"Fecht, sir! ye'll fecht nane here," exclaimed Margaret Grahame, who had been, during the previous instant, listening eagerly with her ear close to the door, endeavouring to make out who or what the approaching party of horsemen were. "Fecht! ye'll fecht nane," she exclaimed, rushing up to her guest, and seizing him by the sword arm. "It wad be madness, perfect madness. It's a party o' Englishers frae Stirlin Castle--a dizzen at least. And what could your single arm, strong as it is, do against sae mony? No, no, come here--here wi' me," she added, in a state of great excitement. "Leave me to fecht the Englishers; I ken how to do't. I'll fecht them wi' barley bannocks and dauds o' butter. Keep thae chiels chowan, and deil haet else they'll think o'." By this time Margaret Grahame had conducted, or rather dragged her guest, who passively, and, it may be added, prudently yielded to her proceeding, into a dark back apartment. This gained, she hastily threw aside the curtain of a bed, which occupied a corner of the room, opened a _press_ or closet, the door of which the former concealed, and unceremoniously thrust her guest, without saying another word, into the unoccupied receptacle, fastened the door, and drew the curtains of the bed again before it. All this was the work of but an instant, and there was need that it should be so; for the English troopers--such they were--were already thundering at the door for admittance. "Comin this moment!" exclaimed Margaret Grahame. "Dear me, will ye no gie folk time to throw on their claes," she added, as she undid the fastenings of the door. "To raise folk out o' their beds this way at this time o' nicht." As she said this, she threw the door open, and, in the same instant, six or eight dismounted troopers, who had given their horses in charge to two or three comrades remaining mounted outside, entered. On the entrance of the soldiers, Margaret Grahame, in pursuance of the particular line of tactics which she had laid down for herself, commenced, with great volubility of speech, to overwhelm her visiters with both words and deeds of hospitality--she stirred the fire to warm them, and covered her homely board with the best she had to regale them, and all this with such expedition, accompanied by such an outpouring of expressions of kindness, that the soldiers could do nothing but look at each other in surprise, and, by their smiles, express the perplexity into which such an unexpected reception had placed them. One obvious general effect, however, was produced on them all by Margaret's proceedings; this was the completely disarming them of all vindictive feeling, and substituting in its place one of kindness and sympathy.