Here the Earl invited her to dismount and occupy the central seat.

“Till your arrival it lacked an occupant, saving my little sister; but to-day the gods have been good to the house of Douglas, and for the first time since the death of my father I see it filled.”

Smilingly the lady consented, and with a wave of his hand the Earl William invited the Marshal de Retz to take the place on the other side of the Lady Sybilla.

Then turning haughtily to the herald of the King of Scots, who had been standing alone, he said:—­

“And now, sir, what would you with the Earl Douglas?”

The ascetic, monkish man found his words with little loss of time, showing, however, no resentment for Earl William’s neglect of any reverence to the banner under whose protection he came.

“I am Sir James Irving of Drum,” he said, “and I stand here on behalf of Sir Alexander Livingston, tutor and guardian of the King of Scots, to invite your friendship and aid.  The Lord Crichton, sometime Chancellor of this realm, hath rebelled against the royal authority and fortified him in Edinburgh Castle.  So both Sir Alexander Livingston and the most noble lady, the Queen Mother, desire the assistance of the great power of the Earl of Douglas to suppress this revolt.”

Scarcely had these words been uttered when another knight stepped forward out of the train which had followed the Earl of Avondale.

“I am here on behalf of the Chancellor of Scotland, who is no rebel against any right authority, but who wishes only to bring this distracted realm back into some assured peace, and to deliver the young King out of the hands of flatterers and lechers.  I have the honour, therefore, of requesting on behalf of the Chancellor of Scotland, Sir William Crichton, the true representative of royal authority, the aid and alliance of my Lord of Douglas.”

A smile of haughty contempt passed over the face of the Earl, and he dismissed both heralds, uttering in the hearing of all those words which afterwards became so famous over Scotland: 

“Let dog eat dog!  Wherefore should the lion care?”

CHAPTER XII

MISTRESS MAUD LINDESAY

The sports of the first day of the great wappenshaw were over.  The Lord James Douglas, second son of the Gross One, had won the single tourneying by unhorsing all his opponents without even breaking a lance.  For the second time Sholto MacKim wore on his cap the golden buckle of archery, and took his way happily homeward, much uplifted that the somewhat fraudulent eyes of Mistress Maud Lindesay had smiled upon him whilst the French lady was fastening it there.

The knightly part of the great muster had already gone back to their tents and lodgings.  The commonalty were mostly stringing away through the vales and hill passes to their homes, no longer in ordered companies, but in bands of two or three.  Disputes and misunderstandings arose here and there between men of different provinces.  The Galloway men called “Annandale thieves” at those border lads who came at the summons of the hereditary Warden of the Marches.  The borderers replied by loud bleatings, which signified that they held the Galwegians of no better understanding than their native sheep.