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!”