound for Lanark fair. Sir John Webton, the constable, sallied upon them; whereupon they cast down the sacks, threw off their frocks, and, mounting their horses, showed fight. Douglas now broke ambush and cut off Webton from the castle, eventually slaying him and all his men. Barbour relates that there was found in Webton's pouch a letter from a lady engaging to marry him if he kept 'the auenturous castell of Douglas' for a year--a story worked up by Sir Walter Scott in his boldly unhistorical 'Castle Dangerous.' Douglas took the castle and demolished it. Douglas also, Barbour says, did a great deal of hard fighting in Selkirk Forest. On one occasion, in a house on the Water of Lyne (which joins the Tweed a few miles above Peebles), he lighted upon Sir Alexander Stewart of Bonkill, whose father, Sir John, distinguished himself so brilliantly at Falkirk, Randolph, Bruce's nephew, Sir Adam de Gordon, and others, who were really in search of himself. He surrounded the house, and a fierce fight resulted. Gordon got away safe, but Douglas captured Stewart, who was wounded, and Randolph, and took them next morning to the King--who, in that case, must already have returned south. Barbour tells of the proud bearing of Randolph, and how Bruce put him 'in firm keeping' till he acknowledged his authority. This must have taken place before March 4, 1308-9, when Edward conferred on Sir Adam de Gordon Randolph's forfeited manor of Stichill, in Roxburghshire. Never afterwards did Randolph swerve from his uncle's allegiance.