And so she did; for as he came round by the outside of the moat, making his horse caracole and thinking no little of himself, he heard a voice from an upper window call out: "Sholto MacKim, Maudie says that you look like a draggled crow.

No, I will not be silent." Then the words were shut off as if a hand had been set over the mouth which spoke.

But presently the voice out of the unseen came again: "And I hate you, Sholto MacKim.

For we have had to keep in our chamber this livelong day, because of the two men you have placed over us, as if we had been prisoners in Black Archibald.[1] This very day I am going to ask my brother to hang Black Andro and John his brother on the dule tree of Carlinwark." [Footnote 1: The pet name of the deepest dungeon of Castle Thrieve, yet extant and plain to be seen by all.] "Yes, indeed, and most properly," cried another voice, which made his very heart flutter, "and set his new captain of the guard a-dangle in the midst, decked out from head to foot in peacocks' feathers." Sholto was very angry, for like a boy he took not chaffing lightly, and had neither the harshness of hide which can endure the rasping of a woman's tongue, nor the quickness of speech to give her the counter retort.
So he cast the reins of his horse to a stable varlet and stamped indoors, carrying his master's helmet to the armoury.

Then still without speech to any he brushed hastily up the stairs towards the upper floor, which he had set Andro the Penman and his brother to guard.
At the turning of the staircase David Douglas, the Earl's brother, stopped him.