The fetes with which the Chancellor welcomed his guests were many and splendid.  But in one respect they differed from those which have been described at Castle Thrieve.  There was no military pomp of any kind connected with them.  The Chancellor studiously avoided all pretence of any other distinction than that belonging to a plain man whom circumstances have raised against his will to a position of responsibility.

The thirty spears of the Earl’s guard, indeed, constituted the whole military force within or about the Castle of Crichton.

“I am a lawyer, my lord, a plain lawyer,” he said; “all Scots lawyers are plain.  And I must ask you to garrison my bit peel-tower of Crichton in a manner more befitting your own greatness, and the honour due to the ambassador of France, than a humble knight is able to do.”

So Sholto was put into command of the court and battlements of the castle, and posted and changed guard as though he had been at Thrieve, while the Chancellor bustled about, affecting more the style of a rich and comfortable burgess than that of a feudal baron.

“’Tis a snug bit hoose,” he would say, dropping into the countryside speech; “there’s nocht fine within it from cellar to roof tree, save only the provend and the jolly Malmsey.  And though I be but a poor eater myself, I love that my betters, who do me the honour of sojourning within my gates, should have the wherewithal to be merry.”

And it was even as he said, for the tables were weighted with delicacies such as were never seen upon the boards of Thrieve or Castle Douglas.

CHAPTER XXX

THE BOWER BY YON BURNSIDE

And ever as he gazed at her the Earl of Douglas grew more and more in love with the Lady Sybilla.  There was no covert side through which a burn plunged downward from the steep side of Moorfoot, but they wandered it alone together.  Early and late they might have been met, he with his face turned upon her, and she looking straight forward with the same inscrutable calm.  And all who saw left them alone as they took their way to gather flowers like children, or, as it might be, stood still and silent like a pair of lovers under the evening star.  For in these summer days and nights bloomed untiringly the brief passion-flower of William Douglas’s life.

Meanwhile Sholto gritted his teeth in impotent rage, but had nothing to do save change guard and keep a wary eye upon the Chancellor, who went about rubbing his hands and glancing sidelong as the copses closed behind the Earl of Douglas and the Lady Sybilla.  As for the ambassador of France, he was, as was usual with him, much occupied in his own chamber with his servants Poitou and Henriet, and save when dinner was served in hall appeared little at the festivities.

Sholto wished at times for the presence of his father; but at others, when he saw William Douglas and Sybilla return with a light on their faces, and their eyes large and vague, he bethought him of Maud Lindesay, and was glad that, for a little at least, the sun of love should shine upon his lord.