But above all, and outnumbering all, there were the lesser chiefs of the mighty name--Douglases of the North, the future Moray and Ormond among them, the noble young sons of James the Gross of Avondale, who rode nearest their cousin, the head of the clan.

Then came Douglases of the Border, Douglases of the Hermitage, of Renfrew, of Douglasdale.

Every third man in that great company which splashed and caracoled through the fords of Lochar, was a William, a James, or an Archibald Douglas.

The King himself could not have raised in all Scotland such a following, and it is small wonder if the heart of the young man expanded within him.
Presently, soon after the arrival of the cavalcade, the great wappenshaw was set in array, and forming up company by company the long double line extended as far as the eye could reach from north to south along the side of the broad and sluggish-moving river.
Sholto, who in virtue of his courage and good marksmanship had been placed over the archer company which waited on the right of the ford, fell in immediately behind the _cortege_ of the Earl.

He was first man of all to have his equipment examined, and his weapons obtained, as they deserved, the commendation of his liege lord, and the grim unwilling approval of Malise, the master armourer, whose unerring eye could not detect so much as a speck on the shirt of mail, or a grain of rust on the waist brace of shining steel.
Then the Earl rode down the lines, and Sholto, remembering the encounter amidst the dust of the roadway, breathed more freely when he saw his father's back.
And surely that day the heart of the Douglas must have beat proud and high within him, for there they stood, company behind ordered company, the men on whom he could count to the death.