or one of the smugglers, and mistaking the
meaning of Julia's cry of surprise at seeing her lover, snatched the gun
from the servant, and haughtily ordered Brown to stand back so as not to
alarm the lady. Brown, piqued at finding Julia on the arm of a stranger,
replied as haughtily that he did not require to take lessons from
Hazlewood how to behave to any lady. Instantly Charles Hazlewood pointed
the gun at his breast. Upon which Brown sprang upon him, and in the
struggle the gun went off by accident, and Hazlewood fell to the ground
wounded. Brown, anxious not to bring Julia Mannering into the affair, at
once sprang over the hedge and disappeared.

[Illustration: "HE was roughly dressed, and young Hazlewood, taking him
for one of the smugglers, and mistaking the meaning of Julia's cry of
surprise at seeing her lover, snatched the gun from the servant, and
haughtily ordered Brown to stand back so as not to alarm the lady."]

Hazlewood's wound was, happily, not serious, and being an honest open
young fellow, he was the first to own himself in the wrong. Nothing of
importance would have come of the affair, but for the officiousness of
Glossin, the new Laird of Ellangowan, who saw in it a way of
ingratiating himself with the two powerful families of Mannering and
Hazlewood.

Glossin began by questioning the landlady of the hotel where Brown had
been staying. Then he tried to draw out the postboy. From them he
gathered little, save the fact that a young man named Brown had been
staying at the Gordon Arms at Kippletringan. On the day of the accident
to Charles Hazlewood, Brown had taken the postboy with him to show him
the skating and curling on the pond in the neighbourhood of which the
supposed attack had taken place. Jock Jabos, the postboy, however,
denied that "the stoutest man in Scotland could take a gun frae him and
shoot him wi' it, though he was but a feckless little body, fit only for
the outside o' a saddle or the fore-end of a post-chaise. Na, nae living
man wad venture on the like o' that!"

So Glossin, in order the better to carry out his plans, pretended to
believe that Brown was the Lieutenant of the gang which had assaulted
the house of Woodbourne.

Much more to the point was the information which was waiting for Glossin
on his return to his house of Ellangowan. Mac-Guffog, the county
thief-taker, and two of his people were there. With them they had
brought a prisoner, whom they had first beguiled int