"Halt!" cried Roland Vipont.
"By my faith!" said Leslie, "we shall have no dinner here to-day, which I regret exceedingly, as this hath all the aspect and reputation of being an exceedingly well-stocked grange."
"There is some mistake here. They surely have not seen the royal standard," said Vipont, angrily, as he shaded his eyes with his hand, which was cased in a glove of steel.
"Ah! you wished for some fighting!"
"Just now I wish most for dinner; and so, Balquhan, ride thou forward with a white flag, and make open door for us."
"Dost think I am another St. Colm, to make bolts unbar and doors open by simply signing the cross?"
"No; but by threatening them with cannon shot."
Leslie tied a white handkerchief to the point of his long sword, and galloped fearlessly forward to the edge of the ditch, from whence he could distinctly see the grim faces that, from under battered morions, peered at him between the embrasures of the wall above; while from the deep-mouthed loopholes below peeped forth the keen pike-heads and the iron muzzle of many an arquebuse and pistol.
"Art thou the gudeman of the Cairntable?" asked Leslie of a stout man of great stature, whose polished coat of mail betokened a superiority over the others around him.
"At your service, my braw gallant," he replied, bending over the tower; "but what may your errand be here?"