"Up wi' ye, boys!" cried Long John, "we've plums for their pudding in plenty above there, and they who come to meat at Langley peel, unbidden, must bring lang spoons."
Jocelyn led the way, scampering like a rabbit up the steep, well-worn stairs; and bursting out on to the parapet, his first thought was of his sister.
Far away southward he saw a tiny moving object which vanished round the shoulder of the hill, and he knew she was safe, and that help would not be long in coming; then he crept to the parapet and looked over.
A shower of ringing blows from a heavy sledgehammer was falling upon the grille.
"Lads," said Long John, crawling out upon the roof, with a grim smile, "they knock over loud to our fancy, being unmannerly Scots, but they shall taste a 'Langley loaf,'" and he picked up a great fragment of rock that lay upon a pile that had evidently been brought there for precisely such a purpose.
"Back!" shouted Armstrong, sitting on his horse, and spying five figures appear on a sudden, each outlined against the blue sky above him; but the warning came too late, and the huge stones fell among the surge of men that sprang away from the door.
"That's Hal o' the Cleuch, wi' his neck broken," cried Long John, looking down, "'twas he gave me the lick on the shinbone when we rode back from Bannockbrae, and I'll now die happier for to-day's work!"
"I'll no take away from my father's joy, though 'twas my stone killed him," whispered Halbert to Tam Foster. "Ha, the rogues have fired the byre!"
A tremendous shout rose from the reivers, as a tongue of flame leaped upwards from the outlying buildings; and the soft wind wreathed the peel itself in smoke.
"We'll no want for a beacon now to raise the countryside, Wat Armstrong!" called Long John o' the Limp. "If ye've a mind to come in, take an old man's advice and delay not; we're five here and you two score—fie on ye! Wat, we'd hae brent your rat hole sooner than this!"