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Updated: June 21, 2025
"She is indeed wondrous fair to look on," answered Sholto, the whole heart in him instantly wary, while outwardly he seemed more innocent than before. "Have your eyes ever lighted on that lady before?" "Nay, my lord, of a surety no. In what manner should they, seeing that I have never been in France in my life, nor indeed more than a score of miles from this castle of Thrieve?"
And seizing his younger brother by the collar of his blue working blouse, he dragged him upon his feet. "Now, by the saints," said Sholto, "if you cast your gibes upon me, by Saint Andrew I will break every bone in your idiot's body." "The purple velvet oh, the purple velvet!" gasped Laurence, as soon as he could recover speech, "and the eyes of Maud Lindesay!"
"Ah! that's some speech out of your romances," said the boy; "and Sholto says they have turned your head. But I hear Norman whistling to the hawk; I must go fasten on the jesses." And he scampered away with the thoughtless gaiety of boyhood, leaving his sister to the bitterness of her own reflections.
This required greater courage than storming many fortifications. Almost as he spoke Sholto became aware that a fierce rush of shaggy beasts was crossing the scanty grass towards him. He saw a vision of red mouths, gleaming teeth, and hairy breasts, into the leaping chaos of which he plunged and replunged his sword till his arm ached.
Instantly Sholto pulled the cap from his head, undid the pin of the archery prize, and thrust it into his wicked sweetheart's hands. She received it with a little cry of joy, then she pressed it to her lips. Sholto, rejoicing at heart, moved a step nearer to her.
Sholto put it in his leathern pouch wherein he was used to keep the hone for sharpening his arrows, and bestowed a silver groat upon the beggar. "Thy master's life is surely worth more than a groat," said the man. "I warrant you have been well enough paid already," said Sholto, "that is, if this be not a deceit. But here is a shilling. On your head be it, if you are playing with Sholto MacKim!"
It was not an uncommon sound in the forests of France, or even in those of his own country, yet somehow Sholto listened with a growing dread. Nearer and nearer it came, till it seemed to reverberate immediately beneath the eaves of the dwelling of Cæsar the cripple. The flicker of the embers died slowly out. Malise lay without a sound, his head couched on his hand.
"There are a thousand searchers who during the night will do all that you could do and better. To-morrow we shall surely want you. You have been three nights without sleep. Take your rest. I order you in your master's name." And on the bare stone, outside Maud Lindesay's empty room, Sholto threw himself down and slept as sleep the dead.
"My master " he gasped, "my master is he well? I pray you tell me." Was it a laugh he heard in answer? Rather a sound, not of human mirth but as of a condemned spirit laughing deep underground. Then again the low even voice replied out of the expressionless face. "Aye, your master is well." "Ah, thank God," burst forth Sholto, "he is alive."
But she had no time to study ways and means for sending a message to him, either through Sholto, her father, who always waited patiently for her behind the scenes, or through Paul Zouche, who, though as librettist of the opera, and as a poet of new and rising fame, was treated by everyone with the greatest deference, still made a special point of appearing in the shabbiest clothes, and lounging near the side-wings like a sort of disgraced tramp all the time the performance was in progress.
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