into the great stocks, and let my lord Abbot be warded safely in the
castle chapel. He is little likely to be disturbed there at his
devotions."

"Aye, my lord, it shall be done!" said Landless Jock, shaking his
head, however, with gloomy foreboding, as the haughty young Earl in
his wet and torn disarray flashed past him without further notice of
the two men whom the might of his bare word had committed to prison.
The Earl sprang up the narrow turret stairs, passing as he did so
through the vaulted hall of the men-at-arms, where more than a hundred
stout archers and spearmen sat carousing and singing, even at that
advanced hour of the night, while as many more lay about the corridors
or on the wooden shelves which they used for sleeping upon, and which
folded back against the wall during the day. At the first glimpse of
their young master, every man left awake among them struggled to his
feet, and stood stiffly propped, drunk or sober according to his
condition, with his eyes turned towards the door which gave upon the
turnpike stair. But with a slight wave of his hand the Earl passed on
to his own apartment.

Here he found his faithful body-servant, Rene le Blesois, stretched
across the threshold. The staunch Frenchman rose mechanically at the
noise of his master's footsteps, and, though still soundly asleep,
stood with the latch of the door in his hand, and the other held
stiffly to his brow in salutation.

Left to his own devices, Lord William Douglas would doubtless have
cast himself, wet as he was, upon his bed had not Le Blesois,
observing his lord's plight even in his own sleep-dulled condition,
entered the chamber after his master and, without question or speech,
silently begun to relieve him of his wet hunting dress. A loose
chamber gown of rich red cloth, lined with silk and furred with
"cristy" grey, hung over the back of an oaken chair, and into this the
young Earl flung himself in black and sullen anger.

Le Blesois, still without a word spoken, left the room with the wet
clothes over his arm. As he did so a small object rolled from some
fold or crevice of the doublet, where it had been safely lodged till
displaced by the loosening of the belt, or the removing of the
banderole of his master's hunting horn.

Le Blesois turned at the tinkling sound, and would have stopped to
lift it up after the manner of a careful servitor. But the eye of his
lord was upon the fallen object, and with an abrupt wave of