There is Sholto MacKim, he is little older than I, and already he hath won the archery prize and the sword-play, and hath fought in a tourney and been knighted--while I have done nothing except pull gowans with Maud Lindesay and play chuckie stones with Margaret there." And at that moment Sholto wished that this fate had been his, and the honours David's.

He told himself that he would willingly have given up his very knighthood that he might abide near that dainty form and witching face.

He tortured himself with the thought that Maud would listen to others as she had listened to him; that she would practise on others that heart-breaking slow droop and quick uplift of the eyelashes which he knew so well.

Who might not be at hand to aid her to blow out her lamp when the guards were set of new in the corridors of Thrieve?
"Mother," the Earl answered, "David speaks good sense.

He will never make a man or a Douglas if he is to bide here within this warded isle.
He must venture forth into the world of men and women, and taste a man's pleasures and chance a man's dangers like the rest." "But are you certain that you will bring him safe back again to me ?" said his mother, wistfully.