United States or South Africa ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
She looked at Sholto when he came near, but not as one who sees or recognises. Rather, as it were, dumb, drunken, besotted with grief, looked forth the soul of the Lady Sybilla upon the captain of the Douglas guard. She heeded not his angry shout, for another voice rang in her ears, speaking the knightliest words ever uttered by a man about to die.
But when Maud Lindesay met Sholto in the morning, coming suddenly upon him as he stood, with a pale face and dark rings of sleeplessness about his eyes, as he looked meditatively out upon the broad river and the blue smoke of the morning campfires, there was yet another difference to be revealed to him.
"He may, indeed," drolled the minx, "one can never tell. But he has never said so. He is perhaps afraid, being born without the self-conceit of some people archers of the guard, fledgling captains, and such-like gentrice." "Do you love him?" reiterated Sholto, determinedly. "I will tell you for that gold buckle," said Maud, calmly pointing with her finger.
But I cannot forget what he said about my flirting with him. Nelly: will you promise to tell me whenever you think I am behaving in a way that might lead anybody on to like Sholto, you know?" "Nonsense! If men choose to make fools of themselves, you cannot prevent them. Hush! I hear someone coming upstairs. It is Marmaduke, I think." "Marmaduke would never come up so slowly.
Sholto squared his shoulders, and with a little backward hitch of his elbow which meant "Wait till I come back, and I will pay you for this flouting," he strode determinedly across the green space towards his father. The master armourer of Earl Douglas did not lift his eyes till his son had half crossed the road.
"What think you of this day's doings, Mistress Lindesay?" asked Sholto as he swung along beside the train with little Margaret Douglas's hand still clutching the thick curls at the back of his neck. The maid of honour tossed her shapely head, and, with a little pretty upward curl of the lip, exclaimed: "'Twas as stupid a tourney as ever I saw.
"I pray that you permit my young knight, Sir Sholto MacKim, to accompany me," said the Earl to the officer who conducted them to their prison-house. "I have no orders concerning him," said the man, gruffly, but nevertheless permitted Sholto to enter after the Earl and his brother.
Sholto MacKim was at the fords waiting the chance of crossing and the pleasure of the surly keeper of the bridge, Elson A'Cormack, who sat in his wheelhouse, grunting curses on all who passed that way. "Foul feet, slow bellies, fushionless and slack ye are to run my lord's errands!
A vague inexpressible fear possessed him. He lay watching the red unequal glow thrown upwards from the embers, and through the wide opening in the roof he could discern the twinkling of a star. Within the chamber of La Meffraye there was silence. Sholto could not even hear the heavy breathing of Cæsar Martin. The silence was complete. Suddenly, from far away, there came up the howling of a wolf.
"No, my good Sholto!" he said gently; "Enough of such humility wearies me in the monotonous routine of Court life; and were it not for custom and prejudice, I would suffer no self-respecting man to abase himself before me, simply because my profession is that of King!
Word Of The Day