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They were saying aboot the foreshore that they gaed west to some other port to tak' on board the French monzie that cam' to the Thrieve at the great tournaying! But I kenna what wad tak' him awa' to the Fleet or the Ferry Toon o' Cree, and leave a' the pleasures o' Kirkcudbright ahint him.
Who might not be at hand to aid her to blow out her lamp when the guards were set of new in the corridors of Thrieve? "Mother," the Earl answered, "David speaks good sense. He will never make a man or a Douglas if he is to bide here within this warded isle. He must venture forth into the world of men and women, and taste a man's pleasures and chance a man's dangers like the rest."
Even the presence of a lap-dog will fret my mother, so in my father's time they were every one removed to the kennels at the further end of the isle of Thrieve, whence even their howling cannot be heard. But let us proceed to the Lady Margaret, and on our way examine the place where you saw the apparition."
Cairnsmuir and Ben Gairn stood out south and north like blue, round-shouldered sentinels. Castle Thrieve rose grey in the midst of the water-meadows, massive and sombre in the early sunrise. Andro the Penman and his brother John, with the taciturnity natural to early risers, were silently hoisting the flag which denoted the presence of the noble young chatelaine of the great fortress.
The line of the tents which had been set up extended from opposite the Castle island of Thrieve to the kirk hill of Balmaghie. Every knight's following was strictly kept within its own pale, or fence of green wands set basket-wise, pointed and thrust into the earth like the spring traps of those who catch mowdiewarts.
At ten by the great sun-dial of Thrieve, the Earl, armed in complete armour of rare work, damascened with gold, and bearing in his hand the truncheon of commander, rode first through the fords of Lochar, and immediately after him came his brother David, a tall handsome boy of fourteen, whose olive skin and highbred beauty attested his Douglas birth.
But the girl had deftly extracted the key even as she passed in after him, and as the bolts shot from within she cried: "I thank you right courteously, Lord William, but mine apothecary, fearing that the air of this isle of Thrieve might not agree with me, bade me ever to sleep with the key of the door under my pillow. Against fevers and quinsies, cold iron is a sovereign specific."
And leaving his father and Laurence to ride westward he turned him back towards Thrieve. "I will surely return to-morrow," cried Malise; "I must first see this gay bird safely in mew. Aye, and bid the Abbot William clip his wings too!" So in the gay morning sunshine and with the reflection of the lift glinting dark blue from tarn and lakelet, Sholto MacKim rode towards the Castle of Thrieve.
Then when he had finished the Lady of Thrieve turned to Sholto "And you, captain of the guard, what have you done, and wherefore left you your master in his hour of need?" Then succinctly and to the point Sholto spoke, his father and Laurence assenting and confirming as he told of the Earl's commission and of how he had accomplished those things that were laid upon him.
Margaret had gone to bed, and, as was her custom, Maud Lindesay sat awhile by her side. For so far as they could they kept to the good and kindly traditions of Castle Thrieve. It seemed somehow to bring them nearer home in that horrible place where they were doomed to abide.
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