"Come and sit with us," said the Earl William kindly to him, "we are
no more master and servant, earl and esquire. We are but three youths
that are to die together, and the axe's edge levels all. You, Sholto,
are in some good chance to live the longest of the three by some half
score of minutes. I am glad I made you a knight on the field of
honour, Sir Sholto, for then they cannot hang you to a bough, like a
varlet caught stealing the King's venison."

Sholto slowly came over to the window-seat and stood there
respectfully as before, with his arms straight at his side, feeling
more than anything else the lack of his sword-hilt to set his right
hand upon.

"Nay, but do as I bid you," said the Earl, looking up at him; "sit
down, Sholto."

And Sholto sat on the window-seat and looked forth upon the lights
leaping out one after another down among the crowded gables of the
town as this and that burgher lit lamp or lantern at the nearing of
the hour of supper.

Far away over the shore-lands the narrow strip of the Forth showed
amethystine and mysterious, and farther out still the coast of Fife
lay in a sort of opaline haze.

"I wonder," said William Douglas, after a long pause, "what they have
done with our good lads. Had they been taken or perished we had surely
heard more noise, I warrant. Two score lads of Galloway would not give
up their arms without a tulzie for it."