"Come hither, Sir Richard ... sire!" Lord Douglas called. "Prithee, do return. I have here the messages to show thee. The messages thou didst bring me from Henry. All signed, thou dost remember, by thy good self and my councilmen. Come back! but a moment's speech would I have of thee ... sire."
"I wish thee well of thy enterprises, Lord Douglas," the young knight shouted back. "Make kings an thou wilt, I'll have none of it. Thou canst give me nothing.... I have beside me here, my lord, the best that Scotland has to give."
Then, he remembered afterward, Rocelia took his hand, standing beside him in the captain's boat, and together they waved the great Douglas a last farewell.
When they had climbed to the topmost deck of the great ship they saw another cavalcade of armed men riding down to the river front from out another street. Sir Richard noted above their plumed helmets a bedraggled banner, bearing a device sable upon a field gules.
"They are your father's men, Rocelia," Sir Richard said, gathering her close to his side.
"Yes, Dick," said she. "God keep him from all harm and bring him safe to us some future day."
Soon, then, with great brown sails bellying in the wind, they dropped down the Firth of Clyde, with the twinkling lights of Glasgow fading dim in the distance.
[Transcriber's Notes]
Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected. Occasional unmatched quotation marks were corrected when there was no ambiguity.