burgher of Dumfries, did best him at it--or at least would have shamed
him, but that he desired not to lose the custom of the Abbey."

"When you come to France," replied the girl, smiling on him, "it will
indeed be stirring to see you ride a bout with young Messire Lalain,
the champion of Burgundy, or with that Miriadet of Dijon, whose arm is
like that of a giant and can fell an ox at a blow."

"Truly," said the young Earl, modestly, "you do me overmuch honour. My
cousin James there, he is the champion among us, and alone could
easily have over-borne me to-day, without the aid of your uncle's
blind eye. Even William of Avondale is a better lance than I, and
young Hugh will be when his time comes."

"Your squire fought a good fight," she went on, "though his
countenance does not commend itself to me, being full of all
self-sufficience."

"Sholto--yes; he is his father's son and fought well. He is a MacKim,
and cannot do otherwise. He will make a good knight, and, by Saint
Bride, I will dub him one, ere this sun set, for his valiant laying on
of the axe this day."

The great muster was now over. The tents which had been dotted thickly
athwart the castle island were already mostly struck, and the ground
was littered with miscellaneous débris, soon to be carried off in
trail carts with square wooden bodies set on boughs of trees, and
flung into the river, by the Earl's varlets and stablemen.

The multitudinous liegemen of the Douglas were by this time streaming