again, I'll pitch you down the linn like a foot-ball."

"Ay, lad, ye are very short to be sae lang," retorted young Butler
undauntedly, and measuring his opponent's height with an undismayed eye;
"I am thinking you are a gillie of Black Donacha; if you come down the
glen, we'll shoot you like a wild buck."

"You may tell your father," said the lad, "that the leaf on the timber is
the last he shall see--we will hae amends for the mischief he has done to
us."

"I hope he will live to see mony simmers, and do ye muckle mair,"
answered David.

More might have passed, but Lady Staunton stepped between them with her
purse in her hand, and taking out a guinea, of which it contained
several, visible through the net-work, as well as some silver in the
opposite end, offered it to the caird.

"The white siller, lady--the white siller," said the young savage, to
whom the value of gold was probably unknown. Lady Staunton poured what
silver she had into his hand, and the juvenile savage snatched it
greedily, and made a sort of half inclination of acknowledgment and
adieu.

"Let us make haste now, Lady Staunton," said David, "for there will be
little peace with them since they hae seen your purse."

They hurried on as fast as they could; but they had not descended the
hill a hundred yards or two before they heard a halloo behind them, and
looking back, saw both the old man and the young one pursuing them with
great speed, the former with a gun on his shoulder. Very fortunately, at
this moment a sportsman, a gamekeeper of the Duke, who was engaged in
stalking deer, appeared on the face of the hill. The bandits stopped on
seeing him, and Lady Staunton hastened to put herself under his
protection. He readily gave them his escort home, and it required his
athletic form and loaded rifle to restore to the lady her usual
confidence and courage.

Donald listened with much gravity to the account of their adventure; and
answered with great composure to David's repeated inquiries, whether he
could have suspected that the cairds had been lurking there,--"Inteed,
Master Tavie, I might hae had some guess that they were there, or
thereabout, though maybe I had nane. But I am aften on the hill; and they
are like wasps--they stang only them that fashes them; sae, for my part,
I make a point not to see them, unless I were ordered out on the preceese
errand by MacCallummore or Knockdunder, whilk is a clean different case."

They reached the