But wantonly baiting the redcoats had already become a most discreditable general practice.

"We've downed one redcoat in fair light; what more do ye want, bad luck to ye?"

" Fernando and his score of sharpshooters soon began dropping the redcoats as fast as they could see them.

rankling in his heart, he came to despise all forms of monarchy, and to hate "redcoats."

Fernando's riflemen had been waiting for this, and, with wild yells, they leaped the redoubts, deployed along the stone fences and houses and picked off the redcoats so rapidly, that they fled pell mell to their own works, glad to escape the bullets of those unerring riflemen.

"We'll drink to the troops of Maryland and Virginia," he cried, "who behaved like soldiers and died like men, teaching England's redcoats a lesson they will not soon forget, and to two of the bravest among them, Colonel Washington and Lieutenant Stewart!"

Near the house are the rocks known as Minto Crags, mentioned by Sir Walter Scott in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," where many and many a time Lady Fanny raced about on hunting days, watching the redcoats with childish eagernessintensely interested in the joyousness and beauty of the sight, but in her heart always secretly thankful if the fox escaped.