The lady sighed and looked at her sons, one of them but a youth and the other no more than a boy.
"Was there ever a Douglas yet who would take any advice but from his own desire?" she said, looking down at them like a douce barn-door fowl who by chance has reared a pair of eaglets. "Lads, ye are over strong for your mother. But I will not sleep nor eat aright till I have my David back again, and can see him riding his horse homeward through the ford."
CHAPTER XXVIII
ON THE CASTLE ROOF
Maud Lindesay parted from Sholto upon the roof of the keep. She had gone up thither to watch the cavalcade ride off where none could spy upon her, and Sholto, noting the flutter of white by the battlements, ran up thither also, pretending that he had forgotten something, though he was indeed fully armed and ready to mount and ride.
Maud Lindesay was leaning over the battlements of the castle, and, hearing a step behind her, she looked about with a start of apparent surprise.
The after dew of recent tears still glorified her eyes.
"Oh, Sholto," she cried, "I thought you were gone; I was watching for you to ride away. I thought—"