The castle of Thirlestane stood on the river Leader, and still, in its restored form, deserves its name of "the darksome house." It may have often withstood the English during the Baliol wars, and hatred of the English and of Edward I. is expressed with extreme virulence throughout the poem. Here is the story:— There lived in the south country a king named Edward, who wore the crown unworthily for fifty years. This king had a nephew, strong in blood and bone, who bore the same hateful name. One day the young man came before the king, and kneeling low, he said, "A boon, a boon I crave of thee, my good uncle. Oft have I wished to take part in our long wars in fair Scotland. Grant me fifteen hundred chosen strong men to ride there with me." "Certainly thou shalt have them, and more, and I myself, though old and grey, will see thy host arrayed for battle." King Edward sent hither and thither, and assembled fifteen hundred men on Tyne side, and three times as many at North Berwick, all bound for battle. They marched up the banks of Tweed, burning the Merse and Teviotdale, and up and down the Lammermoor Hills, until they came to the darksome house called, by some, "Leader-Town." "Who holds this house?" cried young Edward, "or who gives it over to me?" He was answered, as proudly, by a grey-haired knight: "I hold my house of Scotland’s king, who pays me in meat and fee, and I will hold it as long as it will stand together." Thereupon the English brought up their sows[#] to the wall with many a heavy sound, but the soldiers on the wall cast down blazing pitch and tar barrels, to consume the formidable machine. They also threw down stones and beams and darts from their springalds,[#] and slew many of the English. [#] A military engine framed of wood, covered with hides and mounted on wheels, so that, being rolled forward to the foot of the wall, it served as a shed to defend the miners underneath it and their battering-rams from the stones and arrows of the soldiers above. [#] Large crossbows worked by machinery. Fifteen days they besieged the castle of Auld Maitland, but left him at the end of that time unhurt within his stone stronghold. [Illustration: _The Siege of Maitland Castle_] They loaded fifteen ships with as much spoil as they could carry away from the district around, and claimed that now they had conquered Scotland with buckler, bow, and brand. So they sailed away to France to meet the old King Edward, who was burning every castle, tower, and town that he met with. They came at last to the town of Billop-Grace, where Auld Maitland’s three sons were at school.