"The Duke's men! the Duke's men! with the devil at their head!" cried the wise man of the hamlet in Gaelic. "Run! or we're all dead and murdered!" In an instant every human head of them had disappeared, each having burrowed under its own proper earthen hovel, with as much expedition as would be displayed by the rabbits of a warren, when scared by a Highland terrier. So instantaneously, and so securely, was every little door fastened, that it was with some difficulty that the three fugitives found places of shelter, and that too, not until their shrieks had been multiplied ten-fold. When John Smith came up, panting and blowing like a stranded porpus, all was snug, and the little hamlet so silent, that if he had not caught a glimpse of the people alive, he might have supposed that they were all dead. John knocked at the first door he came to.--Not a sound was returned but the angry barking of a cur. He tried the next--and the next--and the next--all with like success;--at last he knocked at one, whence came a low, tremulous voice, more of ejaculation than intended for the ear of any one without, and speaking in Gaelic. "Lord be about us!--Defend us from Satan, and from all his evil spirits and works!" "Give me a morsel of bread, and a cup of water, for mercy's sake!" said John, poking his head close against a small pane of dirty glass in the mud wall, that served for a window. "Avoid thee, evil spirit!" said the same voice.--"Avoid thee, Satan!--O deliver us from Satan!--Deliver us from the Prince of Darkness and all his wicked angels!" "Have mercy upon me, and give me but a bit of bread, and a drop of water, for the sake of Christ your Saviour!" cried John earnestly again. "Avoid, I say, blasphemer!" replied the voice, with more energy than before. "Name not vainly the name of my Saviour, enemy as thou art to him and his. Begone, and tempt us not!"