Symon and his sons came home to the tower crestfallen, and with hearts full of bitterness. Symon’s steel cap, with its triple bars, had been struck from his head by the marquis’s own sword, and now he wore a broad bonnet, with the blue cockade of the Covenant streaming from it, over his left ear. Long, lank, and grizzled, his hair flowed over his shoulders upon his gorget and cuirass. His complexion was sallow, his expression fierce, as he trod, spurred and jack-booted, into the vaulted hall of the tower, and grimly kissed Dame Grizel on the forehead. "The godless Philistines have been victorious, and yet ye have a’ come back to me without scratch or scar," she exclaimed, with Spartan bitterness. "Even sae, gudewife—even sae; but for that day at Kilsythe vengeance shall yet be ours!" "Yea, verily," groaned Elijah Howler; "for it was a day of woe, a day of ’wailing and of loud lamentation,’ as the weeping of Jazer, when the lords of the heathen had broken down her principal plants; and as the mourning of Rachel, who wept for her children, and would not be comforted." "Get me a stoup o’ ale," said Symon, with something like an oath, as he flung aside his sword and gauntlets. "And thou, minion, after that day o’ bluid, will ye cling yet to that son o’ Belial, Willie Calderwood?" asked Symon, sternly, of his shrinking daughter. "Thrice I saw him in the charge, and covered him ilk time wi’ my petronel; but lead availed not, and I hadna about me a siller coin that fitted the muzzle of my weapon, else he had been i’ the mools this nicht. But horse and spear lads!" he added, turning to his sons. "Ere we sleep, we shall ride by Grange, and rook out Calderwood Glen wi’ a flaming lunt!" So Symon and his sons had a deep carouse in the old hall with their troopers, all sturdy "Kailsuppers of Fife," drinking confusion to their enemies. Now it is an open ruin; then it was crossed by a great oak beam, whereon hung spears and bows. On the walls were the horns of many a buck from Falkland Woods. Many an oak almerie and meal-girnel stood round; and rows of pots and pans, pell-mell among helmets and corslets, swords and bucklers, spits and branders, made up the decorations and the furniture; while a great fire of wood and coal from "my Lord Sinclair’s heughs" blazed day and night on the stone hearth, making the hall to seem in some places all red and quivering in red light, or sunk in sable shadow elsewhere. It had but two chairs—one for the laird, and one for the lady—for such was then the etiquette in Scotland; thus even the Reverend Elijah had to accommodate his lean shanks on a three-legged creepie. Dogs of various kinds were always basking before the fire on dun deer-skins; but the chief of them was Symon’s great Scottish staghound, which was exactly of the breed and appearance described in the old rhyme—