The white or gaudily-striped and bannered tents of the royal army covered all the great tract of land known as Pentland Muir, and clustered by the margin of lonely Logan Burn, which flows through a green sequestered vale, the solitude of which was now broken by the hum of the camp, the hourly din of horn and trumpet, the clanging of the hammers and anvils of the farriers and armourers; thus, the shepherd on the Pentland slopes could see the red glow of many a forge and watch fire reddening the sides of the hills by night, and in his shealing he could hear the unwonted sounds, that scared his herds and hirsels from their pasture, the eagle from its eyrie in Torduff, and broke the silence of the pastoral waste:-- Piercing the night's dull ear; and from the tents The armourers accomplishing the knights, With busy hammers closing rivets up, Give note of dreadful preparation. The wiry music of the harp might also be heard at times amid the camp, for many minstrels accompanied the king's army. The _last_ time its notes were heard in a Scottish host was when Argyll marched to the battle of Benrinnes, in 1594. After hearing solemn mass said in the old rectory kirk of Pentland, where whilom was a settlement of the _Gillian Chriosd_ (followers of the Lord)--whence comes the name of Gilchrist--the order was issued by James to strike the tents, and then the whole army marched against the Douglases. The king wore at his helmet the glove of his beautiful Mary d'Egmont, and a knot of her neck-ribbons decorated his lance. The task his troops had undertaken was somewhat arduous, as they had to penetrate into wild districts destitute of roads, where every laird and peasant, every yeoman and hind, felt it his duty to defend his chief against all mankind, even the king, if he came in a hostile guise. With the ghastly smile of the dead earl yet before him, and the terrible words he had uttered yet lingering in his ear, Sir Patrick Gray longed to be at Thrave; and his heart sickened with impatience during the tardy passage of the king's army through Ettrick Forest and Annandale, the home of powerful and predatory Border clans, into Galloway; for malcontents and marauders were to be punished on every hand; the growing cornfields were swept by fire; towers were stormed and castles dismantled, by having their gates unhinged and their battlements thrown down. Many of the Douglas adherents, on seeing the determination of James and the number of his host, implored forgiveness; and he, being by nature too fiery and impetuous to be vindictive, pardoned them; but the young earl had fled, no one knew whither save his own friends.