“There,” she said, waving her hand abroad, with something of her old mocking vixenry, “go--search the castle. It is yours--by marriage. You will not even find my husband here. He is doing your errands at Douglas Castle. So neither one of us has ever a man to defend our repute, or speak a word in our favour. Go search Thrieve from dungeon to battlements if you will! Question the scullions! Send for the pantlers! Mayhap we have your brother hid in the cellarage”-- “Maud,” I said, “be silent, I bid you. You forget to whom you speak!” But William Douglas waved me with his hand to let her go on. “She is right. I deserve this and more,” he said, in a broken voice (that ever I should have lived to hear the like from so noble a man!). “But James left me at Edinburgh, riding southward, knowing that I was summoned in haste to meet the king at Stirling. So, the fit being on me, I let the king wait, and followed James. Yes, I followed till I lost him upon the Flowe of Lochenkit. It was just when this accursed storm broke. I saw him before me not half a mile, my brother James or his ghost. Where is he, if not here?” Maud Lindsay came over to me and laid her hand gently on my arm. “Go up to your chamber, bairnie,” she said; “when right is, and I have spoken my mind, I will come to thee.” Then to William she said, “This child knows nothing of evil things--scarcely of evil thoughts. Speak the things you have to say to me, and I will tell her that which must be told. Remember, she is a maid, walking in the midst of marvels not half understood. Go, Margaret! I will follow!” And for a moment I think she thought of me as no more than her own Marcelle--grown a little older, but no whit the wiser, or the twins, Cuthbert and Bride (anything but saints!), or sturdy Ulric, or even little piping David with the castle Bubbly Jock goldering at his tail. At any rate, one she loved was being harassed, and so Maud ruffled her feathers, dropped her wings, and made ready beak and claw. So that woe betide the intruder, be he Earl of Douglas or, as aforesaid, merely the turkey cock from the stables. What passed at that interview I do not know--that is, not such a version as can be set down in this place. For women talk differently to each other when men are out of hearing, and I suppose it is the same with writing. But at all events it ended in this, that William would stay at Thrieve only so long as behoved him to change his wet under-garments, and take such refreshment as could be got ready by young cook A’Cormack, the son of our ancient porter of the gatehouse.