be fully attained as soon as he should ride one of those great
prancing horses, and carry a lance with the pennon of the Douglas upon
it.

Meanwhile he wore the steel cap of the home guard, the ringed neck
mail, the close-fitting doublet of blue dotted over with red Douglas
hearts and having the white cross of St. Andrew transversely upon it.
About his waist was a peaked brace of shining plate armour, damascened
in gold by Malise himself, and filling out his almost girlish waist to
manlier proportions. From this depended a row of tags of soft leather.
Close chain-mail covered his legs, to which at the knees were added
caps of triple plate. A sheaf of arrows in a blue and gold quiver on
his right side, a sword of metal on his left, and a short Scottish bow
in his hand completed the attire of a fully equipped and efficient
archer of the Earl's guard.

The lads were soon at the fords of Lochar, where in the dry summers
the stones show all the way across--one in the midst being named the
Black Douglas, noted as the place where, as tradition affirms,
Archibald the Grim used to pause in crossing the ford to look at his
new fortress of Thrieve, rising on its impregnable island above the
rich water meadows.

Now neither Sholto nor Laurence wished to wet their leg array before
the work and pageant of the day began. This was the desire of
Laurence, because of the maids who would assemble on the Boreland
Braes, and of Sholto inasmuch as he hoped to win the prize for the
best accoutrement and the most point-device attiring among all the
archers of the Earl's guard. The young men had asked crusty Simon
Conchie, the boatman at the Ferry Croft, to set them over, offering