ON THE CASTLE ROOF
Maud Lindesay parted from Sholto upon the roof of the keep. She had
gone up thither to watch the cavalcade ride off where none could spy
upon her, and Sholto, noting the flutter of white by the battlements,
ran up thither also, pretending that he had forgotten something,
though he was indeed fully armed and ready to mount and ride.
Maud Lindesay was leaning over the battlements of the castle, and,
hearing a step behind her, she looked about with a start of apparent
surprise.
The after dew of recent tears still glorified her eyes.
"Oh, Sholto," she cried, "I thought you were gone; I was watching for
you to ride away. I thought--"
But Sholto, seeing her disorder, and having little time to waste, came
quickly forward and took her in his arms without apology or prelude,
as is (they say) wisest in such cases.
"Maud," he said, his utterance quick and hoarse, "we go into the house
of our enemies. Thirty knights and no more accompany my lord, who
might have ridden out with three thousand in his train."
"'Tis all that witch woman," cried the girl; "can you not advise him?"
"The Earl of Douglas did not ask my advice," said Sholto, a little
dryly, being eager to turn the conversation upon his own matters and
to his own advantage. "And, moreover, if he rides into danger for the
sake of love--why, I for one think the more of him for it."
"But for such a creature," objected Maud Lindesay. "For any true maid
it were most right and proper! Where is there a noble lady in Scotland
who would not have been proud to listen to him? But he must needs run
after this mongrel French woman!"
"Even Mistress Maud Lindesay would accept him, would she?" said
Sholto, somewhat bitterly, releasing her a little.
"Maud Lindesay is no great lady, only the daughter of a poor baron of
the North, and much bound to my Lord Douglas by gratitude for that
which he hath done for her family. As you right well know, Maud
Lindesay is little better than a tiremaiden in the house of my lord."
"Nay," said Sholto, "I crave your pardon. I meant it not. I am hasty
of words, and the time is short. Will you pardon me and bid me
farewell, for the horses are being led from stall, and I cannot keep
my lord waiting?"
"You are glad to go," she said reproachfully; "you will forget us whom
you leave behind you here. Indeed, you care not even now, so that you
are free to wander over the world and taste new pleasures. That is to
be a man, indeed. Would that I had been born one!"
"Nay, Maud," said Sholto, trying to draw the girl again near him,
because she kept him at arm's length by the unyielding strength of her
wrist, "none shall ever come near my heart save Maud Lindesay alone! I
would that I could ride away as sure of you as you are of Sholto
MacKim!"
"Indeed," cried the girl, with some show of returning spirit, "to that
you have no claim. Never have I said that I loved you, nor indeed that
I thought about you at all."
"It is true," answered Sholto, "and yet--I think you will remember me
when the lamps are blown out. God speed, belovedst, I hear the trumpet
blow, and the horses trampling."
For out on the green before the castle the Earl's guard was mustering,
and Fergus MacCulloch, the Earl's trumpeter, blew an impatient blast.
It seemed to speak to this effect:
_"Hasten ye, hasten ye, come to the riding,
Hasten ye, hasten ye, lads of the Dee--
Douglasdale come, come Galloway, Annandale,
Galloway blades are the best of the three!"_
Sholto held out his arms at the first burst of the stirring sound, and
the girl, all her wayward pride falling from her in a moment, came
straight into them.
"Good-by, my sweetheart," he said, stooping to kiss the lips that now
said him not nay, but which quivered pitifully as he touched them,
"God knows whether these eyes shall rest again on the desire of my
heart."
Maud looked into his face steadily and searchingly.
"You are sure you will not forget me, Sholto?" she said; "you will
love me as much to-morrow when you are far away, and think me as fair
as you do when you hold me thus in your arms upon the battlements of
Thrieve?"
Before Sholto had time to answer, the trumpet rang out again, with a
call more instant and imperious than before.
[Illustration: "BUT THERE COMETH A NIGHT WHEN EVERY ONE OF US WATCHES
THE GREY SHALLOWS TO THE EAST FOR THOSE THAT SHALL RETURN NO MORE!"]
Sholto clasped her close to him as the second summons shrilled up into
the air.
"God keep my little lass!" he said; "fear not, Maud, I have never
loved any but you!"
He was gone. And through her tears Maud Lindesay watched him from the
top of the great square keep, as he rode off gallantly behind the Earl
and his brother.
"In time past I have dreamed," she thought to herself, "that I loved
this one and that; but it was not at all like this. I cannot put him
out of my mind for a moment, even when I would!"
As the brothers William and David Douglas crossed the rough bridge of
pine thrown over the narrows of the Dee, they looked back
simultaneously. Their mother stood on the green moat platform of
Thrieve, with their little sister Margaret holding up her train with a
pretty modesty. She waved not a hand, fluttered no kerchief of
farewell, only stood sadly watching the sons with whom she had
travailed, like one who watches the dear dead borne to their last
resting-place.
"So," she communed, "even thus do the women of the Douglas House watch
their beloveds ride out of sight. And so for many times they return
through the ford at dawn or dusk. But there cometh a night when every
one of us watches the grey shallows to the east for those that shall
return no more!"
"See, see!" cried the little Margaret, "look, dear mother, they have
taken off their caps, and even Sholto hath his steel bonnet in his
hand. They are bidding us farewell. I wish Maudie had been here to
see. I wonder where she has hidden herself. How surprised she will be
to find that they are gone!"
It was a true word that the little Maid of Galloway spoke, for,
according to the pretty custom of the young Earl, the cavalcade had
halted ere they plunged into the woods of Kelton. The Douglas lads
took their bonnets in their hands. Their dark hair was stirred by the
breeze. Sholto also bared his head and looked towards the speck of
white which he could just discern on the summit of the frowning keep.
"Shall ever her eyelashes rise and fall again for me, and shall I see
the smile waver alternately petulant and tender upon her lips?"
This was his meditation. For, being a young man in love, these things
were more to him than matins and evensong, king or chancellor, heaven
or hell--as indeed it was right and wholesome that they should be.