’But then I will e’en help myself, without please or leave either,’ cried the villain. And with that he opened a leathern wallet that he had slung over his shoulder, and began to thrust therein, not only the scones, but anything about the dresser and tables that his thievish fancy lit upon. ’Now, mistress,’ said he; ’let me have any siller you have in the house, and a well-pleased kiss of your weel-faured moo’ therewith, or else I must do my needs with you!’ And with that he opened a great gully knife, as though he would run at her. Mistress Allison cried out with a strange cry of woman’s fear, which I who had been in battle never heard the like of before. Just at this moment I pushed the bedroom door open with the point of my toe, and sat there looking straight at the man, with a pistol bended in each hand, and both of them trained point blank on the rascal’s heart. I make bold to say that in all this realm of Scotland there was not any man so exceedingly astonished as this particular sturdy thief at that moment. ’Drop the knife, sirrah!’ I commanded, as one that cries his orders in a battle. And the knife rang obediently on the stone floor. ’Kick it into the corner with your foot— No, not with your hand.’ And reluctantly he kicked the knife away from him. ’Now, my excellent good man,’ said I, ’sit you down and put your hands behind you. There and thus, be still where you are, quite in the middle of the floor and not elsewhere.’ So he sat him down, and, keeping my pistols dead upon him, I bade Mistress Allison tie his hands firmly with cord, and give him a settle to lean against. Thereafter I comforted him with stern philosophy. I told him of his wandering and uncertain life. I showed him conclusively how that he went ever in danger of the hangman’s whip, and that at the end there could only be awaiting for him a shameful death. I told him also that our overlord of Culzean had the power of pit and gallows, and that, on the return of the haymakers, he should be brought out—when in an hour there would be an end of all his misery upon the dule-tree, or tree of execution, which stands by the great gate and bears medlars at any season, but only for an hour at a time. ’’Tis the most cruel and unjust treatment of poor, beset, far wandering men!’ said the man on the floor. They were the first words he had spoken since he threw down his knife. I wondered he could speak so well. ’We have heard no complaints, so far,’ I made answer, drily, for the man’s former insolence stuck in my throat. And in especial the thought of what might have happened to mine hostess or the maids, had I not been there upon the bed with my weapons beside me. So I kept him in torment of mind for a space.