"Good morrow, father; I hope you are come to bless the cause of the king," said Falconer. But he received no answer; so leaving the well and chapel behind, he wheeled off to the left, between the deepening shadows of the Torwood and the stupendous eminence crowned by the town; and at a rapid trot pursued the old Roman route towards the north-west. This time-worn path was solitary and deserted; at such a crisis none were abroad save well-armed men, and now all these in the neighbourhood were within the walls of Stirling or cantoned around it. In the stillness of the summer eve, he heard the cattle lowing in the Queen's haugh, where the herds of the Queen were grazing, for the lordship of Stirling was the dowry of the queens-consort of Scotland. The summer moon rose clearly and brightly above the dark foliage of the Torwood, and its silver light mingled with the yellow flush of the western sky, and threw forward in black and bold relief the sharp ridge of Stirling, with its castled rock, its turreted chateaux and old square gothic spire; the wooded Abbey Craig, on which were the ruins of a castle, with the Forth winding like a gigantic snake of silver between thickets of beautiful coppice, and forming those green links of rich alluvial land which, in all ages, have been so proverbial for their pasture and fertility. Above these towered the lofty Abbey of St. Mary of Cambuskenneth--massive, rich, and strong, as when King David built it three hundred and forty years before; and lights began to twinkle in the painted windows of its church and dormitories as the daylight faded behind the gigantic Ochils, and as the river that swept around it turned from silver to a cold, yet bright star-studded blue; and the mighty bell which swung in the highest tower was tolling the hour of ten, and summoning the Augustines to prayer, as the arquebussier rode on, and passing the abbey and river on his left, dipped into the wood. The head of this great abbey was usually a powerful and wealthy lord. Henry, the then abbot, was sent ambassador to England a few years after the period we write of. As the last note of its melodious bell--which, strange to say, as yet lying in the Forth, just where the Reformers sunk it--died away upon the wind, and the road grew dark as the lofty oaks of the Torwood arched their branches over it, forming, as it were, a lofty tunnel of twined and matted foliage, Falconer thought he heard the hoofs of a horse behind him: he checked his own for a moment, and looked back. He saw only the monk mounted on his stout little cob, and well muffled up in his black gown and cowl: so the soldier turned and rode on, though it was evident that the stranger had also for a moment checked his speed.