"Gude e'en t'ye, Sir; I fancy you're the lord o' this castle?" said Charlie. "You fancy so, do you?" said the Master with a sneer; and giving three tramps with his heel on the floor, in one moment the three pages, Prig, Prim, and Pricker, stood beside him. "Work, Master, work,--what work now?" "Take that burly thief and housebreaker, bind him, and put him to the test." "Stop short there, my good masters, till I speak t'ye, said Charlie, "I'm neither a housebreaker nor a thief, but a leel man, our warden's kinsman, and your ain, Master Michael Scott. I came here on fair and honourable service, and I have been guidit waur than a tike; and I'll just tell you plainly, for I'm rather an e'en-down chap, that if ane o' thae brats dare but to touch me, I'll tak my hand aff his haffet in sic a way that he sanna grene to lay foul finger on a gentleman again." The three pages fell a giggling at this speech, and one of them brushed forward and seized Charlie with a force of which he had no conception. But he was one that never suffered any personal attack with impunity. He drew a stroke with his clenched fist, and aimed such a blow at the page's head, that, if he had had a head like other pages, would have smashed it to pieces. Charlie hit no head at all. He struck a thing of nought. But the force of his arm was such, that, about two yards farther on, he hit an apparatus of curious construction, which he called "a machine for setting the wind on fire," and which he made to fly all in flinders against the wall. The Master's eye kindled with rage; but the three urchins, who delighted in nothing but mischief, laughed still the louder, and pressed all forward on Charlie. He had been a little astounded at missing the page's head; but, being somewhat flustered, he had not leisure to reflect, and his conceptions were naturally none of the most acute; so, for the present, he took it for a miss. But seeing they purposed to lay violent hands on him, he sprung back into the middle of the room, in order to command weapon space; and drawing out the Eskdale souple, he stood on the defensive in a most determined posture.