Yet she descended with firmness to meet a sight which, contemplated by a mother, is perhaps the most harrowing that can be exhibited to mortal eye--a dead son, and that son her hope and pride. At the entrance she met her husband, who took her hand, and, as he held it, waved to the conductors to pause in their progress. "Let them come in, Wat," said she. "I know all--my Forester is dead. Come forward, my sons, and let me see him who was once my pride, and tell me what cruel cause hath reft me of my boy." The sons came forward, and, taking the body by the head and feet, carried it into the tower, where, having placed it, they stood around, silently looking on what was, an hour before, their beloved brother, in the heyday of youth and beauty. "Who hath done this deed?" inquired the mother, as she looked on the pale face of her son, with feelings too deep for tears. "Gilmanscleugh," answered Walter. The word operated like electricity on the minds of the sons, as they stood silently looking at the corpse. Revenge had for a moment been clouded by grief, and the talismanic influence of the name of the destroyer drew aside the vapours, and exposed again the fiery sun of their resentment. A simultaneous movement carried their hands to their swords, and every face was turned to the door; but the eye of old Walter, looking askance through a bush of shaggy grey brows, watched keenly every motion; and, as they rushed out to raise the cry of destruction to Gilmanscleugh and its master, he called them back, and hurried them into a side-room with grated windows and a strong door, where were contained, as in a stronghold, the title-deeds of Harden, and other valuable things which required security. "Let us consult, my bold youths, let us consult," he said, as he pushed the last one in; and the moment they were all fairly enclosed, he turned the key in the lock, and put it into his pocket. "Give me the Forester's bloody doublet," he cried to his wife, "with the hole made by Gilmanscleugh's sword in the right breast." "What mean ye, Wat?" answered Mary, as, lifting her eyes from the face of the corpse, she noticed these extraordinary proceedings on the part of her husband. "Why do you lock up our five sons, when vengeance calls them to Gilmanscleugh? and why ask ye for the bloody vest, which should be the pennon to fly over the smoking ruins of the destroyer's tower? If you are to stop revenge, lock up the mother with her sons; for my heart beats with the pulsations of man's courage, and I will cease to feel as a woman till this blood be avenged. If thou wilt not lead on our sons to Gilmanscleugh, let me undertake the task; and mark well the issue of a woman's foray, when a son's bloody doublet hangs on the point of the spear."