tes and keep ta bailie oot."

"Bravo, Tavvy! Does Grant know?"

"Oh ay, and ivery ane's helping."

"That's the beauty of having a castle to live in, Maxy. No one can get
in when the tide's up except through the old gateway; and it isn't
everybody who can manage it when the tide's down. I say, you won't
help, will you?"

"Help! of course!" cried Max excitedly. "But what are you going to do?"

"Do! shut up the old gates. They can't scale the rock, and they've got
no boats, so we'll let them besiege us. Bah! when they find the place
locked, they'll go back. Come on."

Kenneth hurried them through the house from the rock terrace, leaving
the boat swinging to the buoy, and, followed by Tavish, Scoodrach, and
the dogs, the two lads made for the old castle yard, whose outer
entrance was the only way in unless scaling ladders were brought.

Here Grant and Long Shon, with old Tonal' to help, were busily fixing
props against the old gates which had been dragged to.

"Hurray! Bravo, Grant! Well done, Shon! That's it, Tonal'! That's
fast. No one can get in here."

Max entered into the spirit of the thing with the most intense
enjoyment, following Kenneth through the mouldering old gate tower, and
up a crumbling staircase to the broken battlements, of which there was
still enough round to allow of any one walking to and fro behind the
broken crenelation, between whose teeth they could look down on any one
coming up the rocky path from the edge of the bay.

The old castle had never before looked so romantic to Max, and he
thoroughly realised now how great must have been its strength in ancient
days, towering up as it did on the huge promontory of rock, whose sides
were steep enough to save it from attack when enemies approached it from
the land, the one path being narrow, while from the other side only a
foe provided with war galleys could have landed on the terrace, and then
beneath the defenders' fire.

"We're going to have the siege of Dunroe!" cried Kenneth excitedly.
"Now, Grant, and you, Long Shon, help and get up the arms, and we'll
defend the place till my father comes."

"But ye mauna shute," said Long Shon.

"Who's going to, Shon? We'll fire something else;" and he gave orders
which the old butler, the men, and even the maids hastened to execute,
till the battlements and the broad tower over the gateway, which was
furnished with the openings called machicolations, used for dropping
missiles on a