“Know you not, Malise,” he said, “that the Earl of Douglas must needs marry provinces and the Lord of Galloway wed riches?  But what is there in that to prevent Will Douglas going courting at eighteen years of his age as a young man ought.  But have no fear, I come not hither seeking the favour of any, save of that lily flower of yours, the only true May-blossom that blooms on the Three Thorns of Carlinwark.  I would look upon the angel smile on the face of your little daughter Magdalen.  An she be here, I would toss her arm-high for a kiss of her mouth, which I would rather touch than that of lady or leman.  For I do ever profess myself her vassal and slave.  Where have you hidden her, Malise?  Declare it or perish!”

The smith lifted up his voice till it struck on the walls of his cottage and echoed like thunder along the shores of the lake.

“Dame Barbara,” he cried, and again, getting no answer, “ho, Dame Barbara, I say!”

Then at the second hallo, a shrill and somewhat peevish voice proceeded from within the house opposite.

“Aye, coming, can you not hear, great nolt!  ’Deed and ’deed ’tis a pretty pass when a woman with the cares of an household must come running light-toe and clatter-heel to every call of such a lazy lout.  Husband, indeed—­not house-band but house-bond, I wot—­house-torment, house-thorn, house-cross—­”

A sonsy, well-favoured, middle-aged head, strangely at variance with the words which came from it, peeped out, and instantly the scolding brattle was stilled.  Back went the head into the dark of the house as if shot from a bombard.

Malise MacKim indulged in a low hoarse chuckle as he caught the words:  “Eh, ’tis my Lord William!  Save us, and me wanting my Ryssil gown that cost me ten silver shillings the ell, and no even so muckle as my white peaked cap upon my head.”

Her husband glanced at the young Earl to see if he appreciated the savour of the jest.  Then he looked away, turning the enjoyment over and over under his own tongue, and muttering:  “Ah, well, ’tis not his fault.  No man hath a sense of humour before he is forty years of his age—­and, for that matter, ’tis all the riper at fifty.”

The young man’s eyes were looking this way and that, up and down the smooth pathway which skirted like a green selvage the shores of the loch.

“Malise,” he said, as if he had already forgotten his late eager quest for the little Magdalen, “Darnaway here has a shoe loose, and to-morrow I ride to levy, and may also joust a bout in the tilt-yard of the afternoon.  I would not ask you to work in Whitsuntide, but that there cometh my Lord Fleming and Alan Lauder of the Bass, bringing with them an embassy from France—­and I hear there may be fair ladies in their company.”

“Ah!” quoth Malise, grimly, “so I have heard it said concerning the embassies of Charles, King of France!”