Sholto MacKim stood watching awhile as the white palfrey disappeared with its rider into the purple twilight of the woods which barred the way to the Solway. Then with a violent effort of will he recalled himself and looked about for his horse. The tired beast was gently cropping the lush dewy herbage on the green slope which led downwards to his native cottage. Sholto took the grey by the bridle and walked towards his mother's door, pondering on the last words of the Lady Sybilla. A voice at once strenuous and familiar broke upon his ear.

"Shoo wi' you, impident randies that ye are, shoo! Saw I ever the like aboot ony decent hoose? Thae hens will drive me oot o' my mind! Sholto, lad, what's wrang? Is't your faither? Dinna tell me it's your faither."

"It is more bitter than that, mither mine."

"No the Earl—surely no the Earl himsel'—the laddie that I hae nursed—the laddie that was to Barbara Halliburton as her ain dear son!"

"Mother, it is the Earl and young David too. They are dead, betrayed into the hands of their enemies, cruelly and treacherously slain!"

Then the keening cry smote the air as Barbara MacKim sank on her knees and lifted up her hands to heaven.

"Oh, the bonny laddies—the twa bonny, bonny laddies! Mair than my ain bairns I loved them. When their ain mother wasna able for mortal weakness to rear him, William Douglas drew his life frae me. What for, Sholto, are ye standin' there to tell the tale? What for couldna ye have died wi' him? Ae mither's milk slockened ye baith. The same arms cradled ye. I bade ye keep your lord safe wi' your body and your soul. And there ye daur to stand, skin-hale and bane unbroken, before your mither. Get hence—ye are nae son o' Barbara MacKim. Let me never look on your face again, gin ye bringna back the pride o' the warld, the gladness o' the auld withered heart o' her ye ca' your mither!"

"Mother," said Sholto, "my lord was not dead when I left him—he sent me to raise the country to his rescue."

"And what for then are ye standin' there clavering, and your lord in danger among his foes?" cried his mother, angrily.

"Dear mother, I have something more to tell ye—"

"Aye, I ken, ye needna break the news. It is that Malise, my man, is dead—that Laurence, wha ran frae the Abbey to gang wi' him to the wars, is nae mair. Aweel they are worthily spent, since they died for their chief! Ye say that ye were sent to raise the clan—then what seek ye at the Carlinwark? To Thrieve, man, to Thrieve; as hard as ye can ride! To Castle Thrieve!"

"Mother," said Sholto, still more gently, "hearken but a moment. Thirty thousand men are on their way to Edinburgh. Three days and nights have I ridden without sleep. Douglasdale is awake. The Upper Ward is already at the gates of the city. To a man, Galloway is on the march. The border is aflame. But it is all too late already, I have had news of the end. Before ever a man could reach within miles, the fatal axe had fallen, and my lords, for whom each one of us would gladly have died with smiles upon our faces, lay headless in the courtyard of Edinburgh Castle."

"And if the laddies were alive when ye rode awa', wha brocht the news faster than my Sholto could ride—tell me that?"

"I came not directly to Galloway, mother. First I raised the west from Strathaven to Ayr. Thence I carried the news to Dumfries and along the border side. But to-day I have seen the Lady Sybilla on her way to take ship for France. From her I heard the news that all I had done was too late."

"That foreigneerin' randy! Wad ye believe the like o' her? Yon woman that they named 'Queen o' Beauty' at the tournay by the Fords o' Lochar!—Certes, I wadna believe her on oath, no if she swore on the blessed banes o' Saint Andro himsel'. To the castle, man, or I'll kilt my coats and be there afore you to shame ye!"

"I go, mother," said Sholto, trying vainly to stem the torrent of denunciation which poured upon him; "I came only to see that all was well with you."

"And what for should a' be weel wi' me? What can be ill wi' me, if it be not to gang on leevin' when the noblest young men in the warld—the lad that was suckled at my bosom, lies cauld in the clay. Awa wi' ye, Sholto MacKim, and come na back till ye hae rowed every traitor in the same bloody windin' sheet!"

The foster mother of the Douglases sank on the ground in the dusk, leaning against the wall of her house. She held her face in her hands and sobbed aloud, "O Willie, Willie Douglas, mair than ony o' my ain I loed ye. Bonny were ye as a bairn. Bonny were ye as a laddie. Bonny abune a' as a noble young man and the desire o' maidens' e'en. But nane o' them a' loed ye like poor auld Barbara, that wad hae gien her life to pleasure ye. And noo she canna even steek thae black, black e'en, nor wind the corpse-claith aboot yon comely limbs—sae straight and bonny as they were—I hae straiked and kissed sae oft and oft. O wae's me—wae's me! What will I do withoot my bonny laddies!"

It was with the sound of his mother's lament still in his ears that Sholto rode sadly over the hill to Thrieve. The way is short and easy, and it was not long before the captain of the guard looked down upon the lights of the castle gleaming through the gathering gloom. But instead of being, as was its wont, lighted from highest battlement to flanking tower, only one or two lamps could be discerned shining out of that vast cliff of masonry.

But, on the other hand, lights were to be seen wandering this way and that over the long Isle of Thrieve, following the outlines of its winding shores, shining from the sterns of boats upon the pools of the Dee water, weaving intricately among the broomy braes on either side of the ford, and even streaming out across the water meadows of Balmaghie.

Sholto was so full of his own sorrow and the certain truth of the terrible news he must bring home to the Lady of Douglas and those two whom he loved, Maud Lindesay and her fair maid, that he paid little heed to these wandering lanterns and distant flaring torches.

He was pausing at the bridge head to wait the lowering of the draw-chains, when out of the covert above him there dashed a desperate horseman, who stayed neither for bridge nor ford, but rode straight at the eastern castle pool where it was deepest. To the stirrup clung another figure strange and terrible, seen in the uncertain light from the gate-house and in the pale beams of the rising moon.

The drawbridge clattered down, and sending his spurs home into the flanks of his tired steed, in a moment more Sholto was hard on the track of the first headlong horseman. Scarce a length separated them as they reached the outer guard of the castle. Abreast they reined their horses in the quadrangle, and in a moment Sholto had recognised in the rider his brother Laurence, pale as death, and the figure that had clung to the stirrup as the horse took the water, was his father, Malise MacKim.

Thus in one moment came the three MacKims to the door-step of Thrieve.

The clatter and cry of their arrival brought a pour of torches from every side of the isle and from within the castle keep.

"Have you found them—where are they?" came from every side. But Laurence seemed neither to hear nor see.

"Where is my lady?" he cried in a hoarse man's voice; and again, "Instantly I must see my lady."

Sholto stood aside, for he knew that these two brought later tidings than he. Presently he went over to his father, who was leaning panting upon a stone post, and asked him what were the news. But Malise thrust him back apparently without recognising him.

"My lady," he gasped, "I would see my lady!"

Then through the torches clustered about the steps of the castle came the tall, erect figure of the Earl's mother, the Countess of Douglas. She stood with her head erect, looking down upon the MacKims and upon the dropped heads and heaving shoulders of their horses. Above and around the torches flared, and their reek blew thwartwise across the strange scene.

"I am here," she said, speaking clearly and naturally; "what would ye with the Lady of Douglas?"

Thrice Laurence essayed to speak, but his ready tongue availed him not now. He caught at his horse's bridle to steady him and turned weakly to his father.

"Do you speak to my lady—I cannot!" he gasped.

A terrible figure was Malise MacKim, the strong man of Galloway, as he came forward. Stained with the black peat of the morasses, his armour cast off piecemeal that he might run the easier, his under-apparel torn almost from his great body, his hair matted with the blood which still oozed from an unwashed wound above his brow.

"My lady," he said hoarsely, his words whistling in his throat, "I have strange things to tell. Can you bear to hear them?"

"If you have found my daughter dead or dying, speak and fear not!"

"I have things more terrible than the death of many daughters to tell you!"

"Speak and fear not—an it touch the lives of my sons, speak freely. The mother of the Douglases has learned the Douglas lesson."

"Then," said Malise, sinking his head upon his breast, "God help you, lady, your two sons are dead!"

"Is David dead also?" said the Lady of Douglas.

"He is dead," replied Malise.

The lady tottered a little as she stood on the topmost step of the ascent to Thrieve. One or two of the torch-bearers ran to support her. But she commanded herself and waved them aside.

"God—He is the God," she said, looking upwards into the black night. "In one day He has made me a woman solitary and without children. Sons and daughter He has taken from me. But He shall not break my heart. No, not even He. Stand up, Malise MacKim, and tell me how these things came to pass."

And there in the blown reek of torches and the hush of the courtyard of Thrieve Malise told all the tale of the Black Dinner and the fatal morning, of the short shrift and the matchless death, while around him strong men sobbed and lifted up right hands to swear the eternal vengeance.

But alone and erect as a banner staff stood the mother of the dead. Her eyes were dry, her lips compressed, her nostrils a little distended like those of a war-horse that sniffs the battle from afar. Outside the castle wall the news spread swiftly, and somewhere in the darkness a voice set up the Celtic keen.

"Bid that woman hold her peace. I will hear the news and then we will cry the slogan. Say on, Malise!"

Then the smith told how his horse had broken down time and again, how he had pressed on, running and resting, stripped almost naked that he might keep up with his son, because that no ordinary charger could long carry his great weight.

Then when he had finished the Lady of Thrieve turned to Sholto—"And you, captain of the guard, what have you done, and wherefore left you your master in his hour of need?"

Then succinctly and to the point Sholto spoke, his father and Laurence assenting and confirming as he told of the Earl's commission and of how he had accomplished those things that were laid upon him.

"It is well," said the lady, calmly, "and now I also will tell you something that you do not know. My little daughter, whom ye call the Fair Maid of Galloway, with her companion, Mistress Maud Lindesay, went out more than twelve hours agone to the holt by the ford to gather hazelnuts, and no eye of man or woman hath seen them since."

And, even as she spoke, there passed a quick strange pang through the heart of Sholto. He remembered the warning of the Lady Sybilla. Had he once more come too late?