At this William Douglas could not choose but smile, and soon threw himself down on the bed, setting his clasped hands behind his head, and contenting himself with looking at his little sister.

Though at this time but eight years of age, Margaret of Douglas was possessed of such extraordinary vitality and character that she seemed more like eleven.  She had the clear-cut, handsome Douglas face, the pale olive skin, the flashing dark eyes, and the crisp, blue-black hair of her brother.  A lithe grace and quickness, like those of a beautiful wild animal, were characteristic of every movement.

“Our mother hath been anxious about you, brother mine,” said the little girl, tiring suddenly of her dance, and leaping upon the other end of the couch on which her brother was reclining.  Establishing herself opposite him, she pulled the coverlet up about her so that presently only her face could be seen peeping out from under the silken folds.

“Oh, I was so cold, but I am warmer now,” she cried.  “And if Maid Betsy A’hannay comes to take me away, I want you to stretch out your hand like this, and say:  ’Seneschal, remove that besom to the deep dungeon beneath the castle moat,’ as we used to do in our plays before you became a great man.  Then I could stay very long and talk to you all through the night, for Maud Lindesay sleeps so sound that nothing can awake her.”

Gradually the anger passed out of the face of William Douglas as he listened to his sister’s prattle, like the vapours from the surface of a hill tarn when the sun rises in his strength.  He even thought with some self-reproach of his treatment of Malise and of his uncle the Abbot.  But a glance at the ring on his finger, and the thought of what might have been his good fortune at that moment but for their interference, again hardened his resolution to adamant within his breast.

His sister’s voice, clear and high in its childish treble, recalled him to himself.

“Oh, William, and there is such news; I forgot, because I have been so overbusied with arranging my new puppet’s house that Malise made for me.  But scarcely were you gone away on Black Darnaway ere a messenger came from our granduncle James at Avondale that he and my cousins Will and James arrive to-morrow at the Thrieve with a company to attend the wappenshaw.”

The young man sprang to his feet, and dashed one hand into the palm of the other.

“This is ill tidings indeed!” he cried.  “What does the Fat Flatterer at Castle Thrieve?  If he comes to pay homage, it will be but a mockery.  Neither he nor Angus had ever any good-will to my father, and they have none to me.”

“Ah, do not be angry, William,” cried the little maid.  “It will be beautiful.  They will come at a fitting time.  For to-morrow is the great levy of the weapon-showing, and our cousins will see you in your pride.  And they will see me, too, in my best green sarcenet, riding on a white palfrey at your side as you promised.”