Above the mantelpiece hung the black iron morion and two-handed whinger of the latter--with kirn-cuts of corn gaily ornamented with ribbons--the trophies of the last year's harvest home. The floor was of sanded clay; the ceiling showed the open cabers of the roof; while a long dresser laden with shining utensils, a few wooden creepies or stools and meal-arks, formed the furniture of this Scottish hotel of the fifteenth century. The adjacent Moat of Urr was alleged to be full of fairies who danced in the moonlight round its strange concentric circles; and they were further said to be great bibbers of the good wine kept for the use of the before-mentioned abbots and priors; thus "mine host" of the papal tiara and keys had always a fair red cross painted on the ends of his runlets when they were landed at the Dub o' Hass; but the green imps nevertheless found a key to his cellars, and used gimlets of mortal mould to draw off the Canary and Alicant. The gudewife of the house had just increased the number of King James's subjects and Earl Douglas's vassals by a male child, when Gray arrived; and near him, in the ingle, the nurse was administering to it the _ash-sap_, with due solemnity, by putting an ash-stick in the fire of peats and bog-pine that blazed on the hearth, and receiving in a horn spoon the juice which oozed from the other end. This was the _first_ food of the newly-born children of the Gael, and when older they received their first flesh on the point of their father's sword or dagger. With half his armour off, listless and weary, Sir Patrick Gray sat by the rustic fire on the ingle-seat, and some time elapsed before he became aware that the eyes of a stranger, who reclined on an oak settee in a shaded corner, were fixed with calm but firm scrutiny upon him. This personage wore a scarlet cloth hood, which was buttoned from his chin to his breast, having a cape that covered his back and shoulders. His massive frame, which was of herculean proportions, was cased in a doublet of black bull's hide, having the hair smoothly dressed, and it was tied with a succession of thongs and little iron skewers. A kilt of coarse tartan, with hose of untanned deerskin, revealed his sturdy knees, which seemed strong as oak knots, and hairy as those of a gorilla. Secured by a square steel buckle, a broad buff belt encircled his waist, at which hung a double-handed sword and poniard of mercy. His great brawny hands were crossed upon the shaft of a ponderous iron mace, having a chain and "morning star," and as he rested his chin thereon, his vast black beard hung over them, while he surveyed the Captain of the Guard with his wild, keen, and fierce dark eyes, the natural expression of which, under their black and shaggy brows, seemed a scowl.