On viewing the great piece of ordnance, James II. promised again that if it proved more successful than the Lion and his other culverins, he would nobly reward the artificer, who, with his seven sons and the royal cannoniers, dragged Meg--for so MacKim named the gun, after his own wife, whose voice, he affirmed, "her roar would resemble"--to the summit of an eminence which, unto this day, is named from that circumstance Knockcannon. Royal heralds with their glittering tabards, and pursuivants with their silver collars of SS, marched in front, while trumpets were blown and kettle-drums beaten; pipers blew, and minstrels played upon their harps; the king's jester swung his bladder and cracked his jokes; and thus, amid music, merriment, and acclamations, the mighty cannon was dragged up the slope and brought into position. It was then loaded with an old Scottish peck of powder and one of its granite balls, and thereafter was levelled at the fortress of the rebellious Douglases. "Now--now," exclaimed Malise MacKim, in grim triumph, as he wiped the beads of perspiration from his swarthy brow; "unless my lady of Douglas can fly through the air like an eagle, or swim down the Dee like a grilse, she and the false brood who slew my kinsman and stole his daughter shall exchange their steel gloves for steel fetters!" All in the king's host were eager to observe the effect produced by this mighty engine of destruction, the first discharge of which, when Sir John Romanno applied the match, seemed to split the welkin, and the recoil of the wheels tore deep ruts in the turf, while many averred that they could trace the course of the ball like a great globe of stone in the air, through which it hummed and whistled. Be that as it might, when the smoke was blown aside, a great breach or opening (now called the cannon-hole) was visible in the face of the keep, where the side of one of the windows was partly torn away. The masonry was seen to fall in a crumbling mass into the barbican, and the shout of consternation which arose from the garrison was borne on the morning wind to the king's camp, and far beyond it. The cannoniers now cast aside their helmets, cuirasses, and cuisses, that they might work with greater facility at the laborious task of reloading this great gun, which was discharged several times with equal success; and Sir Patrick Gray watched with agony the result of every shot; for the deep, hoarse boom of each explosion that seemed to rend the hills and sky found an echo in his heart. They seemed like the knell of her he loved. The warlike James II. was in ecstasy with the success of this new piece of ordnance, and summoning the fabricator to his tent, he then, in presence of the chancellor, the constable, and the principal nobles, granted to him and his heirs for ever, the forfeited estate of Mollance, which lies between the rivers Urr and Dee.