I heard the fierce rush of men behind me, and looking over my shoulder I saw some ten running my way with their swords drawn in their hands. So I knew that it was likely there would be one among them who could outrun me, having war-gear upon me and that not all mine own. With that I undid the cloak of the Laird of Culzean, my master, and let it fall; and so much lightened I sped on till, near to the house of one Matthew M’Gowan, they fairly ran me to earth. *CHAPTER XV* *A MIDNIGHT LEAGUER* The place of my refuge was a summer-house set in a garden, and mostly made of wood. But it had three feet of stonework about the walls, which chance fortifications, as I think, saved my life. Then I praised the forethought with which I had brought with me abundant powder and shot in the horns I had slung at my girdle. I also remembered to thank Providence for misdirecting the bullets as I ran out of the garden door. Here in this small child’s playhouse it was my fortune to stand such a siege as mayhap never man stood before. And of that I shall tell, so that all may judge and see whether the reward which the Earl of Cassillis afterwards obtained for me, was at all out of keeping (as some allege) with the services which I, Launce Kennedy, sometime esquire, rendered to him and his house. Yet I did the thing for love and by no means for reward. Ay, and largely without thought also. For such was the spirit of the times, that wagers of battle were accepted lightly to spite one and overpass another, like children that play Follow-my-leader upon the street. So I lay in my summer-house, behind the low breastwork of stone, while above me the bullets rattled through the frail woodwork like hailstones that splash into still water. Lying thus prone, I charged my pistols—a thing which, from long practice, I could do very well in the dark, and gazed out through the open windows that looked every way. What I suffered from most was the want of light upon the approaches of my castle at the top of the garden. For I was placed upon a little hill, and the ground sloped in every direction from me. Yet even this advantage of position did me little good, for the light was too uncertain to show me those that might come against me. And more than all, this uncertainty put me in a sweat lest I should shoot at shadows and allow the real enemy that came to invade and slay me to pass harmless, so that they would break upon me before I was aware.