Morning dawned fair over the wide strath of Dee. Cairnsmuir and Ben Gairn stood out south and north like blue, round-shouldered sentinels. Castle Thrieve rose grey in the midst of the water-meadows, massive and sombre in the early sunrise.

Andro the Penman and his brother John, with the taciturnity natural to early risers, were silently hoisting the flag which denoted the presence of the noble young chatelaine of the great fortress.

Sholto also was early astir, for the affairs of the castle and of the host were in his hand, and there was much business to be despatched that morning. The young Avondale Douglases were riding away from Thrieve, for word had come that James the Gross, seventh Earl of Douglas, was surely at death's door.

"Besides," said William Douglas, "wherefore should we stay—our work is done. No one will molest our cousin in her heritages now! We five have stood about her while there was need. But for the present Sir Sholto and his men can keep count and reckoning with any from the back-shore of Leswalt to Berwick bound."

"Aye, indeed," cried James Douglas, "we will go till the time come when the suitors gather, like corbies about a dead lamb!"

"That is not a savoury comparison," cried Margaret of Douglas, now grown older, and already giving more than a mere promise of that wondrous beauty which afterwards made her celebrated in all lands, "but after all, you, cousin James, have some right to make it. For, but for you and our good Sholto there, this little ewe lamb would have been carrion indeed!"

"Good-by!" cried James of Avondale. "Haste thee and grow up, sweet coz. Then will I come back with the rest of the corbies and take my chance of the feast. I will keep myself for that day."

But William Douglas sat square and silent on his charger.

The Maid of Galloway waved her hand gaily to the younger of the knights.

"You shall have your chance with the rest," she cried; "but you will not care about me then. Very likely I may have to fleech and cozen with you like a sweetie-wife at a fair before either of you will marry me. And you know I have sworn on the bones of Saint Bride to marry none but a Douglas of the Douglases!"

Then William Douglas saluted without a word, and turning his bridle-rein rode away with his face steadfastly set to the north. But James ever cried back farewells and jovial words long after he was out of hearing. And even on the heights of Keltonmuir he still fluttered a gay kerchief in his left hand.

Then Margaret Douglas went back within the gates, where her eyes fell upon Maud Lindesay, coming through the castle yard to meet her. For that morning she had not wished to encounter Sholto—at least not among so many. The two maidens walked on together, and which was the fairer, the black or the nut-brown, none could say who beheld them.

After a while Margaret Douglas sighed.

"I wonder which of them I like the best," she said.

Maud laughed a merry, scornful laugh in which was a world of superior knowledge.

"You do not like either of them very much yet, or you would have no difficulty about the matter!" said this wise woman.

"Well, I wonder which of them loves me best," she went on; "James tells me of it a hundred times every day and all day. But William says nothing. He only looks at me often, as if he disapproved of me. I am over light for him, I trow. He thinks not of me."

Then after a pause she said, again with her finger on her lip, "I wonder which of them would do most for my sake?"

"I know!" said Maud Lindesay, promptly.

With the young Avondales there had ridden forth Malise and his son Laurence on their way to the Abbey of Dulce Cor. Sholto went also with them to convoy them to the fords of Urr.

For Laurence was to be a clerk after all.

And this is the way he explained it.

"The Abbot cannot live long, and there is no Douglas to succeed him. Then your little Maid will make me Abbot, if that Maud of yours does her duty."

"She is not my Maud yet," sighed Sholto. For, as they say in Scotland, the lady had proved "driech to draw up."

"But she will be in good time," urged Laurence, "and she must persuade the Lady Margaret of my many and surprising virtues."

"The Lady Margaret hath doubtless seen these for herself. Were you not bound beside her on the iron altar?" said Sholto.

"Yes, but I dirked the old witch-woman, or so they say. And that was no clerkly action!" objected his brother.

"Fear not," said Sholto, "you have all of her favour you need without working by means of another's petticoat. But how about marrying? You cannot wed or woo if you are a clerk. You did not use to be so unfond of a lass in the gloamings along the sweet strand called the Walk of Lovers—you know where!"

"Pshaw," cried Laurence, "I never yet saw the lass I liked better than myself. And I never expect to see one that I shall like better than the fat revenues of the Abbacy of Dulce Cor!"

He paused a moment as if roguishly considering some point.

"Besides," he went on, "wed I may not, but woo—that is another matter! I have never yet heard that an Abbot—"

"Good-day!" cried Sholto, suddenly, at this point, "I will not stay to hear you blaspheme!"

And leaving his father and Laurence to ride westward he turned him back towards Thrieve.

"I will surely return to-morrow," cried Malise; "I must first see this gay bird safely in mew. Aye, and bid the Abbot William clip his wings too!"

So in the gay morning sunshine and with the reflection of the lift glinting dark blue from tarn and lakelet, Sholto MacKim rode towards the Castle of Thrieve. He bethought him on all that was bygone. The Avondales were gone, James the Gross might die any moment—might even now be dead and William Douglas be Earl in his place!

He thought over William of Avondale's last words to himself, spoken with deep solemnity and in all the dignity of a great spirit.

"Sholto, you and yours have brought to justice the chief betrayer. The time is at hand when, having the power, I will settle with Crichton and Livingston, the lesser villains. And in that count and reckoning you must be my right-hand man. Keep your Countess, the sweet young Margaret, safe for my sake. She is very precious to me—indeed, beyond my life. And for this time fare you well!"

And he had reached a mailed hand to the captain of the Douglas guard, and when Sholto would have bent his head upon it to kiss it, William of Avondale gripped his suddenly as one grasps a comrade's hand when the heart is touched, and so was gone.

At the verge of the flowery pastures that ring the isle of Thrieve, Sholto met Maud Lindesay, wandering alone. At sight of her he leaped from his horse, and, without salutation of spoken speech, walked by her side.

"How came you here alone?" he asked.

Maud made her little pouting movement of the lips, and kicked viciously at a tuft of grass.

"I forgot," she said hypocritically, "I ought to have asked leave of that noble knight the Captain of Thrieve. We poor maids must not breathe without his permission—no, nor even walk out to meet him when we are lonesome."

Maud Lindesay lifted her eyes suddenly and shot at Sholto a glance so disabling, that, alarmed for the consequences, she veiled her eyes again circumspectly by dropping her long lashes upon her cheek.

"Did you really come out to meet me, Maud?" cried Sholto, all the life flooding back into his cheeks, "in this do you speak truth and no mockery?"

"I only said that we maidens were so much in fear of our Castle Governor, that we must not walk out even to meet him!"

At this Sholto let his horse go where it would, and, as they were passing at the time through a coppice of hazel, he caught his saucy sweetheart quickly by the wrist.

"Mistress Maud, you shall not play with me!" he said; "you will tell me plainly—do you love me or do you not?"

Maud Lindesay puckered her pretty face as if she had been about to cry.

"You hurt my arm!" she said plaintively, looking up at him with the long pathetic gaze of a gentle helpless animal undeservedly put in pain.

Sholto perforce released the pressure on her arm. She instantly put both hands behind her.

"You did not hurt me at all—hear you that, Master Sholto," she cried, "and I do not love you—not that much, Sir Noble Bully!"

And she snapped her finger and thumb like a flash beneath his nose.

"Not that much!" she repeated viciously, and did it again. Sholto turned away sternly.

"You are nothing but a silly girl, and not worthy that any true man should either love or marry you!" he said, walking off in the direction of the castle.

Maud Lindesay looked after him a moment as if not believing her eyes and ears. Then, so soon as she made sure that he was indeed not coming back, she tripped quickly after him. He was taking long strides, and it required a series of small hops and skips to keep up with him.

"Not really, Sholto?" she said beseechingly, almost running beside him now. He walked so fast.

"Yes, madam, really!" said that young knight, still more sternly.

She took a little run to get a step in front of him, so that she might advantageously look up into his face.

"Then you will not marry me, Sholto?"

Her hands were clasped with the sweetest petitionary grace.

"No!"

The monosyllable escaped from his lips with a snort like a puff of steam from under the lid of a boiling pot.

"Not even if I ask you very nicely, Sholto?"

"No!"

The negative came again, apparently fiercer than before, almost like an explosion indeed. But still there was a hollow sound about it somewhere.

At this the girl stopped suddenly and, drawing a little lace kerchief from her bosom, she sank her head into it in apparent abandonment of grief.

"Oh, what shall I do?" she wailed, "Sholto says he will not marry me, and I have asked him so sweetly. What shall I do? What shall I do? I will e'en go and drown me in the Dee water!"

And with her kerchief still held to her eyes—or at least (to be wholly accurate) to one of them—the despised maiden ran towards the river bank. She did not run very fast, but still she ran.

Now this was more than Sholto had bargained for, and he in turn pursued her light-foot, swifter than he had ever run in his life. He overtook her just as she reached the little ascent of the rocks by the river margin.

His hand fell upon her shoulder and he turned her round. She was still shaking with sobs—or something.

"I will—I will, I will drown myself!" she cried, her kerchief closer to her eyes.

"I will marry you—I will do anything. I love you, Maud!"

"You do not—you cannot!" she cried, pushing him fiercely away, "you said you would not! That I was not fit to marry."

"I did not mean it—I lied! I did not know what I said! I will do whatever you bid me!" Sholto was grovelling now.

"Then you will marry me—if I do not drown myself?"

She spoke with a sort of relenting, delicious and tentative.

"Yes—yes! When you will—to-morrow—now!"

She dropped the kerchief and the laughing eyes of naughty Maud Lindesay looked suddenly out upon Sholto like sunshine in a dark place. They were dry and full of merriment. Not a trace of tears was to be discerned in either of them.

Then she gave another little skip, and, catching him by the arm, forced him to walk with her toward Castle Thrieve.

"Of course you will marry me, silly! You could not help yourself, Sholto—and it shall be when I like too. But now that you have been so stern and crusty with me, I am not sure that I will not take Landless Jock after all!"

This is the end, and yet not the end. For still, say the country folk, when the leaves are greenest by the lakeside, when the white thorn is whitest and the sun drops most gloriously behind the purpling hills of the west, when the children sing like mavises on the clachan greens, you may chance to spy under the Three Thorns of Carlinwark a lady fairer than mortal eye hath seen. She will be sitting gracefully on a white palfrey and hearkening to the bairns singing by the watersides. And the tears fall down her cheeks as she listens, in the place where in the spring-time of the year young William Douglas first met the Lady Sybilla.

THE END