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GUY MANNERING.
141

Their appearance was in the utmost degree hurried and disordered, and they frequently looked back like men who apprehended a close and deadly pursuit. My father and Hazlewood hurried to the front door to demand who they were, and what was their business. They were revenue officers, they stated, who had seized these horses, loaded with contraband articles, at a place about three miles off. But the smugglers had been reinforced, and were now pursuing them with the avowed purpose of recovering the goods, and putting to death the officers who had presumed to do their duty. The men said, that their horses being loaded, and the pursuers gaining ground upon them, they had fled to Woodbourne, conceiving, that as my father had served the king, he would not refuse to protect the servants of government, when threatened to be murdered in the discharge of their duty.

"My father, to whom, in his enthusiastic feelings of military loyalty, even a dog