“They think we shall be trying to escape, now that our door is burned.  They are too late; I trust our messenger is miles away by this time.”

In half an hour the flames died away, but a deep red glow showed that the pile of embers was still giving out an intense heat.  One of the men was now placed on the top of the tower again, as a measure of precaution, but it was certain that hours would elapse before an attack could be made.  The peasants, indeed, secure of their prey, evinced no hurry to commence the attack, but spent the night in shouting and singing round their fires, occasionally yelling threats of the fate which awaited them against the defenders of the tower.

Towards daylight Malcolm commenced his preparations for defence.  The door was taken off its hinges and was laid on the stone stairs.  These were but two feet wide, the door itself being some three inches less.  The rope was fastened round its upper end to prevent it from sliding down.

“I wish we had some grease to pour over it,” Malcolm said, “but dry as it is it will be next to impossible for anyone to walk up that sharp incline, and we four should be able to hold it against the peasants till doomsday.”

It was not until broad daylight that the peasants prepared for the attack.  So long as the operation had been a distant one it had seemed easy enough, but as in a confused mass they approached the open doorway they realized that to ascend the narrow staircase, defended at the top by desperate men, was an enterprise of no common danger, and that the work which they had regarded as finished was in fact scarcely begun.

The greater part then hung back, but a band of men, who by their blackened garments and swarthy faces Malcolm judged to be charcoal burners, armed with heavy axes, advanced to the front, and with an air of dogged resolution approached the door.  The defenders gave no sign of their presence, no pistol flashed out from window or loophole.

Striding through the still hot ashes the leader of the woodmen passed through the doorway and advanced up the stairs.  These ran in short straight flights round the tower, lighted by narrow loopholes.  No resistance was encountered until he reached the last turning, where a broader glare of light came from the open doorway, where two of the soldiers, pike in hand, stood ready to repel them.  With a shout to his followers to come on, the peasant sprang forward.  He ascended three steps, and then, as he placed his foot upon the sharply inclined plane of the door, which he had not noticed, he stumbled forward.  His companions, supposing he had been pierced with a spear, pressed on after him, but each fell when they trod upon the door until a heap of men cumbered the stair.  These were not unharmed, for with their long pikes the Scottish spearmen ran them through and through as they lay.