'But then I would not, for my stomach is in good order,' replied I, swiftly, 'so lie down on thy belly and at the least help me to keep alive, for I am most consumedly anxious to keep my body from proving leaky by the entering in of bullets.'
So, obediently he laid him down, watching one side of our cunning defences. He told me that he had heard what was a-doing—how that the Mures and Drummurchies, together with Sawny Bean, the savage carl that was called of the common people 'The Earl of Hell,' had gotten the Laird of Culzean in a little summer-house in a walled garden and were there worrying him to death.
'So,' said Harburgh, 'having nought better to do, I primed my pistols and came.'
The firing upon us grew hotter than ever. We seemed at times to be closed within a ring of fire. Yet neither of us were the least hurt, save that a chip from the edge of a stone, driven off by a bullet, had struck me on the cheek and made it bleed.
When the fire which Robert Harburgh had lighted burned up, we that were marksmen lost no chances at any who showed so much as an arm or a leg. And many of those murderous rascals whom we did not kill outright (not having a fair chance at them from their lying in shelter and other causes), were at least winged and sore damaged, so that we judged that there would be some roods of lint bandage required about Drummurchie and Auchendrayne on the morrow.
Outside we heard a great and growing turmoil and the sound of many voices crying 'To the death with the murderers! Break down the doors!'
It was the noise of the people who had risen in the night and were coming to help us. For in a moment the gate of the yard was broken down, and a rout of men in steel caps and hastily-donned armour came pouring in. And it had been comical to watch the array, if our urgent business had allowed. For some had put on a breastplate over their night gear; some fought like Highlandmen in their sark-tails, which, on the night of the New Year, must have been breezy wear; while others again had snatched a hackbutt and had forgotten the powder, so that now they carried the weapon like a club by the barrel.
Before these angry levies our cruel invaders vanished like smoke, as though they had never been, clambering over walls and scurrying through entries. But it is reported that several of them were sore hurt in thus escaping—indeed, here and there throughout the town were no fewer than five dead and six wounded, chiefly in the two gardens where I had been compelled to discharge my pistols.
Robert Harburgh stepped out of the summer-house before them all, stretching his limbs.
''Tis a cramped, ungodly place, friends,' he said. 'After all, it is better to fight in the open and risk it!'