my lord waiting?"

"You are glad to go," she said reproachfully; "you will forget us whom
you leave behind you here. Indeed, you care not even now, so that you
are free to wander over the world and taste new pleasures. That is to
be a man, indeed. Would that I had been born one!"

"Nay, Maud," said Sholto, trying to draw the girl again near him,
because she kept him at arm's length by the unyielding strength of her
wrist, "none shall ever come near my heart save Maud Lindesay alone! I
would that I could ride away as sure of you as you are of Sholto
MacKim!"

"Indeed," cried the girl, with some show of returning spirit, "to that
you have no claim. Never have I said that I loved you, nor indeed that
I thought about you at all."

"It is true," answered Sholto, "and yet--I think you will remember me
when the lamps are blown out. God speed, belovedst, I hear the trumpet
blow, and the horses trampling."

For out on the green before the castle the Earl's guard was mustering,
and Fergus MacCulloch, the Earl's trumpeter, blew an impatient blast.
It seemed to speak to this effect:

_"Hasten ye, hasten ye, come to the riding,
Hasten ye, hasten ye, lads of the Dee--
Douglasdale come, come Galloway, Annandale,
Galloway blades are the best of the three!"_