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'Where be our guards? exclaimed this second Justinian; 'see ye not a stranger knight from foreign parts arrived at this our court of Holyrood, with our bold yeoman Andrew Dinmont, who has succeeded to the keeping of our royal flocks within the forest of Jedwood, where, thanks to our royal care in the administration of justice, they feed as safe as if they were within the bounds of Fife?
At this moment his little terrier sprung forward, barking most furiously. Brown quickened his pace, and, attaining the summit of a small rising ground, saw the subject of the dog's alarm. In a hollow about a gunshot below him a man whom he easily recognised to be Dinmont was engaged with two others in a desperate struggle.
As he appeared through the morning mist, Brown, accustomed to judge of men by their thewes and sinews, could not help admiring his height, the breadth of his shoulders, and the steady firmness of his step. Dinmont internally paid the same compliment to Brown, whose athletic form he now perused somewhat more at leisure than he had done formerly.
Pleydell, said Dinmont, looking at his dreadnought coat, then at the handsome furniture of the room; 'I had maybe better gang some gate else, and leave ye till your cracks, I'm no just that weel put on.
"I'm glad we're out o' that moss," said Dinmont, "where there's mair stables for horses than change-houses for men we have the Maiden-way to help us now, at ony rate." Accordingly, they speedily gained a sort of rugged causeway so called, being the remains of an old Roman road which traverses these wild regions in a due northerly direction.
In this strange story Bertram obviously saw, supposing the warning to be true, some intimation of danger more violent and imminent than could be likely to arise from a few days' imprisonment. At the same time it was equally evident that some unknown friend was working in his behalf. 'Did you not say, he asked Dinmont, 'that this man Gabriel was of gipsy blood?
The intruders, therefore, whose number was now augmented unexpectedly to three, stood behind the loosely-piled branches with little risk of discovery. Dinmont had the sense' to keep back Hazlewood with one hand till he whispered to Bertram, "A friend young Hazlewood."
* "Eh, poor things, what else have I to give them?" This reply of Ailie Dinmont, and indeed her whole sweet character, short though it be, has always seemed to me the finest female sketch in the Waverly Novels finer even, because so much tenderer, than the bold and honest Jeanie Deans.
Dinmont will protect you back to the house." "No," said Meg, "he must come with you; it is for that he is here. He maun take part wi' hand and heart; and weel his part it is, for redding his quarrel might have cost you dear," "Troth, Luckie, it's very true," said the steady farmer; "and ere I turn back frae the Captain's side, I'll show that I haena forgotten't."
The first words he said when he had digested the shock contained a magnanimous declaration, which he probably was not conscious of having uttered aloud 'Weel, blude's thicker than water; she's welcome to the cheeses and the hams just the same. But when the trustee had made the above-mentioned motion for the mourners to depart, and talked of the house being immediately let, honest Dinmont got upon his feet and stunned the company with this blunt question, 'And what's to come o' this poor lassie then, Jenny Gibson?
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