bethink himself. I am an old man, pray remember--fast growing feeble
and naturally inclined to overmuch caution. But the blood flows hot
through the veins of eighteen."

Sholto, who knew nothing of these happenings, had just finished
exercising his men on the smooth green in front of the Castle of
Crichton, and had dismissed them, when a gaberlunzie or privileged
beggar, a long lank rascal with a mat of tangled hair, and clad in a
cast-off leathern suit which erstwhile some knight had worn under his
mail, leaped suddenly from the shelter of a hedge. Instinctively
Sholto laid his hand on his dagger.

"Nay," snuffled the fellow, "I come peaceably. As you love your lord
hasten to give him this letter. And, above all, let not the Crichton
see you."

He placed a small square scrap of parchment in Sholto's hand. It was
sealed in black wax with a serpent's head, and from the condition of
the outside had evidently been in places both greasy and grimy. 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!"

So saying the captain of the guard strode within. He had already
acquired the carriage and consequence of a veteran old in the wars.