"But ye must not be offended, or look out from amang your curls then, like a wildcat out of an ivy-tod, for ye are to understand that he wishes most sincere weel to you, and has proved it. And it's partly that whilk has set the heather on fire e'en now." "Heather on fire?" said I. "I do not understand you." "Why," resumed MacGregor, "ye ken weel eneugh that women and gear are at the bottom of a' the mischief in this warld. I hae been misdoubting your cousin Rashleigh since ever he saw that he wasna to get Die Vernon for his marrow, and I think he took grudge at his Excellency mainly on that account. But then came the splore about the surrendering your papers--and we hae now gude evidence, that, sae soon as he was compelled to yield them up, he rade post to Stirling, and tauld the Government all and mair than all, that was gaun doucely on amang us hill-folk; and, doubtless, that was the way that the country was laid to take his Excellency and the leddy, and to make sic an unexpected raid on me. And I hae as little doubt that the poor deevil Morris, whom he could gar believe onything, was egged on by him, and some of the Lowland gentry, to trepan me in the gate he tried to do. But if Rashleigh Osbaldistone were baith the last and best of his name, and granting that he and I ever forgather again, the fiend go down my weasand with a bare blade at his belt, if we part before my dirk and his best blude are weel acquainted thegither!" He pronounced the last threat with an ominous frown, and the appropriate gesture of his hand upon his dagger. "I should almost rejoice at what has happened," said I, "could I hope that Rashleigh's treachery might prove the means of preventing the explosion of the rash and desperate intrigues in which I have long suspected him to be a prime agen."