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