"Let us halt, then. Look to your arms, and extinguish the links; for, if friends, we may proceed together; if foes, we must drive them back. But Jane, in God's name, girl, do not cling to me thus--release my sword-arm;--tush, lassie, dost forget thou art half Seton, half Douglas?" Over his left shoulder the earl unsheathed the long weapon with which Roland, partly in frolic, had accoutred him; his two followers wound up their wheel-locks, stood by his side, and peered into the gloom behind. They counted seven dark shadows approaching in the starlight. "I see steel bonnets and Jedwood staves," said the earl. "And I, drawn whingers and bent pistolettes. Their hints are alow," replied Gilzean, meaning that their matches were lighted. "Three to seven!" "Tush! Gilzean, my good man and true, what matters that? I will spit the odd four, like so many mavises, on this long rapier." "Stand and surrender, or you are three dead men!" cried one, through the obscurity. "Zounds!" said the earl, clenching his sword; "surely I know that voice." "And I, too," added Jane, trembling excessively. "'Tis either the Laird of Redhall, or auld Hornie himsel'!" muttered Gilzean Seton. "We are right, then--I am discovered at last! and my lord advocate comes like a common messenger, the vilest of villains, to arrest me." "Do you yield, sirs?" asked the same person, who was now within ten yards of them. "Not to the assassins of Sir Thomas M'Clelland of Bombie!" replied the earl, his heart animated by ferocious joy, while his sister's whole form vibrated with terror. "Keep aside, close to the fauld-dyke, my good sister, and leave us freely to deal with these rascals; the first onset is everything!" Ashkirk led his sister close to the turf wall of the field which bordered the roadway, and cried to his followers--"Fire! and fire low!" Gilzean and his comrade levelled their hacques, the wheels revolved like lightning, producing fire by the friction of the pyrites; the combined report of these two handguns resounded at once, and one man fell on the roadway with a wild cry that sank into a hollow groan. The red flashes of three pistolettes replied; with a thousand reverberations, their echoes died away among the cliffs, and the bullets whistled harmlessly past the ears of the earl and his vassals. With the _cri de guerre_ of his family, "Ashkirk and SET ON," the gallant noble and his two devoted followers fell bravely on their six adversaries, with whom a close and furious contest ensued.