At which they gave back in great astonishment and ran, I make no doubt, to tell their masters that they had to do with more than one old man well lined with sack and canary. Then in the breathing space I charged my pistols again, and cried to the fellow that was limping along the ground by the back of my summer-house,— ’Link it, my lad, back to your master, or I shall put another bullet in ye, in a place where it will stop you from groaning and hirpling there at my lug!’ For I understood well that he desired to take me in the rear. At this moment there happened a thing surprising. I saw a tall, dark figure overleap a wall at the side from which the shots came thinnest. I saw it stoop and lay fire to something that was darker than itself, when instantly there arose from the pile of millwright’s shavings and kindling wood a clear light which caused all the garden to be seen without any difficulty. Then the tall, unknown figure, which seemed yet unaccountably familiar to me, walked slowly up the middle walk toward the summer-house, the pistols cracking all about, and the bullets splashing faster than ever upon the roof and sides of my shelter. Then I saw who it was. ’Run for it, Robert Harburgh,’ I cried. ’Man, you are mad.’ But I declare he never altered by a single pulse-beat his deliberate advance. At the door he paused as one that upon the threshold would turn to kick a yelping cur. Then giving the sharpshooters a wave of his hand in contempt, he entered and shut the door. ’Saint Kentigern’s fish and a thousand devils,’ said I, ’I am not feared of any man, but there is no sense in foolhardiness, Robert. Come in out of reach of their bullets this moment, thou fool!’ ’Ah,’ he returned to me, ’I had as lief die and be done with it.’ ’But then I would not, for my stomach is in good order,’ replied I, swiftly, ’so lie down on thy belly and at the least help me to keep alive, for I am most consumedly anxious to keep my body from proving leaky by the entering in of bullets.’ So, obediently he laid him down, watching one side of our cunning defences. He told me that he had heard what was a-doing—how that the Mures and Drummurchies, together with Sawny Bean, the savage carl that was called of the common people ’The Earl of Hell,’ had gotten the Laird of Culzean in a little summer-house in a walled garden and were there worrying him to death. ’So,’ said Harburgh, ’having nought better to do, I primed my pistols and came.’ The firing upon us grew hotter than ever. We seemed at times to be closed within a ring of fire. Yet neither of us were the least hurt, save that a chip from the edge of a stone, driven off by a bullet, had struck me on the cheek and made it bleed.