"You hear, mistress?" said Ingram, turning then to the kneeling figure of the mother. "Ten seconds of the twenty are gone. If you will yield the required information his life will be spared." Susan Gray hesitated a moment. It was an awful moment for her, to be called upon to choose, as it were, betwixt husband and child. "Mother, mother, don’t be tempted!" cried Gavin. "What is my life compared with that of my father and grandfather, and uncle David? Let them shoot. I am not afraid to die. I remember Mr. Guthrie’s fearlessness on the scaffold. I understand it now, for God is with me here, close beside me, and I will go straight to glory." The sublimity of the lad’s courage, the pathetic and beautiful faith with which he spoke, moved more than one of these hardened hearts to pity, but it only further enraged their brutal Captain. "Get into the house, mistress, and shut the door," he said, curtly; "unless you want to see the young rebel receive his baptism of fire." Susan Gray spoke not, but remained kneeling, with her face hidden in her hands; all feeling seemed to be frozen in her broken heart. There was a moment’s dread silence; then the sharp report of three musket shots, simultaneously fired, rang through the quiet Sabbath air. Then the order was given to march, and the dragoons, having finished their deadly work, turned their horses’ heads away from Hartrigge. As they did so, a volume of smoke began slowly to arise from behind the house; they had finished their work of destruction by setting fire to the barn and granary ere they left. Little knew the brave men in hiding what was being enacted at so little a distance from them. The cave was too far away to admit of the sound of voices, or even the trampling of the horses to penetrate their ears, but they heard quite distinctly the report of musketry, and involuntarily all started to their feet. "That sound comes from the house," said Hartrigge. "I must go and see what is being done there. I cannot sit here while these miscreants murder my wife and children in cold blood."