MOWAN'S MEG.
Seven orbs within a spacious round they close,
One stirs the fire, and one the bellows blows;
The hissing steel is in the smithy drown'd,
The grot with beaten anvils groans around.
By turns their arms advance in equal time;
By turns their hands descend, and hammers chime.
They turn the glowing mass with crooked tongs,
The fiery work proceeds with rustic songs.
VIRGIL, _Æneid_ viii.
For many days salvoes (_i.e._, discharges of heavy ordnance fired in
concert by sound of trumpet) were sent against Thrave without success,
and yells of triumph and derision, when the balls of iron and whinstone
rebounded from the massive walls--the _triple yells_ of the Galwegians,
the same terrible war-cry which their forefathers raised amid the heart
of the Saxon host at the Battle of the Standard, were borne upward on
the wind to the king's battery at the Carlinwark.
"This devil of a tower is invulnerable!" said Romanno, casting down his
truncheon in anger; "it is a veritable maiden castle--strong in virtue
and unassailable."
"Virtue, said ye?" growled the old chancellor, under his barred
aventayle; "ah, but our court-rakes aver that even the most virtuous
woman has always one weak point, if we can only find it out."
"Out upon thy white beard, chancellor!" said the young king, laughing;
"what mean you to say?"
"That, like a fair court lady, this castle of Thrave may have a weak
point too."
"But, unless we attempt an escalade, the capture of the place is
impossible by battering," said the general of the ordnance.
"Impossible!" reiterated the young king, his face and eyes glowing
together, while the red spot on his cheek assumed a deeper hue.
"Pardon me, your highness," said Sir John Romanno; "but I humbly think
so."
"Think; but you _said_ impossible."
"Under favour, yes."
"There is no such word in a soldier's vocabulary," replied the spirited
monarch; "and while our hearts beat under our breastplates there is
hope."
"But the idea of an escalade," said Gray, "with the Dee to cross, and
a wall to mount, exposed to a fire of cannon and arqubuses à croc,
with long bows and arblasts to boot, and thereafter mauls, lances, and
two-handed swords in the _mêlée_, is not to be thought of--at least
until, by dint of cannon, we effect a breach."
"A breach!" exclaimed Sir John Romanno; "by my forefathers' bones ye
are little likely to see that, sirs, when the shot of our heaviest
culverins, even those of the Lion, our chief bombarde, rebound like
silken balls from the stone rampart, and our cannoniers seem no better
than court-ladies at palm play."
A loud and somewhat hoarse but hearty laugh close by made all turn
towards the offender. They perceived a man of vast and herculean
proportions, with a shock head of black hair, which the absence of his
scarlet hood (as it hung down his back) displayed in all its shaggy
amplitude, a swarthy visage, with lurid black eyes, and a long beard.
He wore a doublet of black bull's hide, a rough kilt dyed with heather,
and he leaned upon the shaft of a ponderous iron mace, which, with a
long buck-horn-hilted dagger and fur pouch or sporran, formed his only
appurtenance.
"Art thou the knave who laughed?" asked Romanno, furiously, with his
hand on his sword.
"And in this presence!" added the chancellor, whose wrath was also
kindled.
"Dioual! I did laugh," replied the man, in a strong and guttural
Galloway accent; "is it a crime to laugh at the folly or bewilderment
of others?"
"Thou base varlet!" began Romanno, in a towering passion, clenching
his gauntleted hand, when Sir Patrick Gray interposed, saying, "By my
faith, it is my friend, the strong smith of Thrave, who saved me from
the white sleuth-bratch. Come hither, carle, and remember that you
stand in the presence of the king."
Malise MacKim was too much of a primitive Celt to be abashed even
before a king, though he had frequently quailed under the eye of
Douglas, and the tongue of his own wife, Meg, who was proverbial in
Galloway as a fierce virago; so he came boldly forward and stood erect,
with an inquiring expression of eye, as if waiting to be addressed.
"Whence is it that your king's perplexity excites your laughter?" asked
James, gravely.
"Speak quickly, carle," added the chancellor, pointing ominously to a
branch of one of the thorn trees under which they stood.
"Threats will not force me to speak; but I answer the king, _not_ you,
my lord," replied the unabashed Galwegian.
"We are not used to be laughed at, sirrah," said James; "therefore, if
you do not give us a fair reason for your untimely merriment, by the
holy rood! I shall begin to threaten too."
"I am Malise MacKim, surnamed the Brawny, and I am the father of seven
sons, each a head taller than myself----"
"Thou art a lucky dog, would I were the same," said the king; "but is
this a reason for laughter?"
"What the devil is all this to us, fellow?" asked Romanno.
"This much; they are all smiths, and can each wield a fore hammer forty
pounds in weight, as if it were a kettle-drum stick. Ochoin! Mhuire as
truadh! Ochoin! There was a time when we never thought to swing our
hammers in the service of mortal man, save Douglas. But vengeance is
sweeter than bread in famine; so, if your grace will give us but iron
enough, I will be content to forfeit my head, or to hang by the neck
from that thorn tree, if, within the space of seven summer days, my
seven brave bairns and I fail to fashion you a bombarde which, at the
first discharge, will pierce yonder wall like a gossamer web, so aid us
Heaven and St. Cudbrecht?"
"This is a brave offer," said the general of the ordnance, mockingly;
"and what weight may the balls of this proposed cannon be?"
"Each one shall be the weight of a Carsphairn cow," replied the smith
slowly, as if reflecting while answering; "and if each fails to shake
Thrave to its ground-stane, the king's grace may hang me, as I have
said, on that thorn branch, as a false and boasting limmer."
"You speak us fairly, good fellow," said the king, who seemed pleased
and amused by the burly smith's bluntness and perfect confidence. "We
are not in a position to reject such loyal offers. Fashion this great
gun for me, and if it does the service you promise, by my father's
soul! you shall have a fair slice of yonder fertile land between the
Urr and Dee."
As he spoke, James drew off his gauntlet, and presented his hand to
the gigantic smith, who knelt and kissed it respectfully, but with the
clownish air of one alike unused to kneeling and to courtesy.
On MacKim requiring material, each of the principal burghers of
Kirkcudbright contributed a _gaud_ or bar of iron, in their anxiety
to serve the king, and to have the death of Sir Thomas MacLellan more
fully avenged. As a reward for this contribution, King James made the
town a royal burgh, and in memory of it, his gallant grandson, on the
26th of February, 1509, granted the old castle of the MacLellans as a
free gift to the corporation.
At a place named the Buchancroft, a rude but extensive forge was soon
erected, and there, stripped to their leathern girdles, the brawny
MacKim and his seven sturdy sons, like Vulcan and the Cyclops, plied
and swung their ponderous hammers on great resounding anvils, while
welding the vast hoops and forming the long bars that were to compose
the great cannon which was to demolish the famous stronghold of Thrave.
Seven days and seven nights these muscular smiths worked almost without
cessation, and the lurid glow of their great forge was nightly seen
from the doomed fortress to redden the sky above, the waters of the
Dee below, and the tented camp of the besieging army; and only a few
years ago, when the new road was made past Carlinwark, a vast mound
of cinders and ashes, which formed the _débris_ of their work, was
discovered and cleared away.
Meanwhile, a band of artificers, with hammer and chisel, were
fashioning the balls, which were quarried on the summit of the Binnan
hill; these when finished were permitted to roll thundering to its
base; and it is remarkable that the great stone-shot for this gun,
which yet remain in the castle of Edinburgh, are of Galloway granite
from the same eminence.
At last the vast bombarde or cannon was complete in all its bars,
hoops, and rivets; it weighed six tons and a half, exclusive of the
carriage, and measured two feet diameter in the bore.
During its formation, Sir Patrick Gray endured an mount of mental
torture and anxiety which temporary inaction rendered greater.
Would Achanna dare to put in execution the terrible order of the
ferocious earl? Would her sister, unrelenting as she was, permit it?
He feared that the deed might be done when the castle surrendered, and
his feverish and active imagination pictured the gentle, timid, and
delicate Murielle writhing in the grasp of an assassin.
But if some dark deed had not been _already_ done, why did Achanna
place his drawn sword across the mouth of the page, who was about to
speak of Murielle, during the parley at the portcullis.
Had knighthood and common humanity fallen so low among those outlaws,
that her life would be no longer safe in her sister's household; or
were the last words of the dying earl a falsehood, merely meant to
sting and embitter the soul of one whom he hated with a tiger's hatred?
Gray afflicted himself with thoughts and surmises such as these, and
while the siege was pressed by the king and his troops, his days and
nights were passed in misery.
On viewing the great piece of ordnance, James II. promised again that
if it proved more successful than the Lion and his other culverins,
he would nobly reward the artificer, who, with his seven sons and the
royal cannoniers, dragged Meg--for so MacKim named the gun, after his
own wife, whose voice, he affirmed, "her roar would resemble"--to
the summit of an eminence which, unto this day, is named from that
circumstance Knockcannon. Royal heralds with their glittering tabards,
and pursuivants with their silver collars of SS, marched in front,
while trumpets were blown and kettle-drums beaten; pipers blew,
and minstrels played upon their harps; the king's jester swung his
bladder and cracked his jokes; and thus, amid music, merriment, and
acclamations, the mighty cannon was dragged up the slope and brought
into position.
It was then loaded with an old Scottish peck of powder and one of its
granite balls, and thereafter was levelled at the fortress of the
rebellious Douglases.
"Now--now," exclaimed Malise MacKim, in grim triumph, as he wiped the
beads of perspiration from his swarthy brow; "unless my lady of Douglas
can fly through the air like an eagle, or swim down the Dee like a
grilse, she and the false brood who slew my kinsman and stole his
daughter shall exchange their steel gloves for steel fetters!"
All in the king's host were eager to observe the effect produced by
this mighty engine of destruction, the first discharge of which, when
Sir John Romanno applied the match, seemed to split the welkin, and the
recoil of the wheels tore deep ruts in the turf, while many averred
that they could trace the course of the ball like a great globe of
stone in the air, through which it hummed and whistled.
Be that as it might, when the smoke was blown aside, a great breach or
opening (now called the cannon-hole) was visible in the face of the
keep, where the side of one of the windows was partly torn away. The
masonry was seen to fall in a crumbling mass into the barbican, and the
shout of consternation which arose from the garrison was borne on the
morning wind to the king's camp, and far beyond it.
The cannoniers now cast aside their helmets, cuirasses, and cuisses,
that they might work with greater facility at the laborious task of
reloading this great gun, which was discharged several times with equal
success; and Sir Patrick Gray watched with agony the result of every
shot; for the deep, hoarse boom of each explosion that seemed to rend
the hills and sky found an echo in his heart. They seemed like the
knell of her he loved.
The warlike James II. was in ecstasy with the success of this new
piece of ordnance, and summoning the fabricator to his tent, he then,
in presence of the chancellor, the constable, and the principal
nobles, granted to him and his heirs for ever, the forfeited estate of
Mollance, which lies between the rivers Urr and Dee.
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.