limbs may sit undisturbed at home, under the fig-tree and vine of his
planting!"

"God grant it!" returned Graham; and he saw Sir Ronald admitted within
the interior gate. The servants were ordered to remain without. Sir
John walked there some time, expecting the reappearance of the knight,
whom he intended to assist in leading home; but after an hour, finding
no signs of egress from the palace, and thinking his father might be
wondering at his delay, he turned his steps toward his own lodgings.
While passing along he met several Southron detachments hurrying across
the streets. In the midst of some of these companies he saw one or two
Scottish men of rank, strangers to him, but who, by certain
indications, seemed to be prisoners. He did not go far before he met a
chieftain in these painful circumstances whom he knew; but as he was
hastening toward him, the noble Scot raised his manacled hand and
turned away his head. This was a warning to the young knight, who
darted into an obscure alley which led to the gardens of his father's
lodgings, and was hurrying forward when he met one of his own servants
running in quest of him.

Panting with haste, he informed his master that a party of armed men
had come, under De Valence's warrant, to seize Lord Dundaff and bear
him to prison; to lie there with others who were charged with having
taken part in a conspiracy with the grandfather of the insurgent
Wallace.

The officer of the band who took Lord Dundaff told him, in the most
insulting language, that "Sir Ronald, his ringleader, with eighteen
nobles, his accomplices, had already suffered the punishment of their
crime, and were lying headless trunks in the judgment hall."