you whither I had gone yester-even? For,
indeed, I knew not myself when I set out. And in any event, was it a
thing well done for my foster father to spy upon me the son who was
also his lord?"

The anger was mostly gone now out of the frank young face of the Earl,
and only humiliation and resentment, with a touch of boyish curiosity,
remained.

"Indeed," answered the smith, "I watched you not save under my hand as
you rode away upon Black Darnaway, and then I turned me to the seat by
the wall to listen to the cavillings of Dame Barbara, the humming of
the bees, and the other comfortable and composing sounds of nature."

"How then did you come to follow me in the undesirable company of my
uncle the Abbot?"

"For that you are in the debt of my son Sholto, who, seeing a lady
wait for you in the greenwood, climbed a tree, and there from amongst
the branches he was witness of your encounter."

"So--" said the Douglas, grimly, "it is to Master Sholto that I am
indebted somewhat."

"Aye," said his father, "do not forget him. For he is a good lad and a
bold, as indeed he proved to the hilt yestreen."

"In what consisted his boldness?" asked the Earl.

"In that he dared come home to me with a cock-and-bull story of a
witch lady, who appeared suddenly where none had been a moment before,
and who had immediately enchanted my lord Earl. Well nigh did I twist
his neck, but he stuck to it. Then came riding by my lord Abbot on his
way to Thrieve, and I judged that the matter, as one of witchcraft,
was more his affair than mine."

"Now hearken," cried the Earl, in quick, high tones of anger, "let
there be no more of such folly, or on your life be it. The lady whom
you insulted was travelling with her company through Galloway from
France. She invited me to sup with her, and dared me to adventure to
Edinburgh in her company. Answer me, wherein was the witchcraft of
that, saving the witchery natural to all fair women?"

"Did she not prophesy to you that to-day you would be Duke of
Touraine, and receive the ambassadors of the King of France?"

"Well," said the Earl, "where is your wit that you give ear to such
babblings? Did she not come from that country, as I tell you, and who
should hear the latest news more readily than she?"

The smith looked a little nonplussed, but stuck to it stoutly that
none but a witch woman would ride alone at nightfall upon a Galloway
moor, or unless by enchantment set up a pavilion of silk an