He stalked rapidly around the turret--he examined his pistols, the edge of his sword, his Jedburgh-staff, and his spear. Elspeth placed a steel cap on his head, and, from beneath it, his dark hair, mingled with grey, fell upon his brow. He stood with his ponderous spear in one hand and a pistol in the other, and the declining sun cast his shadow across the moss, to the very horses' feet of his invaders. Still the horsemen, who amounted to several hundreds, drew nearer and nearer on every side, and impenetrable as the morass was to strangers, yet, by devious windings, as a hound tracks its prey, the muffled men led them on, till they had arrived within pistol shot of Cleughfoot. "What want ye, friends?" shouted the outlaw--"think ye that a poor man like Sandy Armstrong can gi'e upputtin' and provender for five hundred horse?" "We come," replied an officer, advancing in front of the company, "by the authority o' our gracious prince, James, king o' England and Scotland, and in the name o' his commissioner, Sir William Selby, to punish and hand over to justice Border thieves and outlaws, o' whom we are weel assured that you, Sandy Armstrong, o' the Cleughfoot, are habit and repute, amangst the chief." "Ye lie! ye lie!" returned the outlaw; "ye dyvors in scarlet an' cockades, ye lie! I hae lived thir fifty years by my ain hand, an' the man was never born that dared say Sandy Armstrong laid finger on the widow's cow or the puir man's mare, or that he scrimpit the orphan's meal. But I hae been a protector o' the poor and helpless, an' a defender o' the cowan-hearted, for a sma' but honest blackmail, that other men, wi' no half the strength o' Sandy Armstrong, wadna ta'en up at their foot. "Do ye surrender in peace, ye boastin' rebel?" replied the herald, "or shall we burn your den about your ears?" "I ken it is death ony way ye take it," rejoined the outlaw--"ye would show me an' mine the mercy that was shown to my kinsman, John o' Gilnokie,[4] and I shall surrender as an Armstrong surrenders--when the breath is out." [Footnote 4: This subject forms another of the Border Tales.] Fire flashed from a narrow crevice which resembled a cross in the turrets--the report of a pistol was heard, and the horse of the herald bounded, and fell beneath him. "That wasna done like an Armstrong, Archy," said the freebooter; "ye hae shot the horse, an' it might hae been the rider--the man was but doing his duty, an' it was unfair and cowardly to fire on him till the affray began." "I shall mind again, faither," said Archy, "but I thought, wi' sic odds against us, that every advantage was fair." While these events transpired, Elspeth was busied placing powder and balls upon the roof of the turret; she brought up also a carabine, and putting it in her husband's hands, said--"Tak ye that, Sandy, to aim at their leaders, and gie Archy an' me the dags."