The lair was on the right bank of the burn, near the waterfall, and you climbed to it by ropes, unless you preferred an easier way.  It is now a dripping hollow, down which water dribbles from beneath a sluice, but at that time it was hidden on all sides by trees and the huge clods of sward they had torn from the earth as they fell.  Two of these clods were the only walls of the lair, which had at times a ceiling not unlike Aaron Latta’s bed coverlets, and the chief furniture was two barrels, marked “Usquebach” and “Powder.”  When the darkness of Stroke’s fortunes sat like a pall upon his brow, as happened sometimes, he sought to drive it away by playing cards on one of these barrels with Sir Joseph, but the approach of the Widow made him pocket them quickly with a warning sign to his trusty knight, who did not understand, and asked what had become of them, whereupon Elspeth cried, in horror: 

“Cards!  Oh, Tommy, you promised—­”

But Stroke rode her down with, “Cards!  Wha has been playing cards?  You, Muckle Kenny, and you, Sir Joseph, after I forbade it!  Hie, there, Inverquharity, all of you, seize those men.”

Then Corp blinked, came to his senses and marched himself off to the prison on the lonely promontory called the Queen’s Bower, saying ferociously, “Jouk, Sir Joseph, and I’ll blaw you into posterity.”

It is sable night when Stroke and Sir Joseph reach a point in the Den whence the glimmering lights of the town are distinctly visible.  Neither speaks.  Presently the distant eight-o’clock bell rings, and then Sir Joseph looks anxiously at his warts, for this is the signal to begin, and as usual he has forgotten the words.

“Go on,” says someone in a whisper.  It cannot be Stroke, for his head is brooding on his breast.  This mysterious voice haunted all the doings in the Den, and had better be confined in brackets.

("Go on.”)

“Methinks,” says Sir Joseph, “methinks the borers—­”

("Burghers.”)

“Methinks the burghers now cease from their labors.”

“Ay,” replied Stroke, “’tis so, would that they ceased from them forever!”

“Methinks the time is at hand.”

“Ha!” exclaims Stroke, looking at his lieutenant curiously, “what makest thou say so?  For three weeks these fortifications have defied my cannon, there is scarce a breach yet in the walls of yonder town.”

“Methinks thou wilt find a way.”

“It may be so, my good Sir Joseph, it may be so, and yet, even when I am most hopeful of success, my schemes go a gley.”

“Methinks thy dark—­”

("Dinna say Methinks so often.”)

("Tommy, I maun.  If I dinna get that to start me off, I go through other.”)

("Go on.”)

“Methinks thy dark spirit lies on thee to-night.”

“Ay, ’tis too true.  But canst thou blame me if I grow sad?  The town still in the enemy’s hands, and so much brave blood already spilt in vain.  Knowest thou that the brave Kinnordy fell last night?  My noble Kinnordy!”