The Earl waved his hand carelessly.

"I am not afraid," he said; "besides, what harm can befall when I
lodge in the castle of the Lord Chancellor of Scotland?"

Crichton bowed very low.

"What harm, indeed?" he said; "I did but advise your lordship to
bethink himself. I am an old man, pray remember--fast growing feeble
and naturally inclined to overmuch caution. But the blood flows hot
through the veins of eighteen."

Sholto, who knew nothing of these happenings, had just finished
exercising his men on the smooth green in front of the Castle of
Crichton, and had dismissed them, when a gaberlunzie or privileged
beggar, a long lank rascal with a mat of tangled hair, and clad in a
cast-off leathern suit which erstwhile some knight had worn under his
mail, leaped suddenly from the shelter of a hedge. Instinctively
Sholto laid his hand on his dagger.

"Nay," snuffled the fellow, "I come peaceably. As you love your lord
hasten to give him this letter. And, above all, let not the Crichton
see you."

He placed a small square scrap of parchment in Sholto's hand. It was
sealed in black wax with a serpent's head, and from the condition of
the outside had evidently been in places both greasy and grimy. Sholto
put it in his leathern pouch wherein he was used to keep the hone for
sharpening his arrows, and bestowed a silver groat upon the beggar.

"Thy master's life is surely worth more than a groat," said the man.

"I warrant you have been well enough paid already," said Sholto, "that
is, if this be not a deceit. But here is a shilling. On your head be
it, if you are playing with Sholto MacKim!"

So saying the captain of the guard strode within. He had already
acquired the carriage and consequence of a veteran old in the wars.

His master was still pacing up and down the courtyard, deep in
meditation. Sholto saluted the young Earl and asked permission to
speak a word with him.

"Speak on, Sholto--well do you know that at all times you may say what
you will to me."

"But this I desire to keep from prying eyes. My lord, there is a
letter in my wallet which was given me even now by a gaberlunzie man.
He declares that it concerns your life. I pray you take out my hone
stone as if to look at it, and with it the letter."

The Earl nodded, as if Sholto had been making a report to him. Then he
went nearer and began to finger his squire's accoutrements, finally
opening his belt pouch and taking out the stone that was therein.