my mother."

"Your mother!" quoth the Earl, laughing heartily. "So then my two
golden hearts are in your mother's keeping. Art a good lad, Sholto,
and as for guile it is simply not in thee!"

Sholto looked modestly down upon the earth, as if conscious of his own
exceeding merits, but willing for the nonce to say nothing about them.
But the young Earl came over to him, and dealing him a sound buffet on
the back, cried: "Nay, lad, that lamb-like look I have seen tried on
mine uncle the Abbot of Sweetheart. Thy brother Laurence is in the way
of clerkly advancement on account of that same sweetly innocent
regard, which he hath in even greater perfection. But I am a young
man, remember--and one youth flings not glamour easily into the eyes
of another. Sholto, neither you nor I are any better than we should
be, and if we are not so evil as some others, let us not set up as
overwhelmingly virtuous. For at twenty virtue is mostly but lack of
opportunity."

Sholto blushed so becomingly at this accusation that if the Earl had
not seen the brothers locked in the death grip like crabs in a
fishwife's creel, even he might have been deceived.

"Nevertheless," continued the Earl, "in spite of your claims to
virtue, I am resolved to make you officer of my castle-guard--if not
in name, at least in fact. For old Landless Jock of Abernethy must
keep the name while he lives, and stand first when my steward pays out
the chuckling golden Lions at Whitsun and eke Lady Day. But you shall
have enough and be no longer a charge upon your father. Malise should
be a proud man, having both his sons provided for in one day."

The Earl turned him about with his usual quick imperiousness.
"Malise," he cried, "Malise MacKim!"

And again the "word" ran through the castle, escaped the gate,
circumnavigated the moat, and ran round the circle of the tents till
the shouts of "Malise, Malise," could have been heard almost at the
deserted fords of Lochar, where sundry varlets were watching for a
chance to search the deserted pavilions for anything left behind
therein by the knights and squires.

Presently there was seen ascending to the moat platform the huge form
of the master armourer himself. He stood waiting his master's
pleasure, with a knife which he had been sharpening in his hand. It
was a curious weapon, long, thin, and narrow in the blade, which was
double-edged and ground fine as a razor on both sides.

"Ah, Malise," said the Earl, "you ha