“Bless me, it is our Scottish friend! Why, lad, I knew you not again, so changed are you. Why, what has happened to you?”
“I have had the fever,” Malcolm said, “and have been like to die; but I thought that a change to the pure air of your hills and woods here would set me up. So I have travelled here to ask your hospitality.”
By this time the farmer had come up and had grasped Malcolm's hand.
“All that I have is yours,” he said warmly. “The lookout saw a wagon coming across the plain with three or four men walking beside it, and he thought that many more were seated in it; so thinking that this might be a ruse of some freebooting band, I had the alarm bell rung, and prepared to give them a hot reception.”
“I have brought some sick comrades with me,” Malcolm said. “I have no thought of quartering them on you. That would be nigh as bad as the arrival of a party of marauders, for they are getting strength, and will, I warrant you, have keen appetites ere long; but we have brought tents, and will pay for all we have.”
“Do not talk of payment,” the farmer said heartily. “As long as there is flour in the storehouse and bacon on the beams, any Scottish soldier of Gustavus is welcome to it, still more if they be comrades of thine.”
“Thanks, indeed,” Malcolm replied. “I left them at the edge of the wood, for I knew not what welcome you might have prepared here; and seeing so many men you might have shot at them before waiting to ask a question.”
“That is possible enough,” the farmer said, “for indeed we could hardly look for friends. The men are all posted a hundred yards further on.”
The farmer ordered one of his men to go on and bring up the wagon, and then with Malcolm walked on to the village. A call that all was right brought out the defenders of the ambush. It had been arranged similarly to that which had been so successful before, except that instead of the pit, several strong ropes had been laid across the road, to be tightened breast high as soon as an enemy came close to them.
“These are not as good as the pit,” the farmer said as they passed them; “but as we have to use the road sometimes we could not keep a pit here, which, moreover, might have given way and injured any one from a neighbouring village who might be riding hither. We have made a strong stockade of beams among the underwood on either side, so that none could break through into the wood from the path.”