Several times he went to the door, and stood gazing down the valley, over the brown woods and gray, glimmering waters, to look and listen, if he might discover any signs of the coming danger. But his eyes could penetrate but a little way into the darkness, and no sounds came to his ears, but the deep sough of the west wind among the pine boughs of the mountain top, the hoarse ripple of the brook brawling against the boulders which lay scattered in its bed, and the hooting of the brown owls, answering each other from every ivy-bush and holly-brake on the wooded hill-sides. Nothing could be more calm or peaceful than the scene, nothing less indicative of man's presence, much more of his violence and angry passions. Not even the baying of a solitary house-dog awoke the echoes, though oftentimes the wild, yelping bark of the fox came sharp from the moorland, and once the long-drawn howl of a wolf, that most hideous and unmistakable of savage cries, wailed down the pass like the voice of a spirit, ominous of evil. The hunter's spirit was aroused in the watcher by the familiar sound. He listened intently, but it was heard no more, and, shaking his head, he muttered to himself, "He is up in the dark corrie under Norton pike; I noted the wool and bones of lambs, and the spoil of hares there, when I was last through it, but I laid the scathe to the foxes. I knew not we had a wolf so nigh us. Well, if they trap not me to-night, I'll see and trap that other thief to-morrow. And thinking of that, since they come not, I trow there is no courtesy compels me to sit up for them, and there's some thing in my head now that chimes a later hour than vespers. I'll take a night-cap, and lay me down on the settle. Gilbert, happy dog, has been asleep there on the hearth these two hours;" and, suiting the action to the word, he drew a mighty flagon of mead, quaffed it to the dregs, and, throwing a heavy wooden bar across the door, wrapped his cloak about him, and, casting himself on a settle in the chimney corner, was soon buried in deep slumber. When he woke again, which he did with a sudden start, the moon was shining brightly through the latticed casements, and there were sounds on the air which he easily recognized as the clash of mail coats and the tramp of horses, coming up at a trot over the stony road. Looking out from a loop beside the door, he perceived at once that the moment he expected had arrived. Ten men, heavily armed, but wearing dark-colored surcoats over their mail, and having their helmets cased with felt, to prevent their being discovered by the glimmering of the steel in the moonlight, had ridden up to the foot of the little knoll on which the cottage stood, and were now concerting their future movements.