The vast extent of the Torwood--the Sylvæ Caledonia of antiquity--and all the foliaged hills that rise around the "Bulwark of the North," were clad in the richness of their summer beauty. The air was laden with perfume exhaled from the waving woods and teeming earth; the sky was without a cloud, save where a few specks of gold or fleecy white floated in the distant east. The dew was glittering on everything, from the topmost leaves of the Torwood's giant oaks to the little mary-flower and red-eyed daisy that grew below them. All nature seemed fresh and bright and beautiful. The wild violet and the mountain roses that grew thickly by the wayside scented the air, and its purity was enchanting. It seemed rather a morning for a merry hunting or hawking party, than the stern debate of Scottish civil war; and as pipe and trumpet, with the tramp of barbed horses and the tread of heavily-armed men, rang on the pavement of the Roman Via, and awoke the leafy echoes of the forest, the wild erne screamed in the oaken glade, and the cushat dove fled from the hateful sound. After hearing mass in the Dominican church, and confessing himself to Henry, Abbot of Cambuskenneth, the king mounted his horse amid a flourish of trumpets. He was a peaceful and amiable prince--one more suited to our own civilized time than that age of blood and cold iron; and thus he felt somewhat unused to the ponderous but gorgeous suit of armour in which he was cased and riveted; and all uncheered by the enthusiasm wound him, the flashing of arms, and the braying of martial music, as the drums and fifes, horns and trumpets, of Lord Bothwell's guard (first embodied by James II.), played merrily, "Cou thou the rashes greene O," or by the historical memories of the ground over which he marched, for the Scottish Marathon lay close at hand; he rode silently and moodily on, with his helmet closed, to conceal the tears that came unbidden to his eyes, as he thought of his dead wife, his son's desertion, the unjust accusations against him, and the coming slaughter which nothing but his own death could perhaps avert. "Another hour will bring us in sight of the foe," said the old Duke of Montrose, whose armour was richly ornamented, though somewhat old-fashioned; for his head-piece had the oreillets and long spike worn in the days of Murdoch, the Regent Duke of Albany, and his horse was gaily housed in his colours; _gules_, a fess checque _argent_ and _azure_, the bearings of the Lindesays of Crawford; "and in one hour after that, your majesty will find yourself enabled to punish and repay the treason of Sauchie. I would give my best barony to see his head rolling on the Gowling Hill of Stirling!" "Time will show, duke," said James, with a sigh. "God wot, I have no wish to shed the blood of my people; but I never liked this Laird of Sauchie; his soul was an abyss, and I never could fathom his thoughts."