Ng to the universal and, indeed, obligatory custom of the time, there
reached him the "passing of the word." He heard his own name repeated
over and over in fifty voices and tones, waxing louder as the "word"
neared him. "Sholto MacKim--Sholto MacKim, son of Malise, the armourer,
wanted to speak with the Earl. Sholto MacKim. Sholto--" A great nolt of
a Moray Highlandman, with a mouth like a gash, shouted it in his very
ear. Surprised and somewhat anxious at heart, Sholto cast over in his
mind all the deeds, good and evil, which might procure him the honour of
an interview with Earl William Douglas, but could think of nothing
except his having involuntarily played the spy at the young lord's
meeting with the lady in the wood. It was therefore with some natural
trepidation that the young man obeyed the summons. "At any rate," he
meditated with a slight return of complacency, as he butted and shoved
his way castle-wards, "he can scarcely mean to have my head. For he was
all day with my father at his elbow, and at the worst I shall have
another chance of seeing"--he did not call the beloved by her Christian
name even to himself, so he compromised by adding somewhat
lamely--"_her_." Thus Sholto, putting speed in his heels and swinging
along over the trampled sward with the easy tireless trot of a
sleuthhound, threaded his way among the groups of villein prickers and
swearing men-at-arms who cumbered the main approaches of the castle. He
found the Earl walking swiftly up and down a little raised platform
which extended round three sides of Thrieve, outside the main defences,
but yet within the nether moat, the sluggish water of which it
over-looked on its inner side. E
