"Art thou the gudeman of the Cairntable?" asked Leslie of a stout man of great stature, whose polished coat of mail betokened a superiority over the others around him. "At your service, my braw gallant," he replied, bending over the tower; "but what may your errand be here?" "To learn wherefore ye receive the king's soldiers in this fashion, with closed gates, and your helmets on?" "Gif gaff makes gude friends," replied the other, surlily; "but I trow, gif gaff shall make you none here; so, in God's name, pass on in peace. Here ilka man must just ride the ford as he finds it." "Dost think we will burn thy house after it hath lodged us, poor devil!" said Leslie, with a lofty and patronizing air. The buirdly farmer laughed hoarsely, as he looked to the right and left along the strong walls, which were lined by so many tall fellows in helmets and breast-plates. "Away, away!" said he, waving his gauntleted hand; "what brings ye frae Holyrood to this puir sheep country? It's a gay place, that Holyrood! Ah, there are plenty of vacant priories, lay abbacies, captainries of castles, and other braw perquisites to be picked up there; so I marvel mickle that you left so pleasant a climate, to come here among the spirit-broken and impoverished Douglases, and the fogs o' the Cairntable, where there's nothing but rocks, whinstones, and cold iron to be had." "Then you will not lower your bridge, and afford free entrance to the king's soldiers." "If a' the fiends of hell came, I carena a brass bodle; so away wi' ye, or ye may fare the worse. Tell thy captain my name is Baldwin the Fleming--as good a man as he." "Peasant hound, thou shalt rue this dearly!" replied Leslie, who was about to turn away, when he perceived the rascal whom they had met at St. Bryde's Well levelling an arquebuse full at him, from a loophole; and he had just time to make his horse rear, so that the ball, which would have pierced his own breast, entered that of the poor animal, which snorted and plunged wildly. Escaping, however, several other balls which whistled past him, Leslie forced it back at full speed to the side of Roland, where it fell down, and was dead almost ere the rider could disengage himself from the stirrups. "To your arquebuses, Leslie," exclaimed Roland, "while I shall unbend my cannon. Ah, white-livered cowards!" he added, shaking his clenched hand towards the hostile grange, "I will maul you sorely for this defiance! Soldiers! they are all traitors to the king, for they have fired on his royal standard. To your guns my brave cannoniers--to your linstocks, and unlimber! Quick! and make me good service against this contumacious villain and his foolish knaves."