"This devil of a tower is invulnerable!" said Romanno, casting down his truncheon in anger; "it is a veritable maiden castle--strong in virtue and unassailable." "Virtue, said ye?" growled the old chancellor, under his barred aventayle; "ah, but our court-rakes aver that even the most virtuous woman has always one weak point, if we can only find it out." "Out upon thy white beard, chancellor!" said the young king, laughing; "what mean you to say?" "That, like a fair court lady, this castle of Thrave may have a weak point too." "But, unless we attempt an escalade, the capture of the place is impossible by battering," said the general of the ordnance. "Impossible!" reiterated the young king, his face and eyes glowing together, while the red spot on his cheek assumed a deeper hue. "Pardon me, your highness," said Sir John Romanno; "but I humbly think so." "Think; but you _said_ impossible." "Under favour, yes." "There is no such word in a soldier's vocabulary," replied the spirited monarch; "and while our hearts beat under our breastplates there is hope." "But the idea of an escalade," said Gray, "with the Dee to cross, and a wall to mount, exposed to a fire of cannon and arqubuses à croc, with long bows and arblasts to boot, and thereafter mauls, lances, and two-handed swords in the _mêlée_, is not to be thought of--at least until, by dint of cannon, we effect a breach." "A breach!" exclaimed Sir John Romanno; "by my forefathers' bones ye are little likely to see that, sirs, when the shot of our heaviest culverins, even those of the Lion, our chief bombarde, rebound like silken balls from the stone rampart, and our cannoniers seem no better than court-ladies at palm play." A loud and somewhat hoarse but hearty laugh close by made all turn towards the offender. They perceived a man of vast and herculean proportions, with a shock head of black hair, which the absence of his scarlet hood (as it hung down his back) displayed in all its shaggy amplitude, a swarthy visage, with lurid black eyes, and a long beard. He wore a doublet of black bull's hide, a rough kilt dyed with heather, and he leaned upon the shaft of a ponderous iron mace, which, with a long buck-horn-hilted dagger and fur pouch or sporran, formed his only appurtenance. "Art thou the knave who laughed?" asked Romanno, furiously, with his hand on his sword. "And in this presence!" added the chancellor, whose wrath was also kindled. "Dioual! I did laugh," replied the man, in a strong and guttural Galloway accent; "is it a crime to laugh at the folly or bewilderment of others?" "Thou base varlet!" began Romanno, in a towering passion, clenching his gauntleted hand, when Sir Patrick Gray interposed, saying, "By my faith, it is my friend, the strong smith of Thrave, who saved me from the white sleuth-bratch. Come hither, carle, and remember that you stand in the presence of the king."