"You shall have your chance with the rest," she cried; "but you will not care about me then. Very likely I may have to fleech and cozen with you like a sweetie-wife at a fair before either of you will marry me. And you know I have sworn on the bones of Saint Bride to marry none but a Douglas of the Douglases!"
Then William Douglas saluted without a word, and turning his bridle-rein rode away with his face steadfastly set to the north. But James ever cried back farewells and jovial words long after he was out of hearing. And even on the heights of Keltonmuir he still fluttered a gay kerchief in his left hand.
Then Margaret Douglas went back within the gates, where her eyes fell upon Maud Lindesay, coming through the castle yard to meet her. For that morning she had not wished to encounter Sholto—at least not among so many. The two maidens walked on together, and which was the fairer, the black or the nut-brown, none could say who beheld them.
After a while Margaret Douglas sighed.
"I wonder which of them I like the best," she said.
Maud laughed a merry, scornful laugh in which was a world of superior knowledge.
"You do not like either of them very much yet, or you would have no difficulty about the matter!" said this wise woman.
"Well, I wonder which of them loves me best," she went on; "James tells me of it a hundred times every day and all day. But William says nothing. He only looks at me often, as if he disapproved of me. I am over light for him, I trow. He thinks not of me."
Then after a pause she said, again with her finger on her lip, "I wonder which of them would do most for my sake?"
"I know!" said Maud Lindesay, promptly.