r caps, and even Sholto hath his steel bonnet in his
hand. They are bidding us farewell. I wish Maudie had been here to
see. I wonder where she has hidden herself. How surprised she will be
to find that they are gone!"

It was a true word that the little Maid of Galloway spoke, for,
according to the pretty custom of the young Earl, the cavalcade had
halted ere they plunged into the woods of Kelton. The Douglas lads
took their bonnets in their hands. Their dark hair was stirred by the
breeze. Sholto also bared his head and looked towards the speck of
white which he could just discern on the summit of the frowning keep.

"Shall ever her eyelashes rise and fall again for me, and shall I see
the smile waver alternately petulant and tender upon her lips?"

This was his meditation. For, being a young man in love, these things
were more to him than matins and evensong, king or chancellor, heaven
or hell--as indeed it was right and wholesome that they should be.

CHAPTER XXIX

CASTLE CRICHTON

Crichton Castle was much more a defenced chateau and less a feudal
stronghold than Thrieve. It stood on a rising ground above the little
Water of Tyne, which flowed clear and swift beneath from the blind
"hopes" and bare valleys of the Moorfoot Hills. But the site was well
chosen both for pleasure and defence. The ground fell away on three
sides. Birch, alder, ash, girt it round and made pleasant summer
bowers everywhere.

The fox-faced Chancellor had spent much money on beautifying it, and
the kitchens and larders were reported to be the best equipped in
Scotland. On the green braes of Crichton, therefore, in due time the
young Douglases arrived with their sparse train of thirty riders. Sir
William Crichton had ridden out to meet them across the innumerable
little valleys which lie around Temple and Borthwick to the brow of
that great heathy tableland which runs back from the Moorfoots clear
to the Solway.

With him were only the Marshal de Retz and his niece, the Lady
Sybilla.

Not a single squire or man-at-arms accompanied these three, for, as
the Chancellor well judged, there was no way more likely effectually
to lull the suspicions of a gallant man like the Douglas than to
forestall him in generous confidence.

The three sat their horses and looked to the south for their guests at
that delightsome hour of the summer gloaming when the last bees are
reluctantly disengaging themselves from the dewy heather bells and