e, hasten ye, come to the riding,
Hasten ye, hasten ye, lads of the Dee--
Douglasdale come, come Galloway, Annandale,
Galloway blades are the best of the three!"_

Sholto held out his arms at the first burst of the stirring sound, and
the girl, all her wayward pride falling from her in a moment, came
straight into them.

"Good-by, my sweetheart," he said, stooping to kiss the lips that now
said him not nay, but which quivered pitifully as he touched them,
"God knows whether these eyes shall rest again on the desire of my
heart."

Maud looked into his face steadily and searchingly.

"You are sure you will not forget me, Sholto?" she said; "you will
love me as much to-morrow when you are far away, and think me as fair
as you do when you hold me thus in your arms upon the battlements of
Thrieve?"

Before Sholto had time to answer, the trumpet rang out again, with a
call more instant and imperious than before.

[Illustration: "BUT THERE COMETH A NIGHT WHEN EVERY ONE OF US WATCHES
THE GREY SHALLOWS TO THE EAST FOR THOSE THAT SHALL RETURN NO MORE!"]

Sholto clasped her close to him as the second summons shrilled up into
the air.

"God keep my little lass!" he said; "fear not, Maud, I have never
loved any but you!"

He was gone. And through her tears Maud Lindesay watched him from the
top of the great square keep, as he rode off gallantly behind the Earl
and his brother.

"In time past I have dreamed," she thought to herself, "that I loved
this one and that; but it was not at all like this. I cannot put him
out of my mind for a moment, even when I would!"

As the brothers William and David Douglas crossed the rough bridge of
pine thrown over the narrows of the Dee, they looked back
simultaneously. Their mother stood on the green moat platform of
Thrieve, with their little sister Margaret holding up her train with a
pretty modesty. She waved not a hand, fluttered no kerchief of
farewell, only stood sadly watching the sons with whom she had
travailed, like one who watches the dear dead borne to their last
resting-place.

"So," she communed, "even thus do the women of the Douglas House watch
their beloveds ride out of sight. And so for many times they return
through the ford at dawn or dusk. But there cometh a night when every
one of us watches the grey shallows to the east for those that shall
return no more!"

"See, see!" cried the little Margaret, "look, dear mother, they have
taken off thei