ree, and leave a' the
pleasures o' Kirkcudbright ahint him. Forbye sic herrin's as are
supplied by me, Tib MacLellan, at less than cost price--as I houp
your honour will no forget, when in the course o' natur' and the
providence o' God you and her comes to hae a family atween ye."

Sholto promised that he would not forget when the time alluded to
arrived. Then, turning his jennet off the direct road to Kirkcudbright
town, and betaking him through the Ardendee fords, he made all speed
towards a little port upon the water of Fleet, at the point where that
fair moorland stream winds lazily through the water-meadows for a mile
or two, after its brawling passage down from the hills of heather and
before it commits itself to the mother sea.

But it was not until he had long crossed it and reached the lonely
Cassencary shore that Sholto found his first trace of the lost
maidens. For as he rode along the cliffs his keen eye noted a
well-marked trail through the heather approaching the shore at right
angles to his own line of march. The tracks, still perfectly evident
in the grassy places, showed that as many as twenty horses had passed
that way within the last two or three days. He stood awhile examining
the marks, and then, leading his beast slowly by the bridle, he
continued to follow them westward till they became confused and lost
near a little jetty erected by the lairds of Cree and Cassencary for
convenience of traffic with Cumberland and the Isle of Man. Here on
the very edge of the foreshore, blown by some chance wind behind a
stone and wonderfully preserved there, Sholto found a child's chain of
woodbine entwined with daisies and autumnal pheasant's eye. He took it
up and examined it. Some of the flowers were not yet withered. The
inter-weaving was done after a fashion he had taught the little Maid
of Galloway himself, one happy day when he had walked on air with the
glamour of Maud Lindesay's smiles uplifting his heart. For that
tricksome grace had asked him to teach her also, and he remembered the
lingering touch of her fingers ere she could compass the quaint device
of the pheasant's eye peeping out from the midst of each white
festoon.

Then a deep despair settled down on Sholto's spirit. He knew that Maud
Lindesay and the fair Maid of Galloway had undoubtedly fallen into the
power of the terrible Marshal de Retz, Sieur of Machecoul, ambassador
of the King of France, and also many things else which need not in