CHAPTER XIX

LA JOYEUSE BAITS HER HOOK

On the morrow, the ambassador of France being confined to his room with a slight quinsy caught from the marshy nature of the environment of Thrieve, the Earl escorted the Lady Sybilla to the field of the tourney, where, as Queen of Beauty, her presence could not be dispensed with.

The Maid Margaret, the Earl's sister, remained also in the castle, not having yet recovered from her fright of the preceding evening.

With her was Maud Lindesay and her mother—"the Auld Leddy," as she was called throughout all the wide dominions of her son.

In spite of his weariness Sholto led his archer guard in person to the field of the tournament. For this day was the day of the High Sport, and many lances would be splintered, and often would the commonalty need to be scourged from the barriers.

But ere he went Sholto summoned two of the staunchest fellows of his company, Andro, called the Penman, and his brother John. Then, having posted them at either end of the corridor in which were the chambers occupied by the two girls, he laid a straight charge, and a heavy, upon them.

"On your heads be it if you fail, or let one soul pass," he said. "Stand ready with your hands on the wheel of your cross-bows, and if any man come hither, challenge him to stand, and bid him return the way he came. But if any dog or thing running on four feet ascend or descend the stair, make no sound, ask no question, cry no warning, but whang the steel bolt through his ribs, in at one side and out at the other."

Then Andro the Penman and his brother John, being silent capable fellows, said nothing, but spat on their hands, smiled at each other well pleased, and made the wheels of their cross-bows sing a clear whirring note.

"I would not like to be that dog—" said Andro the Swarthy.

"Whose foul carcase I pray God to send speedily," echoed John the Blond.

Sholto had hoped that whilst he was at the guard-setting, he might have had occasion to see once more the tantalising mischief-maker whom he yet loved with all his heart, in spite of, or perhaps because of, the distraction to which she continually reduced his spirit by means of her manifold and incalculable contrarieties.

Nevertheless, it was with an easier heart that Sholto wended his way out of the castle yett, all arrayed in the new suit of armour his lord had sent him. It was made of chain of the finest, composed of many rings set alternately thick and thin, and the whole was flexible as the deer leather which he wore underneath it. Over this a doublet of blue silk carried the Lion of Galloway done in white upon it, and all the cerulean of the ground was dotted over with the Douglas heart. But, greatest joy of all, there was brought to him by command of the Earl a suitable horse, not heavily armed like a charger for the tilt, but light of foot, and answering easily to the hand. Blue and red were the silken housings, fringed with long silver lace, through which could be seen here and there as the wind blew the sheen of the glossy skin. The buckles and bits were also of massive silver, and at sight of them the cup of Sholto's happiness was full. For a space, as he gazed upon his steed, he forgot even Maud Lindesay.

Then when he was mounted and out upon the green, waiting for the coming forth of his lord, what delight it was to feel the noble dark grey answer to each touch of the rein, obeying his master's thought more than the strength of his wrist or the prick of his heel.

As he waited there, his predecessor in office, old Sir John of Abernethy, Landless Jock as he was nicknamed, came out from the main doorway. He carried a gleaming headpiece from which the blue feather of the Douglas fell over his arm half-way to the ground. On its front was a lion crest which ramped among golden fleur-de-lys. The old man held it up for Sholto to take.

"Hae," he said in a surly tone, "this is his lordship's new helmet just brought as a present frae the Dauphin of France. So he has cast off the well-tried one, and with it also the auld servant that hath served him these many years."

"Nay, Sir John," said Sholto, with courtesy, taking the helmet which it was his duty as his master's esquire to carry before him on a velvet-covered placque, "nay—well has the good servant deserved his rest, and to take his ease. The young to the broil and the moil, the old to the inglenook and the cup of wine beneath the shade."

"Ah, lad, I envy ye not, think not that of puir Landless Jock," said the mollified old man, sadly shaking his head; "I also have tried the new office, the shining armour, and felt the words of command rise proudly in the throat. I envy you not, though your advancement hath been sudden—and well—for my own son John I had hoped, though indeed the loon is paper backed and feckless. But now there remains for me only to go to the Kirk of Saint Bride in Douglasdale, and there set me down by my auld master's coffin till I die."

At that moment there issued forth from the gateway the young Earl, holding by the hand the Lady Sybilla. His mother, the Countess, came to the door to see them ride away. The Queen of the Sports was in a merry mood, and as she tripped down the steps she turned, and looking over her shoulder she called to the Lady Douglas, "Fear not for your son, I will take good care of him!"

But the elder woman answered neither her smile nor yet her word, but stood like a mother who sees a first-born son treading in places perilous, yet dares not warn him, knowing well that she would drive him to giddier and yet more dangerous heights.

The pennons of the escort fluttered in the breeze as the men on horseback tossed their lances high in the air, in salutation of their lord. The archer guard stood ranked and ready, bows on their shoulders and arrows in quiver. Horses neighed, armour clanked and sparkled, and from the moat platform twenty silver trumpets blared a fanfare as the Lady Sybilla, the arbiter of this day's chivalry, mounted her palfrey with the help of Earl Douglas. She thanked him with a low word in his ear, audible only to himself, as he set her in the saddle and bent to kiss her hand.

A right gallant pair were Douglas and Sybilla de Thouars as they rode away, their heads close together, over the green sward and under the tossing banners of the bridge. Sholto was behind them giving great heed to the managing of his horse, and wondering in his heart if indeed Maud Lindesay were looking down from her chamber window. As they passed the drawbridge he turned him about in his saddle, as it were, to see that his men rode all in good order. A little jet of white fluttered quickly from the sparred wooden gallery which clung to the grey walls of Thrieve, just outside the highest story. And the young man's heart told him that this was the atonement of Mistress Maud Lindesay.

Earl Douglas was in his gayest humour on this second day of the great tourneying. He had got rid of his most troublesome guests. His uncle James of Avondale, his red cousin of Angus, the grave ill-assorted figure of the Abbot of Dulce Cor, had all vanished. Only the young and chivalrous remained,—his cousins, William and James, Hugh and Archibald, good lances all and excellent fellows to boot. It was also a most noble chance that the French ambassador was confined by the quinsy, for it was certainly pleasant to ride out alone with that beauteous head glancing so near his shoulder, to watch at will the sun crimsoning yet more the red lips, sparkling in the eyes that were bright as sunshine slanting through green leaves on a water-break, and to mark as he fell a pace behind how every hair of that luxuriant coif rippled golden and separate, like a halo of Florentine work about the head of a saint.

The Lady Sybilla de Thouars was merry also, but with what a different mirth to that of Mistress Maud Lindesay—at least so thought Captain Sholto MacKim, with a conscious glow of pride in his own Scottish sweetheart.

True, Sholto was scarce a fair judge in that he loved one and did not love the other. He owned to himself in a moment of unusual candour that there might be something in that. But when the gay tones of the lady's laughter floated back on the air, as his master and she rode forward by the edge of Dee towards the Lochar Fords, the first fear with which he had looked upon her in the greenwood returned upon the captain of the guard.

Earl William and the Lady Sybilla talked together that which no one else could hear.

"So after all you have not become a churchman and gone off to drone masses with the monks of your good uncle?" she said, looking up at him with one of her lingering, drawing glances.

"Nay," Earl William answered; "surely one Douglas at the time is gift enough to holy church. At least, I can choose my own way in that, though in most things I am as straitly constrained as the King himself."

"Speaking of the King," she said, "my uncle the Marshal must perforce ride to Edinburgh to deliver his credentials. Would it not be a most mirthful jest to ride with equipage such as this to that mongrel poverty-stricken Court, and let the poor little King and his starved guardian see what true greatness and splendour mean?"

"I have sworn never again to enter Edinburgh town," said the Earl, slowly; "it was prophesied that there one of my race must meet a black bull which shall trample the house of Douglas into ruins."

"Of course, if the Earl of Douglas is afraid—" mused the lady. The young man started as if he had been stung.

"Madame," he said with a sudden chill hauteur, "you come from far and do not know. No Douglas has ever been afraid throughout all their generations."

The lady turned upon him with a sweet and moving smile. She held out her fair hand.

"Pardon—nay, a thousand pardons. I knew not what I said. I am not acquainted with your Scottish speech nor yet with your Scottish customs. Do not be angry with me; I am a stranger, young, far from my own people and my own land. Think me foolish for speaking thus freely if you like, but not wilfully unkind."

And when the Earl looked at her, there were tears glittering in her beautiful eyes.

"I will go to Edinburgh," he cried. "I am the Douglas. The Tutor and the Chancellor are but as two straws in my hand, a longer and a shorter. I fling them from me—thus!"

The Lady Sybilla clapped her hands joyously and turned towards the young man. "Will you indeed go with me?" she cried. "Will you truly? I could kiss your hand, my Lord Douglas, you make me so glad."

"Your kiss will keep," said the Earl, with a quiet passion quivering in his voice.

"Nay, I meant it not thus—not as you mean it. I knew not what I said. But it will indeed change all things for me if you do but come. Then I shall have some one to speak with—some one with whom to laugh at their pitiful Court mummery, their fiasco of dignity. You are not like these other beggarly Scots, my Lord Duke of Touraine."

"They are brave men and loyal gentlemen," said the generous young Earl. "They would die for me."

"Nay, but so I declare would I," gaily cried the lady, glancing at his handsome head with a quick admiring regard. "So would I—if I were a man. Besides, there is so little worth living for in a country such as this."

The Earl was silent and she proceeded.

"But how joyous we shall be at Edinburgh! Know you that at the Court of Charles that was my name—La Joyeuse they called me. We will keep solemn countenances, you and I, while we enter the presence of the King. We will bow. We will make obeisances. Then, when all is over, we will laugh together at the fatted calf of a Tutor, the cunning Chancellor with his quirks of law, and the poor schoolboy scarce breeched whom they call King of Scotland. But all the while I shall be thinking of the true King of Scots—who alone shall ever be King to me—"

At this point La Joyeuse broke off short, as if her feelings were hurrying her to say more than she had intended.

"I did wrong to flout their messengers yesterday," said William Douglas, his boyish heart misgiving him at dispraise of others; "perhaps they meant me well. But I am naturally quick and easily fretted, and the men annoyed me with their parchments royal, their heralds-of-the-Lion, and the 'King of Scots' at every other word."

"Who is the youth who rides at the head of your company?" said the Lady Sybilla.

"His name is Sholto MacKim, and it was but yesterday that I made him captain of my guard," answered the Earl.

"I like him not," said the Lady Sybilla; "he is full of ignorance and obstinacy and pride. Besides which, I am sure he loves me not."

"Save that last, I am not sure that a Douglas has a right to dislike him for any such faults. Ignorance, obstinacy, and pride are, indeed, good old Galloway virtues of the ancientest descent, and not to be despised in the captain of an archer guard."

"And pray, sir, what may be the ill qualities which, in Captain Sholto, make up for these excellent Scottish virtues?" asked the lady, disdainfully.

"He is faithful—" began the Earl.

"So is every dog!" interjected Sybilla de Thouars.

The Earl laughed a little gay laugh.

"There is one dog somewhere about the castle, licking an unhealed sword-thrust, that wishes our Sholto had been a trifle less faithful."

The Lady Sybilla sat silent in her saddle for a space; then, striking abruptly into a new subject, she said, "Do you defend the lists to-day?"

"Nay," answered the Earl, "to-day it is my good fortune to sit by your side and hold the truncheon while others meet in the shock. But the knight who this day gains the prize, to-morrow must choose a side against me and fight a melee."

"Ah," cried the girl, "I would that my uncle were healed of his quinsy. He loveth that sport. He says that he is too old to defend his shield all day against every comer, but in the melee he is still as good a lance as when he rode by the side of the Maid over the bridge of Orleans."

"That is well thought of," cried the Earl; "he shall lead the Knights of the Blue in my place."

"Nay, my Lord Duke," cried the Lady Sybilla, "more than anything on earth I desire to see you bear arms on the field of honour."

"Oh, I am no great lance," replied the Douglas, modestly; "I am yet too young and light. As things go now, the butterfly cannot tilt against the beef barrel when both are trussed into armour. But with the bare sword I will fight all day and be hungry for more. Aye, or rattle a merry rally with the quarter-staff like any common varlet. But at both Sholto there is my master, and doth ofttimes swinge me tightly for my soul's good."

The lady went on quickly, as if avoiding any further mention of Sholto's name.

"Nevertheless, to-morrow I must see you ride in the lists. My uncle says that your father was a mighty lance when he rode at Amboise, on the famous day of the Thirteen Victories."

"Ah, but my father was twice the man that I am," said the Earl, who had not taken his eyes from her face since she began to speak.

"Great alike in love and war?" she queried, smiling.

"So, at least, it is reported of him in Touraine," answered his son, smiling back at her.

"He loved and rode away, like all your race!" cried the girl, with a strange sudden flicker of passion which died as suddenly. "But I think it not of you, Lord William. I know you could be true—that is, where you truly loved."

And as she spoke she looked at him with a questioning eagerness in her eyes which was almost pitiful.

"I do love and I am loyal," said the young man, with a grave quiet which became him well, and ought to have served him better with a woman than many protestations.



CHAPTER XX

ANDRO THE PENMAN GIVES AN ACCOUNT OF HIS STEWARDSHIP

In the fighting of that day James Douglas, the second son of the fat Earl of Avondale, won the prize, worsting his elder brother William in the final encounter. The victor was a nobly formed youth, of strength and stature greater than those of his brother, but without William of Avondale's haughty spirit and stern self-discipline.

For James Douglas had the easy popular virtues which would drink with any drawer or pricker at a tavern board, and made him ready to clap his last gold Lion on the platter to pay for the draught—telling, as like as not, the good gossip of the inn to keep the change, and (if well favoured) give him a kiss therefor. The Douglas cortege rode home amid the shoutings of the holiday makers who thronged all the approaches to the ford in order to see the great nobles and their trains ride by, and Sholto and his men had much trouble to keep these spectators as far back as was decent and seemly.

The Earl summoned his victorious cousins, William and James, to ride with him and the tourney's Queen of Beauty. But William proved even more silent than usual, and his dark face and upright carriage caused him to sit his charger as if carved in iron. Jolly James, on the other hand, attempted a jest or two which savoured rustically enough. Nevertheless, he received the compliments of the Lady Sybilla on his courage and address with the equanimity of a practised soldier. He was already, indeed, the best knight in Scotland, even as he was twelve years after when in the lists of Stirling he fought with the famous Messire Lalain, the Burgundian champion.

Earl William dropped behind to speak a moment with Sholto, and to give him the orders which he was to convey to the provost of the games with regard to the encounter of the morrow.

La Joyeuse took the opportunity of addressing her nearer and more silent companion.

"You are, I think, the head of the other Douglas House," said the Lady Sybilla, glancing up at the stern and unbending Master of Avondale.

"There is but one house of Douglas, and but one head thereof," replied Lord William, with a certain severity, and without looking at her. The lady had the grace to blush, either with shame or with annoyance at the rebuff.

"Pardon," she said, "you must remember that I am a foreigner. I do not understand your genealogies. I thought that even in France I had heard of the Black Douglas and the Red."

"The Red and the Black alike are the liegemen of William of Douglas, whom Angus and Avondale both have the honour of serving," answered he, still more uncompromisingly.

"Aye," cried the jovial James, "cousin Will is the only chief, and will make a rare lance when he hath eaten a score or two more bolls of meal."

The Earl William returned even as James was speaking.

"What is that I hear about bolls of meal?" he said; "what wots this fair damosel of our rude Scots measures for oats and bear? You talk like the holder of a twenty-shilling land, James."

"I was saying," answered James Douglas, "that you would be a proper man of your lance when you had laid a score or two bolls of good Galloway meal to your ribs. English beef and beer are excellent, and drive a lance home into an unarmed foe; but it needs good Scots oats at the back of the spear-haft to make the sparks fly when knight meets with knight and iron rings on iron."

"Indeed, cousin Jamie," said the Earl, "you have some right to your porridge, for this day you have overturned well nigh a score of good knights and come off unhurt and unashamed. Cousin William, how liked you the whammel you got from James' lance in your final course?"

"Not that ill," said the silent Master; "I am indeed better at taking than at giving. James is a stouter lance than I shall ever be—"

"Not so," cried jolly James. "Our Will never doth himself justice. He is for ever reading Deyrolles and John Froissard in order to learn new ways and tricks of fence, which he practises on the tilting ground, instead of riding with a tight knee and the weight of his body behind the shaft of ash. That is what drives the tree home, and so he gets many a coup. Yet to fall, and to be up and at it again, is by far the truer courage."

The Lady Sybilla laughed, as it seemed, heartily, yet with some little bitterness in the sound of it.

"I declare you Douglases stick together like crabs in a basket. Cousins in France do not often love each other so well. You are fortunate in your relations, my Lord Duke."

"Indeed, and that I am," cried the young man, joyously. "Here be my cousins, William and James—Will ever ready to read me out of wise books and advise me better than any clerk, Jamie aching to drive lance through any man's midriff in my quarrel."

"Lord, I would that I had the chance!" cried James. "Saint Bride! but I would make a hole clean through him and out at the back, though my elbuck should dinnle for a week after."

So talking together, but with the lady riding more silent and somewhat constrainedly in their midst, the three cousins of Douglas passed the drawbridge and came again to the precincts of the noble towers of Thrieve.

* * * * *

In an hour Sholto followed them, having ridden fast and furious across the long broomy braes of Boreland, and wet the fringes of his charger's silken coverture by vaingloriously swimming the Dee at the castle pool instead of going round by the fords. This he did in the hope that Maud Lindesay might see him. And so she did; for as he came round by the outside of the moat, making his horse caracole and thinking no little of himself, he heard a voice from an upper window call out: "Sholto MacKim, Maudie says that you look like a draggled crow. No, I will not be silent."

Then the words were shut off as if a hand had been set over the mouth which spoke. But presently the voice out of the unseen came again: "And I hate you, Sholto MacKim. For we have had to keep in our chamber this livelong day, because of the two men you have placed over us, as if we had been prisoners in Black Archibald.[1] This very day I am going to ask my brother to hang Black Andro and John his brother on the dule tree of Carlinwark."

[Footnote 1: The pet name of the deepest dungeon of Castle Thrieve, yet extant and plain to be seen by all.]

"Yes, indeed, and most properly," cried another voice, which made his very heart flutter, "and set his new captain of the guard a-dangle in the midst, decked out from head to foot in peacocks' feathers."

Sholto was very angry, for like a boy he took not chaffing lightly, and had neither the harshness of hide which can endure the rasping of a woman's tongue, nor the quickness of speech to give her the counter retort.

So he cast the reins of his horse to a stable varlet and stamped indoors, carrying his master's helmet to the armoury. Then still without speech to any he brushed hastily up the stairs towards the upper floor, which he had set Andro the Penman and his brother to guard.

At the turning of the staircase David Douglas, the Earl's brother, stopped him. Sholto moved in salute and would have passed by.

But David detained him with an impetuous hand.

"What is this?" he said; "you have set two archers on the stairs who have shot and almost killed the ambassador's two servants, Poitou the man-at-arms, and Henriet the clerk, just because they wished to take the air upon the roof. Nay, even when I would have visited my sister, I was not permitted—'None passes here save the Earl himself, till our captain takes his orders off us!' That was the word they spoke. Was ever the like done in the castle of Thrieve to a Master of Douglas before?"

"I am sorry, my Lord David," said Sholto, respectfully, "but there were matters within the knowledge of the Earl which caused him to lay this heavy charge upon me."

"Well," said the lad, quickly relenting, "let us go and see Margaret now. She must have been lonely all this fair day of summer."

But Sholto smiled, well pleased, thinking of Maud Lindesay.

"I would that I had a lifetime of such loneliness as Margaret's hath been this day," he said to himself.

At the turning of the stair they were stayed, for there, his foot advanced, his bow ready to deliver its steel bolt at the clicking of a trigger, stood Andro the Swarthy.

From his stance he commanded the stair and could see along the corridor as well.

David Douglas caught his elbow on something which stood a few inches out of the oaken panelling of the turnpike wall. He tried to pull it out. It was the steel quarrel of a cross-bow wedged firmly into the wood and masonry. He cried: "Whence came this? Have you been murdering any other honest men?"

The archer stood silent, glancing this way and that like a sentinel on duty. The two young men went on up the stair.

As their feet were approaching the sixth step, a sudden word came from the Penman like a bolt from his bow.

"Halt!" he cried, and they heard the gur-r-r-r of his steel ratchet.

Sholto smiled, for he knew the nature of the man.

"It is I, your captain," he said. "You have done your duty well, Andro the Penman. Now get down to your dinner. But first give an account of your adventures."

"Do you relieve us from our charge?" said the archer, with his bow still at the ready.

"Certainly," quoth Sholto.

"Come, Jock, we are eased," cried Andro the Swarthy up the stair, and he slid the steel bolt out of its grip with a little click; "faith, my belly is toom as a last year's beef barrel."

"Did any come hither to vex you?" asked Sholto.

"Not to speak of," said the archer; "there were, indeed, two varlets of the Frenchmen, and as they would not take a bidding to stand, I had perforce to send a quarrel buzzing past their lugs into the wall. You can see it there behind you."

"Rascal," cried David Douglas, indignantly, "you do not say that first of all you shot it through the arm of the poor clerk Henriet."

"It is like enough," said Andro, coolly, "if his arm were in the way."

Then came a voice down the stairs from above.

"And the wretches would neither let any come to visit us nor yet permit us to go into the hall that we might speak with our gossips."

"How should we be responsible with our lives for the lasses if we had let them gad about?" said Andro, preparing to salute and take himself off.

At this moment the little maid and her elder companion came forward meekly and kneeled down before Sholto.

"We are your humble prisoners," said Maud Lindesay, "and we know that our offences against your highness are most heinous; but why should you starve us to death? Burn us or hang us,—we will bear the extreme penalty of the law gladly,—but torture is not for women. For dear pity's sake, a bite of bread. We have had nothing to eat all day, except two lace kerchiefs and a neck riband."

"Lord of Heaven," cried Sholto, swinging on his heel and darting down towards the kitchen, "what a fool unutterable I am!"



CHAPTER XXI

THE BAILIES OF DUMFRIES

The combat of the third day was, by the will of the Earl, to be of a peculiar kind. It was the custom at that time for the melee to be fought between an equal number of knights in open lists, each being at liberty to carry assistance to his friends as soon as he had disposed of his own man. On this occasion, however, the fight was to be between three knights with their several squires on the one side, and an equal number of knights and squires on the other.

As the combat of the previous day had decided, young James Douglas of Avondale was to lead one party, being the successful tilter of the day of single combat, while the Earl himself was to head the other.

The chances of battle must be borne, and whatever happened in the shock of fight was to be endured without complaint. But no blow was to be struck at either knight or squire in any way disabled by wound.

To Sholto's great and manifest joy the Earl, his master, chose the new captain of his guard to support him in the fray, and told him to make choice of the best battle-axe and sword he could find, as well as to provide himself with the shield which most suited the strength of his left arm.

"By your permission I will ask my father," said Sholto.

"He also fights on our side as the squire of Alan Fleming," said the Earl; "if Laurence had not been a monk, he might have made a third MacKim."

Then was Sholto's heart high and uplifted within him, to think of the victory he would achieve over his brother less than two days after they had parted, and he hastened off to choose his arms under the direction of his father.

The party of James of Avondale consisted of his brother William and young John Lauder, called Lauder of the Bass. These three had already entered their pavilion to accoutre themselves for the combat when a trumpet announced the arrival from the castle of the ambassador of France, who, being recovered from his sickness, had come in haste to see the fighting of the last and greatest day of the tourney.

As soon as he heard the wager of battle the marshal cried: "I also will strike a blow this day for the honour of France. My quinsy has altogether left me, and my blood flows strong after the rest. I will take part with James of Avondale."

And, without waiting to be asked, he went off followed by his servant Poitou towards the pavilion of the Avondale trio.

Now as the Marshal de Retz was the chief guest, it was impossible for James of Avondale to refuse his offer. But there was anger and blasphemy in his heart, for he knew not what the Frenchman could do, and though he had undoubtedly been a gallant knight in his day, yet in these matters (as James Douglas whispered to his brother) a week's steady practice is worth a lifetime of theory. Still there was nothing for the brothers from Douglasdale but to make the best of their bargain. The person most deserving of pity, however, was the young laird of the Bass, who, being thus dispossessed, went out to the back of the lists and actually shed tears, being little more than a boy, and none looking on to see him.

Then he came back hastily, and besought James of Douglas to let him fight as his squire, saying that as he had never taken up the knighthood which had been bestowed on him by the Earl for his journey to France, there could be nothing irregular in his fighting once more as a simple esquire. And thus, after an appeal to the Earl himself, it was arranged, much to John Lauder's content.

For his third knight the Douglas had made choice of his cousin Hugh, younger brother of his two opponents, and at that William and James of Avondale shook their heads.

"He pushes a good tree, our Hughie," said James. "If he comes at you, Will, mind that trick of swerving that he hath. Aim at his right gauntlet, and you will hit his shield."

The conflict on the Boat Croft differed much from the chivalrous encounters of an earlier time and a richer country. And of this more anon.

It chanced that on the borders of the crowd which that day begirt the great enclosure of the lists two burgesses of Dumfries stood on tiptoe,—to wit, Robert Semple, merchant dealing in cloth and wool, and Ninian Halliburton, the brother of Barbara, wife of Malise MacKim, master armourer, whose trade was only conditioned by the amount of capital he could find to lay out and the probability he had of disposing of his purchase within a reasonable time.

It would give an entirely erroneous impression of the state of Scotland in 1440 if the sayings and doings of the wise and shrewd burghers of the towns of Scotland were left wholly without a chronicler. The burghs of Scotland were at once the cradles and strongholds of liberty. They were not subject to the great nobles. They looked with jealousy on all encroachments on their liberties, and had sharp swords wherewith to enforce their objection. They had been endowed with privileges by the wise and politic kings of Scotland, from William the Lion down to James the First, of late worthy memory. For they were the best bulwark of the central authority against the power of the great nobles of the provinces.

Now Robert Semple and Ninian Halliburton were two worthy citizens of Dumfries, men of respectability, well provided for by the success of their trade and the saving nature of their wives. They had come westward to the Thrieve for two purposes: to deliver a large consignment of goods and gear, foreign provisions and fruits, to the controller of the Earl's household, and to receive payment therefor, partly in money and partly in the wool and cattle; hides and tallow, which have been the staple products of Galloway throughout her generations.

Their further purposes and intents in venturing so far west of the safe precincts of their burgh of Dumfries may be gathered from their conversation hereinafter to be reported.

Ninian Halliburton was a rosy-faced, clean-shaven man, with a habit of constantly pursing out his lips and half closing his eyes, as if he were sagely deciding on the advisability of some doubtful bargain. His companion, Robert Semple, had a similar look of shrewdness, but added to it his face bore also the imprint of a sly and lurking humour not unlike that of the master armourer himself. In time bygone he had kept his terms at the college of Saint Andrews, where you may find on the list of graduates the name of Robertus Semple, written by the foundational hand of Bishop Henry Wardlaw himself. And upon his body, as the Bailie of Dumfries would often feelingly recall, he bore the memory, if not the marks, of the disciplining of Henry Ogilvy, Master in Arts—a wholesome custom, too much neglected by the present regents of the college, as he would add.

"This is an excellent affair for us," said Ninian Halliburton, standing with his hands folded placidly over his ample stomach, only occasionally allowing them to wander in order to feel and approve the pile of the brown velvet out of which the sober gown was constructed. "A good thing for us, I say, that there are great lords like the Earl of Douglas to keep up the expense of such days as this."

"It were still better," answered his companion, dryly, "if the great nobles would pay poor merchants according to their promises, instead of threatening them with the dule tree if they so much as venture to ask for their money. Neither you nor I, Bailie, can buy in the lowlands of Holland without a goodly provision of the broad gold pieces that are so hard to drag from the nobles of Scotland."

The rosy-gilled Bailie of Dumfries looked up at his friend with a quick expression of mingled hope and anxiety.

"Does the Earl o' Douglas owe you ony siller?" he asked in a hushed whisper, "for if he does, I am willing to take over the debt—for a consideration."

"Nay," said Semple, "I only wish he did. The Douglases of the Black were never ill debtors. They keep their hand in every man's meal ark, but as they are easy in taking, they are also quick in paying."

"Siller in hand is the greatest virtue of a buyer," said the Bailie, with unction. "But, Robert Semple, though I was willing to oblige ye as a friend by taking over your debt, I'll no deny that ye gied me a fricht. For hae I no this day delivered to the bursar o' the castle o' Thrieve sax bales o' pepper and three o' the best spice, besides much cumin, alum, ginger, seat-well, almonds, rice, figs, raisins, and other sic thing. Moreover, there is owing to me, for wine and vinegar, mair than twa hunder pound. Was that no enough to gar me tak a 'dwam' when ye spoke o' the great nobles no payin'!"

"I would that all our outlying monies were as safe," said Semple; "but here come the knights and squires forth from their tents. Tell me, Ninian, which o' the lads are your sister's sons."

"There is but one o' the esquires that is Barbara Halliburton's son," answered the Bailie; "the ither is her ain man—and a great ram-stam, unbiddable, unhallowed deevil he is—Guid forbid that I should say as muckle to his face!"



CHAPTER XXII

WAGER OF BATTLE

The knights had moved slowly out from their pavilions on either side, and now stood waiting the order to charge. My Lord Maxwell sat by the side of the Lady Sybilla, and held the truncheon, the casting down of which was to part the combatants and end the fight. The three knights on the southern or Earl's side were a singular contrast to their opponents. Two of them, the Earl William and his cousin Hugh, were no more than boys in years, though already old in military exercises; the third, Alan Fleming of Cumbernauld, was a strong horseman and excellent with his lance, though also slender of body and more distinguished for dexterity than for power of arm. Yet he was destined to lay a good lance in rest that day, and to come forth unshamed.

The Avondale party were to the eye infinitely the stronger, that is when knights only were considered. For James Douglas was little less than a giant. His jolly person and frank manners seemed to fill all the field with good humour, and from his station he cried challenges to his cousin the Earl and defiances to his brother Hugh, with that broad rollicking wit which endeared him to the commons, to whom "Mickle Lord Jamie" had long been a popular hero.

"Bid our Hugh there rin hame for his hippen clouts lest he make of himself a shame," he cried; "'tis not fair that we should have to fight with babes."

"Mayhap he will be as David to your Goliath, thou great gomeril!" replied the Earl with equal good humour, seeing his cousin Hugh blush and fumble uncomfortably at his arms.

Then to the lad himself he said: "Keep a light hand on your rein, a good grip at the knee, and after the first shock we will ride round them like swallows about so many bullocks."

The other two Avondale knights, William Douglas and the Marshal de Retz, were also large men, and the latter especially, clothed in black armour and with the royal ermines of Brittany quartered on his shield, looked a stern and commanding figure.

The squires were well matched. These fought on foot, armed according to custom with sword, axe, and dagger—though Sholto would much have preferred to trust to his arrow skill even against the plate of the knights.

The trumpets blew their warning from the judge's gallery. The six opposing knights laid their lances in rest. The squires leaned a little forward as if about to run a race. Lord Maxwell raised his truncheon. The trumpets sounded again, and as their stirring taran-tara rang down the wide strath of Dee, the riders spurred their horses into full career. It so chanced that, as they had stood, James of Avondale was opposite the Earl, each being in the midst as was their right as leaders. The Master of Avondale opposed his brother Hugh, and the Marshal de Retz couched spear against young Alan Fleming. In this order they started to ride their course. But at the last moment, instead of riding straight for his man, the Frenchman swerved to the left, and, raising his lance high in the air, he threw it in the manner of his country straight at the visor bars of the young Earl of Douglas. The spear of James of Avondale at the same time taking him fair in the middle of his shield, the double assault caused the young man to fall heavily from his saddle, so that the crash sounded dully over the field.

"Treachery! Treachery!—A foul false stroke! A knave's device!" cried nine-tenths of those who were crowded about the barriers. "Stop the fight! Kill the Frenchman!"

"Not so," cried Lord Maxwell, "they were to fight as best they could, and they must fight it to the end!"

And this being a decision not to be gainsaid, the combat proceeded on very unequal terms. Sholto, who had been eagerly on the stretch to match himself with the squire of James of Avondale, the young knight of the Bass, found himself suddenly astride of his lord's body and defending himself against both the French ambassador and his squire Poitou, who had simultaneously crossed over to the attack. For the Marshal de Retz, if not in complete defiance of the written rule of chivalry, at least against the spirit of gallantry and the rules of the present tourney, would have thrust the Earl through with his spear as he lay, crying at the same time, "A outrance! A outrance!" to excuse the foulness of his deed.

It was lucky for himself that he did not succeed, for, undoubtedly, the Douglases then on the field would have torn him to pieces for what they not unnaturally considered his treachery. As it was, there sounded a mighty roar of anger all about the barriers, and the crowd pressed so fiercely and threateningly that it was as much as the archers could do to keep them within reasonable bounds.

"Saints' mercy!" puffed stout Ninian Halliburton, "let us get out of this place. I am near bursen. Haud off there, varlet, ken ye not that I am a Bailie of Dumfries? Keep your feet off the tail o' my brown velvet gown. It cost nigh upon twenty silver shillings an ell!"

"A Douglas! A Douglas! Treachery! Treachery!" yelled a wild Minnigaff man, thrusting a naked brand high into the air within an inch of the burgess's nose. That worthy citizen almost fell backwards in dismay, and indeed must have done so but for the pressure of the crowd behind him. He was, therefore, much against his will compelled to keep his place in the front rank of the spectators.

"Well done, young lad," cried the crowd, seeing Sholto ward and strike at Poitou and his master, "God, but he is fechtin' like the black deil himself!"

"It will be as chancy for him," cried the wild Minnigaff hillman, "for I will tear the harrigals oot o' Sholto MacKim if onything happen to the Earl!"

But the captain of the guard, light as a feather, had easily avoided the thrust of the marshal's spear, taking it at an angle and turning it aside with his shield. Then, springing up behind him, he pulled the French knight down to the ground with the hook of his axe, by that trick of attack which was the lesson taught once for all to the Scots of the Lowlands upon the stricken field of the Red Harlaw.

The marshal fell heavily and lay still, for he was a man of feeble body, and the weight of his armour very great.

"Slay him! Slay him!" yelled the people, still furious at what, not without reason, they considered rank treachery.

Sholto recovered himself, and reached his master only in time to find Poitou bending over Earl Douglas with a dagger in his hand.

With a wild yell he lashed out at the Breton squire, and Sholto's axe striking fair on his steel cap, Poitou fell senseless across the body of Douglas.

"Well done, Sholto MacKim—well done, lad!" came from all the barrier, and even Ninian Halliburton cried: "Ye shall hae a silken doublet for that!" Then, recollecting himself, he added, "At little mair than cost price!"

"God in heeven, 'tis bonny fechtin!" cried the man from Minnigaff. "Oh, if I could dirk the fause hound I wad dee happy!"

And the hillman danced on the toes of the Bailie of Dumfries and shook the barriers with his hand till he received a rap over the knuckles from the handle of a partisan directed by the stout arms of Andro the Penman.

"Haud back there, heather-besom!" cried the archer, "gin ye want ever again to taste 'braxy'!"

Over the rest of the field the fortune of war had been somewhat various. William of Douglas had unhorsed his brother Hugh at the first shock, but immediately foregoing his advantage with the most chivalrous courtesy, he leaped from his own horse and drew his sword.

On the right Alan Fleming, being by the marshal's action suddenly deprived of his opponent, had wheeled his charger and borne down sideways upon James of Douglas, and that doughty champion, not having fully recovered from the shock of his encounter with the Earl, and being taken from an unexpected quarter, went down as much to his own surprise as to that of the people at the barriers, who had looked upon him as the strongest champion on the field.

It was evident, therefore, that, in spite of the loss of their leader, the Earl's party stood every chance to win the field. For not only was Alan Fleming the only knight left on horseback, but Malise MacKim had disposed of the laird of Stra'ven, squire to William of Avondale, having by one mighty axe stroke beaten the Lanarkshire man down to his knees.

"A Douglas! A Douglas!" shouted the populace; "now let them have it!"

And the adherents of the Earl were proceeding to carry out this intent, when my Lord Maxwell unexpectedly put an end to the combat by throwing down his truncheon and proclaiming a drawn battle.

"False loon!" cried Sholto, shaking his axe at him in the extremity of his anger, "we have beaten them fairly. Would that I could get at thee! Come down and fight an encounter to the end. I will take any Maxwell here in my shirt!"

"Hold your tongue!" commanded his father, briefly, "what else can ye expect of a border man but broken faith?"

The archers of the guard rushed in, as was their duty, and separated the remaining combatants. Hugh and his brother William fought it to the last, the younger with all his vigour and with a fierce energy born of his brother James's taunts, William with the calm courtesy and forbearance of an old and assured knight towards one who has yet his spurs to win.

The stunned knights and squires were conveyed to their several pavilions, where the Earl's apothecaries were at once in attendance. William of Douglas was the first to revive, which he did almost as soon as the laces of his helm had been undone and water dashed upon his face. His head still sang, he declared, like a hive of bees, but that was all.

He bent with the anxiety of a generous enemy over the unconscious form of the Marshal de Retz, from whom they were stripping his armour. At the removal of the helmet, the strange parchment face with its blue-black stubbly beard was seen to be more than usually pale and drawn. The upper lip was retracted, and a set of long white teeth gleamed like those of a wild beast.

The apothecary was just commencing to strip off the leathern under-doublet from the ambassador's body to search for a wound, when Poitou, his squire, happened to open his eyes. He had been laid upon the floor, as the most seriously wounded of the combatants, though being the least in honour he fell to be attended last.

Instantly he cried out a strange Breton word, unintelligible to all present, and, leaping from the floor, he flung himself across the body of his master, dashing aside the astonished apothecary, who had only time to discern on the marshal's shoulder the scar of a recent cautery before Poitou had restored the leathern under-doublet to its place.

"Hands off! Do not touch my master. I alone can bring him to. Leave the room, all of you."

"Sirrah!" cried the Earl, sternly, striding towards him, "I will teach you to speak humbly to more honourable men."

"My lord," cried Poitou, instantly recalled to himself, "believe me, I meant no ill. But true it is that I only can recover him. I have often seen him taken thus. But I must be left alone. My master hath a blemish upon him, and one great gentleman does not humiliate another in the presence of underlings. My Lord Douglas, as you love honour, bid all to leave me alone for a brief space."

"Much cared he for honour, when he threw the lance at my master!" growled Sholto. "Had I known, I would have driven my bill-point six inches lower, and then would there have been a most satisfactory blemish in the joining of his neck-bone."



CHAPTER XXIII

SHOLTO WINS KNIGHTHOOD

The ambassador recovered quickly after he had been left with his servant Poitou, according to the latter's request. The Lady Sybilla manifested the most tender concern in the matter of the accident of judgment which had been the means of diverting her kinsman from his own opponent and bringing him into collision with the Earl Douglas.

"Often have I striven with my lord that he should ride no more in the lists," she said, "for since he received the lance-thrust in the eye by the side of La Pucelle before the walls of Orleans, he sees no more aright, but bears ever in the direction of the eye which sees and away from that wherein he had his wound."

"Indeed, I knew not that the Marshal de Retz had been wounded in the eye, or I should not have permitted him to ride in the tourney," returned the Earl, gravely. "The fault was mine alone."

The Lady Sybilla smiled upon him very sweetly and graciously.

"You are great soldiers—you Douglases. Six knights are chosen from the muster of half a kingdom to ride a melee. Four are Douglases, and, moreover, cousins germain in blood."

"Indeed, we might well have compassed the sword-play," said the Earl William, "for in our twenty generations we never learned aught else. Our arms are strong enough and our skulls thick enough, for even mine uncle, the Abbot, hath his Latin by the ear. And one Semple, a plain burgher of Dumfries, did best him at it—or at least would have shamed him, but that he desired not to lose the custom of the Abbey."

"When you come to France," replied the girl, smiling on him, "it will indeed be stirring to see you ride a bout with young Messire Lalain, the champion of Burgundy, or with that Miriadet of Dijon, whose arm is like that of a giant and can fell an ox at a blow."

"Truly," said the young Earl, modestly, "you do me overmuch honour. My cousin James there, he is the champion among us, and alone could easily have over-borne me to-day, without the aid of your uncle's blind eye. Even William of Avondale is a better lance than I, and young Hugh will be when his time comes."

"Your squire fought a good fight," she went on, "though his countenance does not commend itself to me, being full of all self-sufficience."

"Sholto—yes; he is his father's son and fought well. He is a MacKim, and cannot do otherwise. He will make a good knight, and, by Saint Bride, I will dub him one, ere this sun set, for his valiant laying on of the axe this day."

The great muster was now over. The tents which had been dotted thickly athwart the castle island were already mostly struck, and the ground was littered with miscellaneous debris, soon to be carried off in trail carts with square wooden bodies set on boughs of trees, and flung into the river, by the Earl's varlets and stablemen.

The multitudinous liegemen of the Douglas were by this time streaming homewards along every mountain pass. Over the heather and through the abounding morasses horse and foot took their way, no longer marching in military order, as when they came, but each lance taking the route which appeared the shortest to himself. North, east, and west spear-heads glinted and armour flashed against the brown of the heather and the green of the little vales, wherein the horses bent their heads to pull at the meadow hay as their riders sought the nearest way back again to their peel-towers and forty-shilling lands.

It was at the great gate of Thrieve that the Earl called aloud for Sholto. He had been speaking to his cousin William, a strong, silent man, whose repute was highest for good counsel among all the branches of the house of Douglas.

Sholto came forward from the head of his archer guard with a haste which betrayed his anxiety lest in some manner he had exceeded his duty. The Earl bade him kneel down. A little behind, the young Douglases of Avondale, William, James, and Hugh, sat their horses, while the boy David, who had been left at home to keep the castle, looked forth disconsolately from the window of the great hall. On the steps stood the little Maid Margaret and her companion, Maud Lindesay, who had come down to meet the returning train of riders. And, truth to tell, that was what Sholto cared most about. He did not wish to be disgraced before them all.

So as he knelt with an anxious countenance before his lord, the Earl took his cousin William's sword out of his hand, and, laying it on the shoulder of Sholto MacKim, he said, "Great occasions bring forth good men, and even one battle tries the temper of the sword. You, Sholto, have been quickly tried, but thy father hath been long tempering you. Three days agone you were but one of the archer guard, yesterday you were made its captain, to-day I dub you knight for the strong courage of the heart that is within, and the valiant service which this day you did your lord. Rise, Sir Sholto!"

But for all that he rose not immediately, for the head of the young man whirled, and little drumming pulses beat in his temples. His heart cried within him like the overword of a song, "Does she hear? Will she care? Will this bring me nearer to her?" So that, in spite of his lord's command, he continued to kneel, till lusty James of Avondale came and caught him by the elbow. "Up, Sir Knight, and give grace and good thank to your lord. Not your head but mine hath a right to be muzzy with the coup I gat this day on the green meadow of the Boat Croft."

And practical William of Avondale whispered in his cousin's ear, "And the lands for the youth that we spoke of."

"Moreover," said the Earl, "that you may suitably support the knighthood which your sword has won, I freely bestow on you the forty-shilling lands of Aireland and Lincolns with Screel and Ben Gairn, on condition that you and yours shall keep the watch-fires laid ready for the lighting, and that in time you rear you sturdy yeomen to bear in the Douglas train the banneret of MacKim of Aireland."

Sholto stood before his generous lord trembling and speechless, while James Douglas shook him by the elbow and encouraged him roughly, "Say thy say, man; hast lost thy tongue?"

But William Douglas nodded approval of the youth.

"Nay," he said, "let alone, James! I like the lad the better that he hath no ready tongue. 'Tis not the praters that fight as this youth hath fought this day!"

So all that Sholto found himself able to do, was no more than to kneel on one knee and kiss his master's hand.

"I am too young," he muttered. "I am not worthy."

"Nay," said his master, "but you have fairly won your spurs. They made me a knight when I was but two years of my age, and I cried all the time for my nurse, your good mother, who, when she came, comforted me with pap. Surely it was right that I should make a place for my foster-brother within the goodly circle of the Douglas knights."



CHAPTER XXIV

THE SECOND FLOUTING OF MAUD LINDESAY

Sholto MacKim stood on the lowest step of the ascent into the noble gateway of Thrieve, hardly able to believe in his own good fortune. But these were the days when no man awaked without having the possibility of either a knighthood or the gallows tree to encourage him to do his duty between dawn and dark.

The lords of Douglas had gone within, and were now drinking the Cup of Appetite as their armour was being unbraced by the servitors, and the chafed limbs rubbed with oil and vinegar after the toils of the tourney. But still Sholto stood where his master had left him, looking at the green scum of duckweed which floated on the surface of the moat of Thrieve, yet of a truth seeing nothing whatever, till a low voice pierced the abstraction of his reverie.

"Sir Sholto!" said Mistress Maud Lindesay, "I bid you a long good-by, Sir Sholto MacKim! Say farewell to him, Margaret, as you hear me do!"

"Good-by, kind Sir Sholto!" piped the childish voice of the Maid of Galloway, as she made a little courtesy to Sholto MacKim in imitation of her companion. "I know not where you are going, but Maudie bids me, so I will!"

"And wherefore say you good-by to me?" cried Sholto, finding his words at once in the wholesome atmosphere of raillery which everywhere accompanied that quipsome damosel, Mistress Maud Lindesay.

"Why, because we are humble folk, and must get our ways upstairs out of the way of dignities. Permit me to kiss your glove, fair lord!" and here she tripped down the steps and pretended to take his hand.

"Hold off!" he cried, snatching it away angrily, for her tone vexed and thwarted him.

The girl affected a great terror, which merged immediately into a meek affectation of resignation.

"No—you are right—we are not worthy even to kiss your knightly hand," she said, "but we will respectfully greet you." Here she swept him a full reverence, and ran up the steps again before he could take hold of her. Then, standing on the topmost step, and holding her friend's hand in hers, she spoke to the Maid of Galloway in a tone hushed and regretful, as one speaks of the dead.

"No, Margaret," she said, "he will no more play with us. Hide-and-seek about the stack-yard ricks at the Mains is over in the gloamings. Sir Sholto cares no more for us. He has put away childish things. He will not even blow out a lamp for us with his own honourable lips. No, he will call his squire to do it!"

Sholto looked the indignation he would not trust himself to speak.

"He will dine with the Earl in hall, and quaff and stamp and shout with the best when they drink the toasts. But he has become too great a man to carry you and me any more over the stepping-stones at the ford, or pull with us the ripe berries when the briars are drooping purple on the braes of Keltonhill. Bid him good-by, Margaret, for he was our kind friend once. And when he rides out to battle, perhaps, if we are good and respectful, he may again wave us a hand and say: 'There are two lassies that once I kenned!'"

At this inordinate flouting the patience of the new knight, growing more and more angry at each word, came quickly to the breaking point; for his nerves were jarred and jangled by the excitement of the day. He gave vent to a short sharp cry, and started up the steps with the intention of making Mistress Lindesay pay in some fashion for her impertinence. But that active and gamesome maid was most entirely on the alert. Indeed, she had been counting from the first upon provoking such a movement. And so, with her nimble charge at her heels, Mistress Lindesay was already at the inner port, and through the iron-barred gate of the turret stair, before the youthful captain of the guard, still cumbered with his armour, could reach the top of the outer steps.

As soon as Sholto saw that he was hopelessly distanced, he slackened his gait, and, with a sober tread befitting a knight and officer of a garrison, he walked along the passage which led to the chamber allotted to the captain of the guard, from which that day Landless Jock had removed his effects.

The soldiers of the guard, who had heard of the honours which had so swiftly come upon the young man, rose and respectfully saluted their chief. And Sholto, though he had been silent when the sharp tongue of the mirth-loving maid tormented him, found speech readily enough now.

"I thank you," he said, acknowledging their salutations. "We have known each other before. Fortune and misfortune come to all, and it will be your turns one day. But up or down, good or ill, we shall not be the worse comrades for having kept the guard and sped the bolt together."

Then there came one behind him who stood at the door of his chamber, as he was unhelming himself, and said: "My captain, there stand at the turret stair the ladies Margaret and Maud with a message for you."

"A message for me—what is it?" said Sholto, testily, being (and small blame to him) a trifle ruffled in his temper.

"Nay, sir," said the man, respectfully, "that I know not, but methinks it comes from my lord."

It will not do to say to what our gallant Sholto condemned all tricksome queans and spiteful damosels in whose eyes dwelt mischief brimming over, and whose tongues spoke softest words that yet stung and rankled like fairy arrows dipped in gall and wormwood.

But since the man stood there and repeated, "I judge the message to be one from my lord," Sholto could do no less than hastily pull on his doublet and again betake himself along the corridor to the foot of the stair.

When he arrived there he saw no one, and was about to depart again as he had come, when the head of Maud Lindesay appeared round the upper spiral looking more distractedly mischievous and bewitching than ever, her head all rippling over with dark curls and her eyes fairly scintillating light. She nodded to him and leaned a little farther over, holding tightly to the baluster meanwhile.

"Well," said Sholto, roughly, "what are my lord's commands for me, if, indeed, he has charged you with any?"

"He bids me say," replied Mistress Maud Lindesay, "that, since lamps are dangerous things in maidens' chambers, he desires you to assist in the trimming of the waxen tapers to-night—that is, if so menial a service shame not your knighthood."

"Pshaw!" muttered Sholto, "my lord said naught of the sort."

"Well then," said Maud Lindesay, smiling down upon him with an expression innocent and sweet as that of an angel on a painted ceiling, "you will be kind and come and help us all the same?"

"That I will not!" said Sholto, stamping his foot like an ill-tempered boy.

"Yes, you will—because Margaret asks you?"

"I will not!"

"Then because I ask you?"

Spite of his best endeavours, Sholto could not take his eyes from the girl's face, which seemed fairer and more desirable to him now than ever. A quick sob of passion shook him, and he found words at last:

"Oh, Maud Lindesay, why do you treat thus one who loves you with all his heart?"

The girl's face changed. The mischief died out of it, and something vague and soft welled up in her eyes, making them mistily grey and lustrous. But she only said: "Sholto, it is growing dark already! It is time the tapers were trimmed!"

Then Sholto followed her up the stairs, and though I do not know, there is some reason for thinking that he forgave her all her wickedness in the sweet interspace between the gloaming and the mirk, when the lamps were being lighted on earth, and in heaven the stars were coming out.



CHAPTER XXV

THE DOGS AND THE WOLF HOLD COUNCIL

It was a week or two after the date of the great wappenshaw and tourneying at the Castle of Thrieve, that in the midmost golden haze of a summer's afternoon four men sat talking together about a table in a room of the royal palace of Stirling.

No one of the four was any longer young, and one at least was immoderately fat. This was James, Earl of Avondale, granduncle of the present Earl of Douglas, and, save for young David, the Earl's brother, nearest heir to the title and all the estates and honours pertaining thereto, with the single exception of the Lordship of Galloway.

The other three were, first, Sir Alexander Livingston, the guardian of the King's person, a handsome man with a curled beard, who was supposed to stand high in the immediate favours of the Queen, and who had long been tutor to his Majesty as well as guardian of his royal person. Opposite to Livingston, and carefully avoiding his eye, sat a man of thin and foxy aspect, whose smooth face, small shifty mouth, and perilous triangular eyes marked him as one infinitely more dangerous than either of the former—Sir William Crichton, the Chancellor of the realm of Scotland.

The fourth was speaking, and his aspect, strange and ofttimes terrifying, is already familiar to us. But the pallid corpse-like face, the blue-black beard, the wild-beast look, in the eyes of the Marshal de Retz, ambassador of the King of France, were now more than ever heightened in effect by the studied suavity of his demeanour and the graciousness of language with which he was clothing what he had to say.

"I have brought you together after taking counsel with my good Lord of Avondale. I am aware, most noble seigneurs, that there have been differences between you in the past as to the conduct of the affairs of this great kingdom; but I am obeying both the known wishes and the express commands of my own King in endeavouring to bring you to an agreement. You will not forget that the Dauphin of France is wedded to the Scottish princess nearest the throne, and that therefore he is not unconcerned in the welfare of this realm.

"Now, messieurs, it cannot be hid from you that there is one overriding and insistent peril which ought to put an end to all your misunderstandings. There is a young man in this land, more powerful than you or the King, or, indeed, all the powers legalised and established within the bounds of Scotland.

"Who is above the law, gentlemen? I name to you the Earl of Douglas. Who hath a retinue ten times more magnificent than that with which the King rides forth? The Earl of Douglas! Who possesses more than half Scotland, and that part the fairest and richest? Who holds in his hands all the strong castles, is joined by bond of service and manrent with the most powerful nobles of the land? Who but the Earl of Douglas, Duke of Touraine, Warden of the Marches, hereditary Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom?"

At this point the crafty eyes of Crichton the Chancellor were turned full upon the speaker. His hand tugged nervously at his thin reddish beard as if it had been combing the long goat's tuft which grew beneath his smooth chin.

"But did not you yourself come all the way from France to endue him with the duchy of Touraine?" he said. "Doth that look like pulling him down from his high seat?"

The marshal moved a politic hand as if asking silence till he had finished his explanation.

"Pardon," he said; "permit me yet a moment, most High Chancellor—but have you heard so little of the skill and craft of Louis, our most notable Dauphin, that you know not how he ever embraces men with the left arm whilst he pierces them with the dagger in his right?"

The Chancellor nodded appreciation. It was a detail of statecraft well known to him, and much practised by his house in all periods of their history.

"Now, my lords," the ambassador continued, "you are here all three—the men who need most to end this tyranny—you, my Lord of Avondale, will you deign to deliver your mind upon this matter?"

The fat Earl hemmed and hawed, clearing his throat to gain time, and knitting and unknitting his fingers over his stomach.

"Being a near kinsman," he said at last, "it is not seemly that I should say aught against the Earl of Douglas; but this I do know—there will be no peace in Scotland till that young man and his brother are both cut off."

The Chancellor and de Retz exchanged glances. The anxiety of the next-of-kin to the title of Earl of Douglas for the peace and prosperity of the realm seemed to strike them both as exceedingly natural in the circumstances.

"And now, Sir Alexander, what say you?" asked the Sieur de Retz, turning to the King's guardian, who had been caressing the curls of his beard with his white and signeted hand.

"I agree," he replied in a courtly tone, "that in the interests of the King and of the noble lady whose care for her child hath led her to such sacrifices, we ought to put a limit to the pride and insolence of this youth!"

The Chancellor bent over a parchment to hide a smile at the sacrifices which the Queen Mother had made for her son.

"It is indeed, doubtless," said Sir William Crichton, "a sacrifice that the King and his mother should dwell so long within this Castle of Stirling, exposed to every rude blast from off these barren Grampians. Let her bring him to the mild and equable climate of Edinburgh, which, as I am sure your Excellency must have observed, is peculiarly suited to the rearing of such tender plants."

He appealed to the Sieur de Retz.

The marshal bowed and answered immediately, "Indeed, it reminds me of the sunniest and most favoured parts of my native France."

The tutor of the King looked somewhat uncomfortable at the suggestion and shook his head. He had no idea of putting the King of Scots within the power of his arch enemy in the strong fortress of Edinburgh.

But the Frenchman broke in before the ill effects of the Chancellor's speech had time to turn the mind of the King's guardian from the present project against the Earl of Douglas.

"But surely, gentlemen, it should not be difficult for two such honourable men to unite in destroying this curse of the commonweal—and afterwards to settle any differences which may in the past have arisen between themselves."

"Good," said the Chancellor, "you speak well. But how are we to bring the Earl within our danger? Already I have sent him offers of alliance, and so, I doubt not, hath my honourable friend the tutor of the King. You know well what answer the proud chief of Douglas returned."

The lips of Sir Alexander Livingston moved. He seemed to be taking some bitter and nauseous drug of the apothecary.

"Yes, Sir Alexander, I see you have not forgot. The words,'If dog eat dog, what should the lion care?' made us every caitiff's scoff throughout broad Scotland."

"For that he shall yet suffer, if God give me speed," said the tutor, for the answer had been repeated to the Queen, who, being English, laughed at the wit of the reply.

"I would that my boy should grow up such another as that Earl Douglas," she had said.

The tutor stroked his beard faster than ever, and there was in his eyes the bitter look of a handsome man whose vanity is wounded in its weakest place.

"But, after all, who is to cage the lion?" said the Chancellor, pertinently.

The marshal of France raised his hand from the table as if commanding silence. His suave and courtier-like demeanour had changed into something more natural to the man. There came the gaunt forward thrust of a wolf on the trail into the set of his head. His long teeth gleamed, and his eyelids closed down upon his eyes till these became mere twinkling points.

"I have that at hand which hath already tamed the lion," he said, "and is able to lead him into the cage with cords of silk."

He rose from the table, and, going to a curtain that concealed the narrow door of an antechamber, he drew it aside, and there came forth, clothed in a garment of gold and green, close-fitting and fine, clasped about the waist with a twining belt of jewelled snakes, the Lady Sybilla.



CHAPTER XXVI

THE LION TAMER

On this summer afternoon the girl's beauty seemed more wondrous and magical than ever. Her eyes were purple-black, like the berries of the deadly nightshade seen in the twilight. Her face was pale, and the scarlet of her lips lay like twin geranium petals on new-fallen snow.

Gilles de Retz followed her with a certain grim and ghastly pride, as he marked the sensation caused by her entrance.

"This," he said, "is my lion tamer!"

But the girl never looked at him, nor in any way responded to his glances.

"Sybilla," said de Retz, holding her with his eyes, "these gentlemen are with us. They also are of the enemies of the house of Douglas—speak freely that which is in your heart!"

"My lords," said the Lady Sybilla, speaking in a level voice, and with her eyes fixed on the leaf-shadowed square of grass, which alone could be seen through the open window, "you have, I doubt not, each declared your grievance against William, Earl of Douglas. I alone have none. He is a gallant gentleman. France I have travelled, Spain also, and Portugal, and have explored the utmost East,—wherever, indeed, my Lord of Retz hath voyaged thither I have gone. But no braver or more chivalrous youth than William Douglas have I found in any land. I have no grievance against him, as I say, yet for that which hath been will I deliver him into your hands."

One of the men before her grew manifestly uneasy.

"We did not come hither to listen to the praises of the Earl of Douglas, even from lips so fair as yours!" sneered Crichton the Chancellor, lifting his eyes one moment from the parchment before him to the girl's face.

"He is our enemy," said the tutor of the King, Alexander Livingston, more generously, "but I will never deny that he is a gallant youth; also of his person proper to look upon."

And very complacently he smoothed down the lace ruffles which fell from the neck of his silken doublet midway down its front.

"The young man is a Douglas," said James the Gross, curtly; "if he were of coward breed, we had not needed to come hither secretly!"

"It needeth not four butchers to kill a sheep!" said de Retz. "Concerning that, we agree. Proceed, my Lady Sybilla."

The girl was now breathing more quickly, her bosom rising and falling visibly beneath her light silken gown.

"Yet because of those that have been of the house of Douglas before him, shall I have no pity upon William, sixth Earl thereof! And because of two dead Dukes of Touraine, will I deliver to you the third Duke, into whose mouth hath hardly yet come the proper gust of living. This is the tale I have heard a thousand times. There was in France, it skills not where, a vale quiet as a summer Sabbath day. The vines hung ripe-clustered in wide and pleasant vineyards. The olives rustled grey on the slopes. The bell swung in the monastery tower. The cottage in the dell was safe as the chateau on the hill. Then came the foreign leader of a foreign army, and lo! in a day, there were a hundred dead men in the valley, all honourable men slain in defence of their own doors. The smoky flicker of flames broke through the roof in the daylight. There was heard the crying of many women. And the man who wrought this was an Earl of Douglas."

The girl paused, and in a low whisper, intense as the breathing of the sea, she said:

"And for this will I deliver into your hands his grandson, William of Douglas!"

Then her voice came again to the ears of the four listeners, in a note low and monotonous like the wind that goes about the house on autumn evenings.

"There was also one who, being but a child, had escaped from that tumult and had found shelter in a white convent with the sisters thereof, who taught her to pray, and be happy in the peace of the hour that is exactly like the one before it. The shadow of the dial finger upon the stone was not more peaceful than the holy round of her life.

"Then came one who met her by the convent wall, met her under the shade of the orchard trees, met her under cloud of night, till his soul had power over hers. She followed him by camp and city, fearing no man's scorn, feeling no woman's reproach, for love's sake and his. Yet at the last he cast her away, like an empty husk, and sailed over the seas to his own land. She lived to wed the Sieur de Thouars and to become my mother."

"And for this will I reckon with his son William, Duke of Touraine."

She ceased, and de Retz began to speak.

"By me this girl has been taught the deepest wisdom of the ancients. I have delved deep in the lore of the ages that this maiden might be fitted for her task. For I also, that am a marshal of France and of kin to my Lord Duke of Brittany, have a score to settle with William, Earl of Douglas, as hath also my master, Louis the Dauphin!"

"It is enough," interjected Crichton the Chancellor, who had listened to the recital of the Lady Sybilla with manifest impatience, "it is the old story—the sins of the fathers are upon the children. And this young man must suffer for those that went before him. They drank of the full cup, and so he hath come now to the drains. It skills not why we each desire to make an end of him. We are agreed on the fact. The question is how."

It was again the voice of de Retz which replied, the deep silence of afternoon resting like a weight upon all about them.

"If we write him a letter inviting him to the Castle of Edinburgh, he will assuredly not come; but if we first entertain him with open courtesy at one of your castles on the way, where you, most wise Chancellor, must put yourself wholly in his hands, he will suspect nothing. There, when all his suspicions are lulled, he will again meet the Lady Sybilla; it will rest with her to bring him to Edinburgh."

The Chancellor had been busily writing on the parchment before him whilst de Retz was speaking. Presently he held up his hand and read aloud that which he had written.

"To the most noble William, Earl of Douglas and Duke of Touraine, greeting! In the name of King James the Second, whom God preserve, and in order that the realm may have peace, Sir William Crichton, Chancellor of Scotland, and Sir Alexander Livingston, Governor of the King's person, do invite and humbly intreat the Earl of Douglas to come to the City of Edinburgh, with such following as shall seem good to him, in order that he may be duly invested with the office of Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom, which office was his father's before him. So shall the realm abide in peace and evil-doers be put down, the peaceable prevented with power, and the Earl of Douglas stand openly in the honourable place of his forebears."

The Chancellor finished his reading and looked around for approbation. James of Avondale was nodding gravely. de Retz, with a ghastly smile on his face, seemed to be weighing the phrases. Livingston was admiring, with a self-satisfied smile, the pinkish lights upon his finger-nails, and the girl was gazing as before out of the window into the green close wherein the leaves stirred and the shadows had begun to swim lazily on the grass with the coming of the wind from off the sea.

"To this I would add as followeth," continued Crichton. "The Chancellor of Scotland to William, Earl of Douglas, greeting and homage! Sir William Crichton ventures to hope that the Earl of Douglas will do him the great honour to come to his new Castle of Crichton, there to be entertained as beseemeth his dignity, to the healing of all ancient enmities, and also that they both may do honour to the ambassador of the King of France ere he set sail again for his own land."

"It is indeed a worthy epistle," said James the Gross, who, being sleepy, wished for an end to be made.

"There is at least in it no lack of 'Chancellor of Scotland!'" sneered Livingston, covertly.

"Gently, gently, great sirs," interposed de Retz, as the Chancellor looked up with anger in his eye; "have out your quarrels as you will—after the snapping of the trap. Remember that this which we do is a matter of life or death for all of us."

"But the Douglases will wash us off the face of Scotland if we so much as lay hand on the Earl," objected Livingston. "It might even affect the safety of his Majesty's person!"

James the Gross laughed a low laugh and looked at Crichton.

"Perhaps," he said; "but what if the gallant boy David go with his brother? Whoever after that shall be next Earl of Douglas can easily prevent that. Also Angus is for us, and my Lord Maxwell will move no hand. There remains, therefore, only Galloway, and my son William will answer for that. I myself am old and fat, and love not fighting, but to tame the Douglases shall be my part, and assuredly not the least."

All this while the Lady Sybilla had been standing motionless gazing out of the window. de Retz now motioned her away with an almost imperceptible signal of his hand, whereat Sir Alexander Livingston, seeing the girl about to leave the chamber of council, courteously rose to usher her out. And with the very slightest acknowledgment of his profound obeisance, Sybilla de Thouars went forth and left the four men to their cabal of treachery and death.



CHAPTER XXVII

THE YOUNG LORDS RIDE AWAY

This was the letter which, along with the Chancellor's invitations, came to the hand of the Earl William as he rode forth to the deer-hunting one morning from his Castle of Thrieve:

"My lord, if it be not that you have wholly forgotten me and your promise, this comes to inform you that my uncle and I purpose to abide at the Castle of Crichton for ten days before finally departing forth of this land. It is known to me that the Chancellor, moved thereto by One who desires much to see you, hath invited the Earl of Douglas to come thither with what retinue is best beseeming so great a lord.

"But 'tis beyond hope that we should meet in this manner. My lord hath, doubtless, ere this forgot all that was between us, and hath already seen others fairer and more worthy of his courteous regard than the Lady Sybilla. This is as well beseems a mighty lord, who taketh up a cup full and setteth it down empty. But a woman hath naught to do, save only to remember the things that have been, and to think upon them. Grace be to you, my dear lord. And so for this time and it may be for ever, fare you well!"

When the Earl had read this letter from the Lady Sybilla, he turned himself in his saddle without delay and said to his hunt-master:

"Take back the hounds, we will not hunt the stag this day."

The messenger stood respectfully before him waiting to take back an answer.

"Come you from the town of Edinburgh?" asked the Earl, quickly.

"Nay," said the youth, "let it please your greatness, I am a servant of my Lord of Crichton, and come from his new castle in the Lothians."

"Doth the Chancellor abide there at this present?" asked the Earl.

"He came two noons ago with but one attendant, and bade us make ready for a great company who were to arrive there this very day. Then he gave me these two letters and set my head on the safe delivery of them."

"Sholto," cried the young lord, "summon the guard and men-at-arms. Take all that can be spared from the defence of the castle and make ready to follow me. I ride immediately to visit the Chancellor of Scotland at his castle in the Lothians."

It was Sholto's duty to obey, but his heart sank within him, both at the thought of the Earl thus venturing among his enemies, and also because he must needs leave behind him Maud Lindesay, on whose wilful and wayward beauty his heart was set.

"My lord," he stammered, "permit me one word. Were it not better to wait till a following of knights and gentlemen beseeming the Earl of Douglas should be brought together to accompany you on so perilous a journey?"

"Do as I bid you, Sir Captain," was the Earl's short rejoinder; "you have my orders."

"O that the Abbot were here—" thought Sholto, as he moved heavily to do his master's will; "he might reason with the Earl with some hope of success."

On his way to summon the guard Sholto met Maud Lindesay going out to twine gowans with the Maid on the meadows about the Mains of Kelton. For, as Margaret Douglas complained, "All ours on the isle were trodden down by the men who came to the tourney, and they have not grown up again."

"Whither away so gloomy, Sir Knight?" cried Maud, all her winsome face alight with pleasure in the bright day, and because of the excellent joy of living.

"On a most gloomy errand, indeed," said Sholto. "My lord rides with a small company into the very stronghold of his enemy, and will hear no word from any!"

"And do you go with him?" cried Maud, her bright colour leaving her face.

"Not only I, but all that can be spared of the men-at-arms and of the archer guard," answered Sholto.

Maud Lindesay turned about and took the little girl's hand.

"Margaret," she said, "let us go to my lady. Perhaps she will be able to keep my Lord William at home."

So they went back to the chamber of my Lady of Douglas. Now the Countess had never been of great influence with her son, even during her husband's lifetime, and had certainly none with him since. Still it was possible that William Douglas might, for a time at least, listen to advice and delay his setting out till a suitable retinue could be brought together to protect him. Maud and Margaret found the Lady of Douglas busily embroidering a vestment of silk and gold for the Abbot of Sweetheart. She laid aside her work and listened with gentle patience to the hasty tale told by Maud Lindesay.

"I will speak with William," she answered, with a certain hopelessness in her voice, "but I know well he will go his own gait for aught that his mother can say. He is his father's son, and the men of the house of Douglas, they come and they go, recking no will but their own. And even so will my son William."

"But he is taking David with him also!" cried Margaret. "I met him even now on the stair, wild in haste to put on his shirt of mail and the sword with the golden hilt which the ambassador of France gave him."

A quick flush coloured the pale countenance of the Lady Countess.

"Nay, but one is surely enough to meet the Chancellor. David shall not go. He is but a lad and knows nothing of these things."

For this boy was ever his mother's favourite, far more than either her elder son or her little daughter, whom indeed she left entirely to the care and companionship of Maud Lindesay.

My Lady of Douglas went slowly downstairs. The Earl, with Sholto by his side, was ordering the accoutrement of the mounted men-at-arms in the courtyard.

"William," she called, in a soft voice which would not have reached him, busied as he was with his work, but that little Margaret raised her childish treble and called out: "William, our mother desires to speak with you. Do you not hear her?"

The Earl turned about, and, seeing his mother, came quickly to her and stood bareheaded before her.

"You are not going to run into danger, William?" she said, still softly.

"Nay, mother mine," he answered, smiling, "do not fear, I do but ride to visit the Chancellor Crichton in his castle, and also to bid farewell to the French ambassador, who abode here as our guest."

A sudden light shone in upon the mind of Maud Lindesay.

"'Tis all that French minx!" she whispered in Sholto's ear, "she hath bewitched him. No one need try to stop him now."

His mother went on, with an added anxiety in her voice.

"But you will not take my little David with you? You will leave me one son here to comfort me in my loneliness and old age?"

The Earl seemed about to yield, being, indeed, careless whether David went with him or no.

"Mother," cried David, coming running forth from the castle, "you must not persuade William to make me stay at home. I shall never be a man if I am kept among women. There is Sholto MacKim, he is little older than I, and already he hath won the archery prize and the sword-play, and hath fought in a tourney and been knighted—while I have done nothing except pull gowans with Maud Lindesay and play chuckie stones with Margaret there."

And at that moment Sholto wished that this fate had been his, and the honours David's. He told himself that he would willingly have given up his very knighthood that he might abide near that dainty form and witching face. He tortured himself with the thought that Maud would listen to others as she had listened to him; that she would practise on others that heart-breaking slow droop and quick uplift of the eyelashes which he knew so well. Who might not be at hand to aid her to blow out her lamp when the guards were set of new in the corridors of Thrieve?

"Mother," the Earl answered, "David speaks good sense. He will never make a man or a Douglas if he is to bide here within this warded isle. He must venture forth into the world of men and women, and taste a man's pleasures and chance a man's dangers like the rest."

"But are you certain that you will bring him safe back again to me?" said his mother, wistfully. "Remember, he is so young and eke so reckless."

"Nay," cried David, eagerly, "I am no younger than my cousin James was when he fought the strongest man in Scotland, and I warrant I could ride a course as well as Hughie Douglas of Avondale, though William chose him for the tourney and left me to bite my thumbs at home."

The lady sighed and looked at her sons, one of them but a youth and the other no more than a boy.

"Was there ever a Douglas yet who would take any advice but from his own desire?" she said, looking down at them like a douce barn-door fowl who by chance has reared a pair of eaglets. "Lads, ye are over strong for your mother. But I will not sleep nor eat aright till I have my David back again, and can see him riding his horse homeward through the ford."



CHAPTER XXVIII

ON THE CASTLE ROOF

Maud Lindesay parted from Sholto upon the roof of the keep. She had gone up thither to watch the cavalcade ride off where none could spy upon her, and Sholto, noting the flutter of white by the battlements, ran up thither also, pretending that he had forgotten something, though he was indeed fully armed and ready to mount and ride.

Maud Lindesay was leaning over the battlements of the castle, and, hearing a step behind her, she looked about with a start of apparent surprise.

The after dew of recent tears still glorified her eyes.

"Oh, Sholto," she cried, "I thought you were gone; I was watching for you to ride away. I thought—"

But Sholto, seeing her disorder, and having little time to waste, came quickly forward and took her in his arms without apology or prelude, as is (they say) wisest in such cases.

"Maud," he said, his utterance quick and hoarse, "we go into the house of our enemies. Thirty knights and no more accompany my lord, who might have ridden out with three thousand in his train."

"'Tis all that witch woman," cried the girl; "can you not advise him?"

"The Earl of Douglas did not ask my advice," said Sholto, a little dryly, being eager to turn the conversation upon his own matters and to his own advantage. "And, moreover, if he rides into danger for the sake of love—why, I for one think the more of him for it."

"But for such a creature," objected Maud Lindesay. "For any true maid it were most right and proper! Where is there a noble lady in Scotland who would not have been proud to listen to him? But he must needs run after this mongrel French woman!"

"Even Mistress Maud Lindesay would accept him, would she?" said Sholto, somewhat bitterly, releasing her a little.

"Maud Lindesay is no great lady, only the daughter of a poor baron of the North, and much bound to my Lord Douglas by gratitude for that which he hath done for her family. As you right well know, Maud Lindesay is little better than a tiremaiden in the house of my lord."

"Nay," said Sholto, "I crave your pardon. I meant it not. I am hasty of words, and the time is short. Will you pardon me and bid me farewell, for the horses are being led from stall, and I cannot keep my lord waiting?"

"You are glad to go," she said reproachfully; "you will forget us whom you leave behind you here. Indeed, you care not even now, so that you are free to wander over the world and taste new pleasures. That is to be a man, indeed. Would that I had been born one!"

"Nay, Maud," said Sholto, trying to draw the girl again near him, because she kept him at arm's length by the unyielding strength of her wrist, "none shall ever come near my heart save Maud Lindesay alone! I would that I could ride away as sure of you as you are of Sholto MacKim!"

"Indeed," cried the girl, with some show of returning spirit, "to that you have no claim. Never have I said that I loved you, nor indeed that I thought about you at all."

"It is true," answered Sholto, "and yet—I think you will remember me when the lamps are blown out. God speed, belovedst, I hear the trumpet blow, and the horses trampling."

For out on the green before the castle the Earl's guard was mustering, and Fergus MacCulloch, the Earl's trumpeter, blew an impatient blast. It seemed to speak to this effect:

"Hasten ye, hasten ye, come to the riding, Hasten ye, hasten ye, lads of the Dee— Douglasdale come, come Galloway, Annandale, Galloway blades are the best of the three!"

Sholto held out his arms at the first burst of the stirring sound, and the girl, all her wayward pride falling from her in a moment, came straight into them.

"Good-by, my sweetheart," he said, stooping to kiss the lips that now said him not nay, but which quivered pitifully as he touched them, "God knows whether these eyes shall rest again on the desire of my heart."

Maud looked into his face steadily and searchingly.

"You are sure you will not forget me, Sholto?" she said; "you will love me as much to-morrow when you are far away, and think me as fair as you do when you hold me thus in your arms upon the battlements of Thrieve?"

Before Sholto had time to answer, the trumpet rang out again, with a call more instant and imperious than before.



Sholto clasped her close to him as the second summons shrilled up into the air.

"God keep my little lass!" he said; "fear not, Maud, I have never loved any but you!"

He was gone. And through her tears Maud Lindesay watched him from the top of the great square keep, as he rode off gallantly behind the Earl and his brother.