The English, as usual, took advantage of these turmoils to enter Scotland and burn the tower of Dumfries; so in return for this piece of attention, the Scots, under Lord Balvenie, burned Alnwick, and laid waste to Northumberland, reducing it almost to a desert; and soon after fifteen thousand English, under the Lord Piercy, were cut to pieces on the frontier, as they were about to cross a second time. The Cheviots, said by a modern writer, to be "a clasp riveting Scotland and England together," were then deemed, like the Tweed and Solway elsewhere, but a natural barrier placed by the hand of God between two rival kingdoms. War brought famine and disease in her ghastly train, and so closed the year 1448. Previous to this, the chancellor taking advantage of the lull caused by the defeat of the English and the capture of their leaders, the earls of Northumberland and Huntingdon, assembled a suitable train and sailed for Flanders, to bring home the young king's betrothed bride, for whose reception, great preparations were made at court. Crichton was long absent, as he went by the way of Tours, to renew the ancient league with France, which was again ratified by him and other Scottish ambassadors for James II.; and by Thibaud, bishop of Maillerais, the Sieur de Pretigni and Messire Guillaume Cousinat, on the part of Charles VII. After this the lord chancellor rode towards Gueldres. CHAPTER XL. THE PRISONER. It might be months, or years, or days, I kept no count--I took no note; I had no hope my eyes to raise, And clear them of their dreary mote.--BYRON. Meanwhile, during the occurrence of all these stirring events where was Sir Patrick Gray? A prisoner of state in the castle of Bommel, detained there, to all appearance, hopelessly, by order of Jacques de Lalain, the Dyck Graf. This official knew not whether to believe the information and reiterated statements of Sir Patrick, or those of the vindictive earl of Douglas. The secret manner in which Gray had resided in Bommel, and the disguise he had assumed, were denounced by the burgomaster, as unworthy the character of an envoy and the captain of a royal guard; they were declared suspicious, though no one could exactly say of what bad errand or object. Then, in that unexplained midnight brawl, concerning the origin of which Sir Patrick maintained an obstinate silence, he had wounded almost to death two citizens of good repute; and he was totally without papers or property to verify the account he gave of himself, as all he possessed had fallen into the hands of the Douglases, who had destroyed the former and appropriated the latter.