The notes of the woodlark and throstle-cock were heard in the woods of Craigforth; the moles were busy on the fallow uplands, and the gnats swarmed in the sunshine about the budding hedgerows; in the park below the castle walls of Stirling, the bare-legged urchins of the town were busy "throwing at cocks" tied to stakes--a barbarous custom by which Shrovetide was always celebrated in Scotland, as well as in south Britain; others were playing at foot-ball, or shooting at the butts with little arblasts; and the shouts of their merriment rang upward in the clear and almost frosty air, to where Mary of Gueldres and her ladies were seated at the windows of the royal dwelling, many hundred feet above the grassy glen. But all left their sports, and hastened to the gate which opened towards the old Druid oaks of the Torwood, when the brass bombardes of the fortress rolled their thunder on the still atmosphere, and made the Ochil mountains echo in salute to the doughty earl of Douglas, while the clarions and trumpets of his train rang before the barrier-porte of the ancient burgh. His family banner, twelve trumpets, with a royal herald and pursuivant, preceded him; and as he passed up the quaint streets, where the burghers at their windows, galleries, turrets, and forestairs, hung out pennons, tapestry, and garlands, and received him with acclamations, he deemed it all a tribute to his rank, and to his mighty feudal and mightier political power; although this display was merely the joyous outpouring of their hearts at the prospect of an amicable end being put to the jealousy and hate which had separated the chief of the Douglases--that line of glorious old historic memory--from a brave and high-spirited monarch whom they loved. It was all in the spirit of the old ballad-- God save the king, and bless the land In plenty, joy, and peace; And grant henceforth that foul debate 'Twixt noblemen may cease. The earl's cuirass was of Milan steel, magnificently damascened, studded with gilt nails, and furnished at the armpits with little espalettes of gold. From under his open helmet, which was surrounded by a coronet, he looked around him with a smile of surly satisfaction; but his most powerful friend, Sir James, the lord Hamilton of Cadzow, said, solemnly and sternly, "Let not all this delude you, Douglas, to forget on this day the wrongs of your race." "Forget?" reiterated the other, grimly; "forget, said ye, Cadzow? If I forget my father and my kinsmen, so may God, his blessed Mother, and St. Bryde of Douglas, forget me! No, Hamilton, never shall I forget the good and doughty Douglases who have gone before me, for their lives were lives of danger, and their mail-clad breasts were Scotland's best bulwarks in the stormy days of old." "I know all that; but our bond--and the king"--said Hamilton, hesitatingly.