At last he appealed to Sir Patrick Gray, commanding him to draw his dagger and cut the cords which bound the brothers and their two faithful friends; but the unfortunate captain, confounded by the suddenness of the catastrophe, impelled by his love for Murielle on one hand, his duty to the two highest officers of the crown on the other; his regard for the young king, and a remembrance of how insolently these Douglases had ever treated himself, leaned on his sword, and covered his face with his hand, to hide the emotion that warred in his breast. Suddenly he approached Crichton, to unite his entreaties to those of his young monarch; but was roughly repelled. "Oh, chancellor," he exclaimed, "is this my meed--this my reward for faithful service as the king's liege man?" "If such you be, I command you, peace, Sir Patrick--guard the king, and leave the punishment of his rebels to us." Now the voice of the regent was heard above the throng, as he shook his clenched right hand aloft. "I arrest you, William, duke of Touraine, earl of Douglas, lord of Annandale, Longueville, and Galloway, on charges of foul treason; and you, Lord David Douglas; you, Sir Malcolm Fleming of Biggar and Cumbernauld; and you, Sir Alan Lauder of the Bass, captain of the castle of Thrave, on the same serious accusation." "Treason?" reiterated the young earl, as he proudly raised his head; "in what have I been guilty of treason; and who dare accuse me?" "I--the chancellor of Scotland," replied Crichton. "Read the charges," said the regent, sternly. "They are here," replied Crichton, unfolding a document, while all leaned on their unsheathed weapons, and listened breathlessly. "Treason, in the daily oppression of the king's subjects, at the head of two thousand horsemen, most of whom are outlawed moss-troopers and thieves of Annandale, who sorn on the king's lieges, and commit every outrage; and this ye do, though the parliament held at Perth, in 1424, ordained that _no_ man should travel abroad with more followers than he could maintain. Treason in dubbing men as knights who are but sorners, limmers, and masterful rogues. Treason, in holding _cours plénières_ after the fashion of parliament; and treason, in sending two gentlemen to France as your ambassadors to Charles VII." "It is false, as all the rest!" exclaimed the earl. "I did but send them as my father desired me, when he lay dying at Restalrig, to renew his oath of fealty for the duchy of Touraine, the fief of Longueville, and other lands we hold in France; and to fix the yearly rental of the former at ten thousand crowns." "He speaks most truly," exclaimed Sir Malcolm Fleming and Sir Alan Lauder in the same breath. "Well, all this, though too little for a king, was too great for a subject," said the regent, haughtily.