"Damn the man's hurry!" said John Splendid, trotting at my heels, and with Tearlach too he gave lungs to the shout.
"Slochd!" I cried, and "Slochd!" they cried, and the whole town clanged like a bell. Windows opened here and there, and out popped heads, and then--
"Murder and thieves!" we cried stoutly again.
"Is't the Athole dogs?" asked some one in bad English from a window, but we did not bide to tell him.
"Slochd! slochd! club and steel!" more nimble burghers cried, jumping out at closes in our rear, and following with neither hose nor brogue, but the kilt thrown at one toss on the haunch and some weapon in hand. And the whole wide street was stark awake.
The MacNicolls must have numbered fully threescore. They had only made a pretence (we learned again) of leaving the town, and had hung on the riverside till they fancied their attempt at seizing Maclachlan was secure from the interference of the townfolk. They were packed in a mass in the close and on the stair, and the foremost were solemnly battering at the night door at the top of the first flight of stairs, crying, "_Fuil airson fuil!_--blood for blood, out with young Lachie!"
We fell to on the rearmost with a will, first of all with the bare fist, for half of this midnight army were my own neighbours in Glen Shira, peaceable men in ordinary affairs, kirk-goers, law-abiders, though maybe a little common in the quality, and between them and the mustering burghers there was no feud. For a while we fought it dourly in the darkness with the fingers at the throat or the fist in the face, or wrestled warmly on the plain-stones, or laid out, such as had staves, with good vigour on the bonneted heads. Into the close we could not--soon I saw it--push our way, for the enemy filled it--a dense mass of tartan--stinking with peat and oozing with the day's debauchery.
"We'll have him out, if it's in bits," they said, and aye upon the stair-head banged the door.
"No remedy in this way for the folks besieged," thought I, and stepping aside I began to wonder how best to aid our friends by strategy rather than force of arms. All at once I had mind that at the back of the land facing the shore an outhouse with a thatched roof ran at a high pitch well up against the kitchen window, and I stepped through a close farther up and set, at this outhouse, to the climbing, leaving my friends fighting out in the darkness in a town tumultuous. To get up over the eaves of the outhouse was no easy task, and I would have failed without a doubt had not the stratagem of John Splendid come to his aid a little later than my own and sent him after me. He helped me first on the roof, and I had him soon beside me. The window lay unguarded (all the inmates of the house being at the front), and we stepped in and found ourselves soon in a household vastly calm considering the rabble dunting on its doors.