the thought of the Earl thus venturing among his enemies, and also
because he must needs leave behind him Maud Lindesay, on whose wilful
and wayward beauty his heart was set.

"My lord," he stammered, "permit me one word. Were it not better to
wait till a following of knights and gentlemen beseeming the Earl of
Douglas should be brought together to accompany you on so perilous a
journey?"

"Do as I bid you, Sir Captain," was the Earl's short rejoinder; "you
have my orders."

"O that the Abbot were here--" thought Sholto, as he moved heavily to
do his master's will; "he might reason with the Earl with some hope of
success."

On his way to summon the guard Sholto met Maud Lindesay going out to
twine gowans with the Maid on the meadows about the Mains of Kelton.
For, as Margaret Douglas complained, "All ours on the isle were
trodden down by the men who came to the tourney, and they have not
grown up again."

"Whither away so gloomy, Sir Knight?" cried Maud, all her winsome face
alight with pleasure in the bright day, and because of the excellent
joy of living.

"On a most gloomy errand, indeed," said Sholto. "My lord rides with a
small company into the very stronghold of his enemy, and will hear no
word from any!"

"And do you go with him?" cried Maud, her bright colour leaving her
face.

"Not only I, but all that can be spared of the men-at-arms and of the
archer guard," answered Sholto.

Maud Lindesay turned about and took the little girl's hand.

"Margaret," she said, "let us go to my lady. Perhaps she will be able
to keep my Lord William at home."

So they went back to the chamber of my Lady of Douglas. Now the
Countess had never been of great influence with her son, even during
her husband's lifetime, and had certainly none with him since. Still
it was possible that William Douglas might, for a time at least,
listen to advice and delay his setting out till a suitable retinue
could be brought together to protect him. Maud and Margaret found the
Lady of Douglas busily embroidering a vestment of silk and gold for
the Abbot of Sweetheart. She laid aside her work and listened with
gentle patience to the hasty tale told by Maud Lindesay.

"I will speak with William," she answered, with a certain hopelessness
in her voice, "but I know well he will go his own gait for aught that
his mother can say. He is his father's son, and the men of the house
of Douglas, they come and they go, recking no will but their o