Mollance was locally pronounced Mowans, hence the name of the great gun which he fashioned, and which is now in the castle of Edinburgh--_Mowan's Meg_; though unsupported assertion has assigned her origin to the town of Mons, in Flanders--an origin of which there is not a vestige of documentary proof. Hastening from the king's tent, Sir Patrick Gray arrived at Knockcannon in time to see another mass of masonry beaten down; and this time the feeble shout from Thrave was drowned in the tumultuous cheer that rang along the slopes, which were covered by the camp of the royal army. "_Cor Jesu, in agonia factum, miserere morientum!_" prayed the voice of one beside him. He turned, and saw his old friend the abbot, who had just left his secluded abbey of Tongland and arrived in the camp. "Ha, father abbot," said Sir John Romanno, while six of the sturdiest cannoniers, bare armed and all begrimed by perspiration, smoke, and gunpowder, swung another granite ball into Meg's capacious muzzle; "how are you? By the mass! if he you wot of were in Thrave, this would make him shake his horns and cry _peccavi_." "He--who?" asked the abbot, in a tone of displeasure. "Thy old friend--Mahoun--the fiend himself." "Shame on thee, Sir John." "I am but a plain soldier, good abbot," replied Romanno, who was in excellent humour with himself and every one else; "each man to his trade: thou to thy massbook and missal--I to my lintstock and quoin." "A truce--a truce!" cried a hundred voices, as a white flag was displayed at the summit of Thrave, where a man waved it to and fro, though the Douglas banner was not yet drawn down. Then came the faint and distant sound of trumpets craving a parley. The abbot immediately offered himself as a mediator; and, on obtaining the permission of the king, who was now weary of this protracted and destructive siege, and was anxious to return to his beautiful Fleming at Stirling, he left the camp for Thrave, accompanied by Sir Patrick Gray, whose anxiety for the safety of Murielle was now irrepressible. CHAPTER LVI. THE PARLEY. Peace, lady; pause, or be more temperate: It ill beseems this presence to cry aim To these ill-timed repetitions. Some trumpet summon hither to the walls These men of Angiers; let us hear them speak, Whose title they admit, Arthur's or John's. SHAKESPEARE. Of this interview, during which there occurred one or two painful episodes, the old abbot has left a minute account in the MS. records of Tongland Abbey.