the wainscot, the
restless stir or muffled snore of a crowded sleeper in the guardroom,
was the only sound to be heard from dungeon to banner-staff of the
great castle.

Sholto's heart throbbed tumultuous and insurgent within him. And small
is the wonder. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined such a fate
as this, to be actual captain of the Earl's own body-guard, even
though neither title nor emolument was yet wholly his; better still,
that he should dwell night and day within arm's reach almost of the
desire of his heart, flinty-bosomed and mischievous as she was--these
were heights of good fortune to which his imagination had never
climbed in its most daring ascents.

No longer did he envy his brother's good fortune, as he had been
somewhat inclined to do earlier in the day, when he thought of
returning to wield the forehammer all alone in his father's smithy.

The first night of Captain Sholto's responsibility in the castle of
Thrieve was destined to be a memorable one. To the youth himself it
would have appeared so in any case. Only a panelled door divided him
from the girl who, wayward and scornful as she had ever been to him,
yet kept his heart dangling at her waist-belt as truly as if it had
been the golden key of her armoire.

The ancient Sir John of Abernethy, dubbed Landless Jock, would not be
separated from his masters, and slept with two sergeants of the guard
in the turret adjacent to that in which the brothers of Douglas,
William and David, lay in the first sleep of youth and an easy mind.

Sholto therefore found himself left with the undivided responsibility
for the safety of the castle and all who dwelt within it. He was also
the only man who, by reason of his charge and in virtue of his
master-key, was permitted to circulate freely through all the floors
and passages of the vast feudal pile.

Sholto went out to the barred gate of the castle, where in a little
cubbyhole dark even at noonday, and black as Egypt now, the warder
slept with his hand upon his keys, and his head touching the lever of
the gear wherewith he drew the creaking portcullis up and rolled back
the iron doors which shut the keep off from the world of the wide
outer courtyard and the garrison which manned the turrets.

The porter, Hugh MacCalmont, sat up on his elbow at Sholto's
salutation, only enough to see his visitor by the glint of the little
iron "cruisie" lamp hanging upon the wall. He knew him by the golden
chain