a drop of the red, and then for the red heart's blood of these
psalm-singing, cup-kissing gentry. So ho--so ho!--hilloa--one and all--the
fox is under cover still," (advancing towards the stone chair,) "and we
thought him afield, too. Stand forth, old Canticles, 5 and 8th, and let us
see whether you have got one or five bottles under your belt. What! you
won't, or you can't stand! Grunt again!--you are made of stone, are
you?--why, then, we will try your qualities with a little burnt powder and
lead. Gentlemen of the horse-brigade, do you alight, and be d----d to you,
and, just by way of experiment, rattle me half-a-dozen bullets in the face
of that there image of stone, which looks so mighty like the parson of
Closeburn that one might easily mistake the one for the other."

The men had alighted with their holster pistols, and had arranged
themselves, as directed, in the front of the stone chair, and with a full
view of the figure which occupied the seat, when, at this very critical
juncture, a band of upwards of fifty horses, with panniers on their backs,
came up at a smart trot.

"Stop your hellish speed!" said a voice from the front of the band; "or, by
this broadsword, and these long six-footers, you are all dead men, ere you
can say, Present, fire!" Instantly, Douglas saw and comprehended his
position--"To horse!" was his short exhortation, and, in an instant, his
five followers and himself had cleared the brow of the glen, and were out
of sight at full speed. "Shed not their blood!--shed not their blood!"
continued to exclaim a well-known voice amongst the band of smugglers--for
such the reader may have guessed they were. It was the voice of Walter
Gibson, well known to many of the smugglers; for again and again they had
supplied Auchincairn with Hollands and Nantz. "Shed not one drop of blood,
I say; but leave them to Him who has said, 'Vengeance is mine, and I will
repay it;'--He will find His own time of revenging the death of my poor
murdered bairn, whom they drowned in the King's Moss, owre by there. But,
dear me, Mr Lawson, are ye dead or living, that ye tak nae tent o' what's
going on?" In fact, Mr Lawson, having given himself up as lost, had
committed himself, with shut eyes, so intently to prayer, that he had but a
very confused notion of what had happened.

"The Lord's will be done!" he exclaimed at last; "and is this you, Walter
Gibson?--fearful! fearful!--are these the Philistines around you?--and are