offered each a single glass of spirits, which Bertram drank
diluted, and his companion plain.

'Will ye taste naething yoursell, Luckie?' said Dinmont.

'I shall not need it,' replied their mysterious hostess. 'And
now,' she said, 'ye maun hae arms: ye maunna gang on dry-handed;
but use them not rashly. Take captive, but save life; let the law
hae its ain. He maun speak ere he die.'

'Who is to be taken? who is to speak?' said Bertram, in
astonishment, receiving a pair of pistols which she offered him,
and which, upon examining, he found loaded and locked.

'The flints are gude,' she said, 'and the powder dry; I ken this
wark weel.'

Then, without answering his questions, she armed Dinmont also with
a large pistol, and desired them to choose sticks for themselves
out of a parcel of very suspicious-looking bludgeons which she
brought from a corner. Bertram took a stout sapling, and Dandie
selected a club which might have served Hercules himself. They
then left the hut together, and in doing so Bertram took an
opportunity to whisper to Dinmont, 'There's something inexplicable
in all this. But we need not use these arms unless we see
necessity and lawful occasion; take care to do as you see me do.'

Dinmont gave a sagacious nod, and they continued to follow, over
wet and over dry, through bog and through fallow, the footsteps of
their conductress. She guided them to the wood of Warroch by the