friends. The sharp-shooters, dispersed around, were firing incessantly on
each object that was exposed upon the battlement. The Castle was
enveloped with smoke, and the rocks rang to the cries of the combatants.
In the midst of this scene of confusion, a singular accident had nearly
given the besiegers possession of the fortress.

Cuddie Headrigg, who had advanced among the marksmen, being well
acquainted with every rock and bush in the vicinity of the Castle, where
he had so often gathered nuts with Jenny Dennison, was enabled, by such
local knowledge, to advance farther, and with less danger, than most of
his companions, excepting some three or four who had followed him close.
Now Cuddie, though a brave enough fellow upon the whole, was by no means
fond of danger, either for its own sake, or for that of the glory which
attends it. In his advance, therefore, he had not, as the phrase goes,
taken the bull by the horns, or advanced in front of the enemy's fire. On
the contrary, he had edged gradually away from the scene of action, and,
turning his line of ascent rather to the left, had pursued it until it
brought him under a front of the Castle different from that before which
the parties were engaged, and to which the defenders had given no
attention, trusting to the steepness of the precipice. There was,
however, on this point, a certain window belonging to a certain pantry,
and communicating with a certain yew-tree, which grew out of a steep
cleft of the rock, being the very pass through which Goose Gibbie was
smuggled out of the Castle in order to carry Edith's express to
Charnwood, and which had probably, in its day, been used for other
contraband purposes. Cuddie, resting upon the but of his gun, and looking
up at this window, observed to one of his companions,--"There's a place I
ken weel; mony a time I hae helped Jenny Dennison out o' the winnock,
forby creeping in whiles mysell to get some daffin, at e'en after the
pleugh was loosed."