“My lord,” cried Poitou, instantly recalled to himself, “believe me, I meant no ill.  But true it is that I only can recover him.  I have often seen him taken thus.  But I must be left alone.  My master hath a blemish upon him, and one great gentleman does not humiliate another in the presence of underlings.  My Lord Douglas, as you love honour, bid all to leave me alone for a brief space.”

“Much cared he for honour, when he threw the lance at my master!” growled Sholto.  “Had I known, I would have driven my bill-point six inches lower, and then would there have been a most satisfactory blemish in the joining of his neck-bone.”

CHAPTER XXIII

SHOLTO WINS KNIGHTHOOD

The ambassador recovered quickly after he had been left with his servant Poitou, according to the latter’s request.  The Lady Sybilla manifested the most tender concern in the matter of the accident of judgment which had been the means of diverting her kinsman from his own opponent and bringing him into collision with the Earl Douglas.

“Often have I striven with my lord that he should ride no more in the lists,” she said, “for since he received the lance-thrust in the eye by the side of La Pucelle before the walls of Orleans, he sees no more aright, but bears ever in the direction of the eye which sees and away from that wherein he had his wound.”

“Indeed, I knew not that the Marshal de Retz had been wounded in the eye, or I should not have permitted him to ride in the tourney,” returned the Earl, gravely.  “The fault was mine alone.”

The Lady Sybilla smiled upon him very sweetly and graciously.

“You are great soldiers—­you Douglases.  Six knights are chosen from the muster of half a kingdom to ride a melee.  Four are Douglases, and, moreover, cousins germain in blood.”

“Indeed, we might well have compassed the sword-play,” said the Earl William, “for in our twenty generations we never learned aught else.  Our arms are strong enough and our skulls thick enough, for even mine uncle, the Abbot, hath his Latin by the ear.  And one Semple, a plain burgher of Dumfries, did best him at it—­or at least would have shamed him, but that he desired not to lose the custom of the Abbey.”

“When you come to France,” replied the girl, smiling on him, “it will indeed be stirring to see you ride a bout with young Messire Lalain, the champion of Burgundy, or with that Miriadet of Dijon, whose arm is like that of a giant and can fell an ox at a blow.”

“Truly,” said the young Earl, modestly, “you do me overmuch honour.  My cousin James there, he is the champion among us, and alone could easily have over-borne me to-day, without the aid of your uncle’s blind eye.  Even William of Avondale is a better lance than I, and young Hugh will be when his time comes.”

“Your squire fought a good fight,” she went on, “though his countenance does not commend itself to me, being full of all self-sufficience.”