This was his meditation. For, being a young man in love, these things were more to him than matins and evensong, king or chancellor, heaven or hell—as indeed it was right and wholesome that they should be.
CHAPTER XXIX
CASTLE CRICHTON
Crichton Castle was much more a defenced château and less a feudal stronghold than Thrieve. It stood on a rising ground above the little Water of Tyne, which flowed clear and swift beneath from the blind "hopes" and bare valleys of the Moorfoot Hills. But the site was well chosen both for pleasure and defence. The ground fell away on three sides. Birch, alder, ash, girt it round and made pleasant summer bowers everywhere.
The fox-faced Chancellor had spent much money on beautifying it, and the kitchens and larders were reported to be the best equipped in Scotland. On the green braes of Crichton, therefore, in due time the young Douglases arrived with their sparse train of thirty riders. Sir William Crichton had ridden out to meet them across the innumerable little valleys which lie around Temple and Borthwick to the brow of that great heathy tableland which runs back from the Moorfoots clear to the Solway.
With him were only the Marshal de Retz and his niece, the Lady Sybilla.
Not a single squire or man-at-arms accompanied these three, for, as the Chancellor well judged, there was no way more likely effectually to lull the suspicions of a gallant man like the Douglas than to forestall him in generous confidence.
The three sat their horses and looked to the south for their guests at that delightsome hour of the summer gloaming when the last bees are reluctantly disengaging themselves from the dewy heather bells and the circling beetles begin their booming curfew.