h passes midways on the steepest and most terrifying slope. Here,
on the brow high above, we laid our ambush, and piled great stones to
roll on the enemy if need were.

It was a dark, gloomy day, with black clouds driven by the wind, and
scuffs of grey showers scudding among the hilltops.

Presently lying couched amid the heather we saw the dragoons come
marching loosely two and two, with their reins slack on their horses'
necks. At the entering in of the gorge we observed them fall to single
file, owing to the narrowing of the path. We could see the minister
riding first of the prisoners in his black clothes. Then after a soldier
came Anton Lennox, sitting staid and sober on his horse, with a
countryman to lead the beast, and to watch that, by reason of his wounds
and weakness, he did not fall off.

Then followed Maisie, riding daintily and sedately as ever. Then came
five or six other prisoners. Each man of these was held by a rope round
his neck, which a trooper had attached to the pommel of his saddle. And
at this he took an occasional tug, according to his desire, as other men
might take a refreshment.

So these poor lads were being haled along to their fate in Edinburgh.
And for a certain long moment, at least, I thought with more complacence
on the stark spy behind the dyke, to whose treachery they owed their
fate. But the next minute I was ashamed of my thought.

As I looked over I saw the whole party strung out along the steep and
dangerous face of the precipice. Then while they were thus painfully
toiling with their horses through the dangers of the way, James of the
Long Gun rose to his height out of the bent, and sent his powerful voice
down, as it had been out of the clouds. For as I said, it was misty and
gloomy that day--as indeed it is seldom otherwise there, and to see the
place well you must see it in gloom and in no other way.

"Halt, ye sons of Belial!" cried James of the Long Gun.

I could hardly help smiling, for he said it solemnly, as though it had
been his idea of a civil salutation or the enunciation of an
incontestable fact.

The young apple-faced officer answered, holding up his hand to stay the
cavalcade behind him, and hearing some one call from the misty hill, but
not catching the word.

"Who may you be, and what do you want?"

Then at the upward wave of James of the Long Gun's hand, twelve of us
stood up with our pieces at the point. This startled young Apple-Face
(yet I would