The next moment the two youths were grappling together like wild cats, striking, kicking, and biting with no thought except of who should have the best of the battle.  They rolled on the floor, now tussling among the crackling faggots, anon pitching soft as one body on the peat dust in the corner, again knocking over a bench and bringing down the tools thereon to the floor with a jingle which might have been heard far out on the loch.  They were still clawing and cuffing each other in blind rage, when a hand, heavy and remorseless, was laid upon each.  Sholto found himself being dabbled in the great tempering cauldron which stood by his father’s forge.  Laurence heard his own teeth rattle as he was shaken sideways till his joints waggled like those of a puppet at Keltonhill Fair.  Then it was his turn to be doused in the water.  Next their heads were soundly knocked together, and finally, like a pair of arrows sent right and left, Laurence sped forth at the window in the gable end and found himself in the midst of a gooseberry bush, whilst Sholto, flying out of the door, fell sprawling on all fours almost under the feet of a horse on which a young man sat, smilingly watching the scene.

Brawny Kim scattered the embers of the fire on the forge-hearth, and threw the breastplate and girdle-brace at which the boys had been working into a corner of the smithy.  Then he turned to lock the door with the massive key, which stood so far out from the upper leaf that to it the horses waiting their turns to be shod were ordinarily tethered.

As he did so he caught sight of the young man sitting silent on the black charger.  Instantly a change passed over his face.  With one motion of his hand he swept the broad blue bonnet from his brow, and bowed the grizzled head which had worn it low upon his breast.  Thus for the breathing of a breath the master armourer stood, and then, replacing his bonnet, he looked up again at the young knight on horseback.

“My lord,” he said, after a long pause, in which he waited for the youth to speak, “this is not well—­you ride unattended and unarmed.”

“Ah, Malise,” laughed the young Earl, “a Douglas has few privileges if he may not sometimes on a summer eve lay aside his heavy prisonment of armour and don such a suit as this!  What think you, eh?  Is it not a valiant apparel, as might almost beseem one who rode a-courting?”

The mighty master-smith looked at the young man with eyes in which reverence, rebuke, and admiration strove together.

“But,” he said, wagging his head with a grave humorousness, “your lordship needs not to ride a-courting.  You are to be married to a great dame who will bring you wealth, alliance, and the dower of provinces.”

The young man shrugged his shoulders, and swung lightly off his charger, which turned to look at him as he stood and patted its neck.