From the letters of the abbot, the lord chancellor then proceeded to relate that there were three reasons for this capture and imprisonment of the Steward of Kirkcudbright. The _first_ was, that Sir Thomas, who was chief of a powerful Celtic tribe, possessing all the peninsula between the Dee and the Solway, had taken part with the late Sir Herbert Herries, of Terregles, his kinsman, against the Douglases, and had thereby excited the ready wrath of the earl. The _second_ cause of hatred was, that he had borne a letter from the Captain of the King's Guard to the Lady Murielle Douglas, and had shot it to her feet by an arrow, as she was walking near the castle wall of Thrave. The _third_, that he had refused to join a league, and sign a bond for levying war against the king. For these three causes the earl, taking advantage of MacLellan being at his own castle of Raeberry, whither he had retired in consequence of a sword-wound received from Lord Piercy at the battle of Sark, despatched three hundred men-at-arms under James Achanna to bring him dead or alive to Thrave, after sacking and demolishing his residence. Achanna marched on this lawless mission; but true to his infamous nature, he preferred fraud to force. Raeberry, of which there now remains but a deep fosse, overhung a dreadful precipice, on the bluffs of which the united waves of the Solway Frith and the Atlantic pour their fury. It was deemed impregnable, and was protected on the north by a strong rampart, a drawbridge, and a deep trench. Achanna, aware of these difficulties on one side, and perils on all the rest, seduced one of the warders--a man in whom MacLellan trusted most--by promising, that if he would leave the secret postern open, "for a single hour, upon a certain night, he should have a ladleful of gold." The wretch agreed. The wicket was left unbarred, Achanna and his band rushed in, overpowered the inmates of Raeberry, and dragged Sir Thomas from bed, severely wounding his nephew, William MacLellan, a brave boy, who fought to save him. On finding that he had been betrayed by his most trusted servant, and to the Douglases, Sir Thomas exclaimed in the bitterness of his heart,-- "Wretch--oh, wretch! mayest thou live to feel the despair that wrung the heart of Judas when he flung to the accursed Jews their thirty pieces of silver." At these words, the abashed warder shrunk back, but the hireling Achanna laughed loudly, and ordering his prisoner to be bound with cords, conveyed him on horseback to Thrave, where the imperious Douglas, after loading him with fetters, insults, and opprobrium, thrust him into the dungeon. "All these outrages, to a steward of our stewardry--a loyal knight and baron--the Lieutenant of our Guard!" exclaimed the king, in mingled tones of regret and rage; "verily the time has come for me to exchange my crown either for a helmet, or for the tonsure of a shaven friar. And this dog of a warder----"