"No, sir; but I have only three charges of powder in it."
"Well, these are three men's lives. Charge home, Willie, and fire surely, for here they come."
In the fitful moonlight, Falconer being the last, had been seen to scramble up the oak; and now, with drawn sword and brandished lance, Home, Hailes, Borthwick, and even honest Blackcastle, whom the infectious spirit of mischief had seized, and who was still smarting from the burning brandy, some of which had been dashed in his face, with all the rest of their party, surrounded the stem of the threat tree, with threats, jibes, and cries of anger and defiance.
"Ha, ha!" laughed Hailes; "so the cock-pigeons, whose cooing we spoiled, are all roosted in this tree."
"Unwind me your hand-guns, some of ye, sirs," said Home; "try a shot ere they take wing."
"Blithely, though I wad rather hae ane gude straik wi' a Jethart staff than sax shots wi' thae war-cracks," said a grim mosstrooper, who gave his weapon the local name by which these primitive firearms were then known.
This simple gun, which first made its appearance in Scotland about 1450, in the time of James II., who received it from the Italians, was at first a mere iron tube, with little trunnions at its sides. By these it was secured to a wooden stock. The touch-hole was first on the top; but as the priming was liable to fall off, or be blown away, the vent was transferred to the right side, where a pan held the powder, and over it was a cover which opened on a pivot: such was the first germ of our modern musket.
Two or three horsemen who were furnished with these then formidable weapons, opened their pans, and levelling at the heart of the tree above their heads, applied the matches. There was a triple blaze—a simultaneous report, and three bullets whistled harmlessly through the foliage of the oak, cutting its leaves, and whitening the branches, but far apart from the three fugitives; for the troopers fired unsteadily, and at random.
The night was still dark; the moon glinted uncertainly at times, and the foliage was dense and thick.
"Again, and again," said Home; "fire while there is a charge in your flasks or a ball in your bags; and I will give ten crowns to the first who brings down his bird like a capercailzie."