CHAPTER IV.
DARSIE LATIMER'S JOURNAL, IN CONTINUATION The morning was dawning, and Mr.Geddes and I myself were still sleeping soundly, when the alarm was given by my canine bedfellow, who first growled deeply at intervals, and at length bore more decided testimony to the approach of some enemy.

I opened the door of the cottage, and perceived, at the distance of about two hundred yards, a small but close column of men, which I would have taken for a dark hedge, but that I could perceive it was advancing rapidly and in silence.
The dog flew towards them, but instantly ran howling back to me, having probably been chastised by a stick or a stone.

Uncertain as to the plan of tactics or of treaty which Mr.Geddes might think proper to adopt, I was about to retire into the cottage, when he suddenly joined me at the door, and, slipping his arm through mine, said, 'Let us go to meet them manfully; we have done nothing to be ashamed of .-- Friends,' he said, raising his voice as we approached them, 'who and what are you, and with what purpose are you here on my property ?' A loud cheer was the answer returned, and a brace of fiddlers who occupied the front of the march immediately struck up the insulting air, the words of which begin-- Merrily danced the Quaker's wife, And merrily danced the Quaker.
Even at that moment of alarm, I think I recognized the tones of the blind fiddler, Will, known by the name of Wandering Willie, from his itinerant habits.

They continued to advance swiftly and in great order, in their front The fiery fiddlers playing martial airs; when, coming close up, they surrounded us by a single movement, and there was a universal cry, 'Whoop, Quaker--whoop, Quaker! Here have we them both, the wet Quaker and the dry one.' 'Hang up the wet Quaker to dry, and wet the dry one with a ducking,' answered another voice.
'Where is the sea-otter, John Davies, that destroyed more fish than any sealch upon Ailsa Craig ?' exclaimed a third voice.

'I have an old crow to pluck with him, and a pock to put the feathers in.' We stood perfectly passive; for, to have attempted resistance against more than a hundred men, armed with guns, fish-spears, iron-crows, spades, and bludgeons, would have been an act of utter insanity.