nd the buckle-tache of the girdle
brace they were working on.

And as they hammered they talked together in alternate snatches and
silences?--Sholto, the elder, meanwhile keeping an eye on his father.
For their converse was not meant to reach the ear of the grave, strong
man who sat so still in the wicker chair with the afternoon sun
shining in his face.

"Hark ye, Laurence," said Sholto, returning from a visit to the door
of the smithy, the upper part of which was open. "No longer will I be
a hammerer of iron and a blower of fires for my father. I am going to
be a soldier of fortune, and so I will tell him--"

"When wilt thou tell him?" laughed his brother, tauntingly. "I wager
my purple velvet doublet slashed with gold which I bought with mine
own money last Rood Fair that you will not go across and tell him now.
Will you take the dare?"

"The purple velvet--you mean it?" said Sholto, eagerly. "Mind, if you
refuse, and will not give it up after promising, I will nick that
lying throat of yours with my gullie knife!"

And with that Sholto threw down his pincers and hammer, and valorously
pushed open the lower door of the smithy. He looked with bold, dark
blue eye at his father, and strode slowly across the grimy door-step.
Brawny Kim had not moved for an hour. His great hands lay in his lap,
and his eyes looked at the purple ridges of Screel, across the
beautiful loch of Carlinwark, which sparkled and dimpled restlessly
among its isles like a wilful beauty bridling under the gaze of a
score of gallants.

But, even as he went, Sholto's step slowed, and lost its braggart
strut and confidence. Behind him Laurence chuckled and laughed,
smiting his thigh in his mocking glee.

"The purple velvet, mind you, Sholto! How well it will become you,
coft from Rob Halliburton, our mother's own brother, seamed with red
gold and lined with yellow satin and cramosie. Well indeed will it set
you when Maud Lindesay, the maid who came from the north for company
to the Earl's sister, looks forth from the canopy upon you as you
stand in the archers' rank on the morrow's morn."

Sholto squared his shoulders, and with a little backward hitch of his
elbow which meant "Wait till I come back, and I will pay you for this
flouting," he strode determinedly across the green space towards his
father.

The master armourer of Earl Douglas did not lift his eyes till his son
had half crossed the road. Then, even as if a rank of spearmen at th