bany. What were I worth could I not
strike a blow against so foul a wrong to my own orphan kindred? Brewster,
I'll answer it to thy master. These are his foes, as well as those of
all honest men. Ha! thou art as glad to be at them as I myself.'

By this time he had exchanged his cap for a steel helmet, and was
assuming the command as his natural right, as he placed the men in their
ambush behind the knoll, received reports from those he had set to watch,
and concerted the signal with Halbert and his own followers. Malcolm
kept by him, shivering with intense excitement and eagerness; and thus
they waited till the horses' hoofs and clank of armour were distinctly
audible. But even then Sir James, with outstretched hand, signed his
followers back, and kept them in the leash, as it were, until the troop
was fairly in the valley, those in front beginning to halt to give their
horses water. They were, in effect, riding somewhat carelessly, and with
the ease of men whose feat was performed, and who expected no more
opposition. Full in the midst was Lilias, entirely muffled and pinioned
by a large plaid drawn closely round her, and held upon the front of the
saddle of a large tall horse, ridden by a slender, light-limbed, wiry
groom, whom Malcolm knew as Christopher Hall, a retainer of the Duke of
Albany; and beside him rode her captor, Sir Walter Stewart, a man little
above twenty, but with a bronzed, hardened, reckless expression that made
him look much older, and of huge height and giant build. Malcolm knew
him well, and regarded him with unmitigated horror and dread, both from
the knowledge of his ruffianly violence even towards his father, from
fear of his intentions, and from the misery that his brutal jests,
scoffs, and practical jokes had often personally inflicted: and the sight
of his sister in the power of this wicked man was the realization of all
his worst fears. But ere there was time for more than one strong pang of
consternation and constitutional terror, Sir James's shout of 'St. Andrew
for the right!' was ringing out, echoed by all the fifteen in ambush with
him, as simultaneously they leapt forward. Malcolm, among the first,
darting with one spring, as it were, to the horse where his sister was
carried, seized the bridle with his left hand, and flashing his sword
upon the ruffian with the other, shouted, 'Let go, villain; give me my
sister!' Hall's first impulse was to push his horse forward so as to