The world was beginning to afford the successful man
countenance, and the cunning Philippe le Bel wrote letters which were
to pass through England under the address of the Earl of Carrick, but,
within, bore the direction to King Robert of Scotland.
A vain march of Edward II into Scotland was revenged by a horrible
inroad of the Scots into Northumberland, up to the very gates of Durham.
On his return, Robert tried to surprise Berwick, but was prevented by
the barking of a dog, which awakened the garrison. He next besieged
Perth. After having discovered the shallowest part of the moat, he made
a feint of raising the siege, and, after an absence of eight days, made
a sudden night-attack, wading through the moat with the water up to his
neck, and a scaling-ladder in one hand, while with the other he felt his
way with his spear.
"What," cried a French knight, "shall we say of our lords, who live at
home in ease and jollity, when so brave a knight is here risking his
life to win a miserable hamlet?"
So saying, the Frenchman rushed after the King and his men, and the
town was taken before the garrison were well awake.
About the same time Douglas came upon Roxburgh, when the garrison were
enjoying the careless mirth of Shrovetide. Hiding their armor with dark
cloaks, Sir James and his men crept on all-fours through the brushwood
till they came to the very foot of the battlements, and could hear a
woman singing to her child that the Black Douglas should not touch it,
and the sentries saying to each other that yonder oxen were out late.
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