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Now, before he went forth from the street of the Ursulines, he had laid a sealed letter on the bed of his brother, which ran thus: "Ha, Sir Sholto MacKim, while you stand about in the rain and shiver under your cloak, I am off to find out the mystery. When I have done all without assistance from the wise Sir Sholto, I will return. But not before. Fare your knightship well."
With a touch of his lips upon the hand of Margaret the Maid in token of fealty, Sholto MacKim turned on his heel and went away towards the fords of Thrieve, muttering to himself, "No, she does not mean it, I do believe. But I have ever heard that of all women she who never means it is the most dangerous." And this is a dict which no wise man can gainsay.
And, truth to tell, that was what Sholto cared most about. He did not wish to be disgraced before them all. So as he knelt with an anxious countenance before his lord, the Earl took his cousin William's sword out of his hand, and, laying it on the shoulder of Sholto MacKim, he said, "Great occasions bring forth good men, and even one battle tries the temper of the sword.
"I feel it here," quoth Master Laurence, hypocritically, indicating correctly, however, the organ whose wants have made clerks of so many that is, the stomach. Earl William smiled yet more broadly, but anxious to be gone he said: "Mine Uncle, here is the lad's father, Malise MacKim, my master armourer and right good servant. Ask him concerning his son."
Well, you were suckled at the same breast as he. May a double portion of his spirit rest on you! That lowering regard is the Douglas mark. Follow on and turn not back till you find. Strike and cease not, till all be avenged. I have now no son left to save or to strike. Go, Sholto MacKim. He who is dead loved you and made you knight.
And he turned him about in order to look upon the face of his master armourer. He found Malise MacKim ashen-pale and drawn of countenance, his mouth open and squared with wonder. His jaw was fallen slack, and his hands gripped one upon the other like those of a suppliant praying to the saints.
And as he spoke the strain of the rope and its swaying over the window-sill proclaimed that the mighty form of the master armourer was even then on the way upwards towards the dungeon of his chief. "Go back, I command you, Malise MacKim," he said, "go back instantly. I have made up my mind. I will not escape from the Castle of Edinburgh this night."
Nevertheless Sholto MacKim was by nature of a stout heart, and he resolved that if he had to die, it would be as well to die as became a captain of the Douglas guard. The blue leme of summer lightning momentarily lit up the western sky.
"I am here," she said, speaking clearly and naturally; "what would ye with the Lady of Douglas?" Thrice Laurence essayed to speak, but his ready tongue availed him not now. He caught at his horse's bridle to steady him and turned weakly to his father. "Do you speak to my lady I cannot!" he gasped. A terrible figure was Malise MacKim, the strong man of Galloway, as he came forward.
And in this manner, like an idle lad who for mischief puts body and soul in peril, went forth Laurence MacKim to take up service with the redoubtable Messire Gilles de Laval, Sieur de Retz, High Chamberlain of Charles the Seventh, Marshal of France, and lately companion-in-arms of the martyred Maid of Orleans.