of Douglas. He remembered how on
Sundays and saints' days Earl William always rode to and from the kirk
with his sister on one side and Maud Lindesay on the other. That the
young Earl was by no means insensible to beauty, Sholto knew well,
and he remembered his words to his own father, when he had asked to be
allowed to accompany him on his Flanders mare, that such attendance
was not seemly when a man was going a-courting.

As is always the case, he grew more and more confirmed in his ill
humour, so soon as the eye of jealousy began to view everything in the
light of prepossession.

Sholto awaked the cellarer out of his crib, who, presently, with
snorts of disdain and much jangling of steel keys, drew half a tankard
from a keg of spirit in the cellar on the dungeon floor and handed it
grudgingly to the captain of the guard.

"The Frenchman wants it, does he?" he growled. "Had the messenger been
old Landless Jock, I had known down whose Scottish throat it had gone,
but this one is surely too young for such tricks. See that you spill
it not by the way, Master Sholto," he called out after him, as that
youth betook himself up to the chamber of the ambassador of France.

At the shut portal he paused and knocked. His hand was on the pin to
enter with the tankard as was the custom. But the door opened no more
than an inch or two, and the dark face of the cropped servitor
appeared in the crevice.

"In a moment, sir," he said, and again vanished within, while a strong
animal odour disengaged itself almost like something tangible from the
chinks of the doorway.

Sholto stood in astonishment with the _eau de vie_ in his hand, till
presently the door was opened again very quickly. The form of the
servitor was seen, and with a swift edging motion he came out, drawing
the door behind him as before. He held a bar of iron in his hand like
the fastening of a window, and a little breath of heat told the
smith's son that though black it was still warm from the fire.

"Take this iron," he said abruptly, "and bring it to me fully heated.
I am finishing a little device which his Excellency needs for the
combat of the morrow."

The captain of the guard was nettled at the man's tone. Also he
desired much to know what his master was doing on the floor above.

"Heat it at your own nose, fellow," he said rudely; "I am captain of
the castle-guard, and must attend to my own business. Take the spirit
out of my hand if you do not want it