It seemed of the greatest moment that the Avondale Douglases should know that which had befallen their cousin.
For no suspicion of treachery within the house and name of Douglas itself touched with a shade of shadow the mind of Sholto MacKim.
He thundered at the town-ward port of the castle (to which a steep ascent led up from a narrow vennel), where presently the outer guard soon crowded about him, listening to his story and already fingering bowstring and examining rope-matches preparatory to the expected march upon Edinburgh.
"I have not time to waste, comrades; I would see my lords," said Sholto.

"I must see them instantly." And even as he spoke there on the steps before him appeared the dark, handsome face and tall but slightly stooping figure of William Douglas of Avondale.

He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, and his serious thought-weighted brow bent upon the concourse about Sholto.
With a push of his elbows this way and that, the young captain of the Earl's guard opened a road through the press.
In short, emphatic sentences he told his tale, and at the name of prisonment and treachery to his cousins the countenance of William Douglas grew stern and hard.

His face twitched as if the news came very near to him.

He did not answer for a moment, but stood biting his lips and glooming upon Sholto, as though the young man had been a prisoner waiting sentence of pit or gallows for evil doing.
"I must see James concerning this ill news," he said when Sholto had finished telling him of the Black Bull's Head at the Chancellor's banquet-table.
He turned to go within.
"My lord," said Sholto, "will you give me another horse, and let Darnaway rest in your stables?
I must instantly ride south again to raise Galloway." "Order out all the horses which are ready caparisoned," commanded William of Avondale, "and do you, Captain Sholto, take your choice of them." He went within forthwith and there ensued a pause filled with the snorting and prancing of steeds, as, mettlesome with oats and hay, they issued from their stalls, or with the grass yet dewy about their noses were led in from the field.