James Achanna now came up and spurred his horse across to examine the ford, and uttered a shout of exultation on discovering the trace of horses' hoofs recently impressed in the soft mud. Gray drew a long breath, and felt the edge of his sword, for he thought the critical moment was at hand! But now a trooper, with an oath expressive of disappointment, drew the attention of all to the circumstance that the marks were those of a horse which had gone _towards_ the ford and must have crossed it for the south, and that, if they were made by the hoofs of the fugitive's nag, he must have doubled like a hare. On hearing this, Gray blessed his own foresight in having backed his horse upward from the stream. The moment this hint was given to the rest, who had no particular views of their own on the subject, they put spur to their horses and galloped away, almost in the direction from whence they had come. As soon as they were gone, Gray came forth from his lurking-place, mounted, and rode off towards the north leisurely and at an easy pace. He was soon on the border of the fertile Lothians; the far-stretching range of the Pentlands rose upon his left, with their heathy summits tipped by the rising sun; the long ridge where the trenches of Agricola's camp overlooked the woods of Dalhousie, the Dalkeith of the Douglases, and the vale of the two Esks, was soon surmounted, and afar off, "piled deep and massy, close and high," he could see old grey Edinburgh rising in the distance. Haggard, wan, and wild in aspect, weary and torn,--minus a helmet and with his dark hair streaming behind him; his armour rusted with perspiration, and by frequent immersion in the rivers he had forded or swam; his spurs dripping with blood, and his sinking horse covered with foam and quivering in every fibre; his embroidered surcoat frittered by brambles and thorns--the Captain of the King's Guard passed through the streets of Edinburgh, and reached the castle, thus actually returning, as the old gate-ward had shrewdly predicted, "faster than he gaed awa." The Master of Crichton (the chancellor's eldest son), the favourite page of James, conducted him at once to the latter, who was in the same apartment of David's Tower, and occupied with the same translated romance of Sir Gilbert the Haye. "What of MacLellan?" said he, starting up. "MacLellan is dead, sire," replied Gray in a scarcely audible voice, and in a burst of grief and excitement "My kinsman--my friend--he has gone to heaven; but he was foully murdered, and in cold blood, by the base Lord Douglas, and I shall avenge him--yea, fearfully, I swear it by Him at whose throne he is now perhaps kneeling!" "And I will aid your vengeance, Gray," added the king, pressing his hand. Then, when Sir Patrick had related his story, James vowed deeply in his heart, if he could not conciliate Douglas, to CRUSH him and break his terrible bond, or let himself be crushed in the contest. CHAPTER LI. STIRLING.