S. R. Crockett - The Black Douglas

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[Illustration: "AND AT THE LAST HE ... SAILED OVER THE SEAS TO HIS OWN
LAND." _Frontispiece_]

The Black Douglas

By

S.R. Crockett

Author of "The Raiders," "The Stickit Minister," etc.

New York
Doubleday & McClure Co.
1899

COPYRIGHT, 1899,

By S.R. CROCKETT.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

The Black Douglas rides Home.

CHAPTER II

My Fair Lady

CHAPTER III

Two riding together

CHAPTER IV

The Rose-red Pavilion

CHAPTER V

The Witch Woman

CHAPTER VI

The Prisoning of Malise the Smith

CHAPTER VII

The Douglas Muster

CHAPTER VIII

The Crossing of the Ford

CHAPTER IX

Laurence sings a Hymn

CHAPTER X

The Braes of Balmaghie

CHAPTER XI

The Ambassador of France

CHAPTER XII

Mistress Maud Lindesay

CHAPTER XIII

A Daunting Summons

CHAPTER XIV

Captain of the Earl's Guard

CHAPTER XV

The Night Alarm

CHAPTER XVI

Sholto captures a Prisoner of Distinction

CHAPTER XVII

The Lamp is blown out

CHAPTER XVIII

The Morning Light

CHAPTER XIX

La Joyeuse baits her Hook

CHAPTER XX

Andro the Penman gives an Account of his Stewardship.

CHAPTER XXI

The Bailies of Dumfries

CHAPTER XXII

Wager of Battle

CHAPTER XXIII

Sholto wins Knighthood

CHAPTER XXIV

The Second Flouting of Maud Lindesay

CHAPTER XXV

The Dogs and the Wolf hold Council

CHAPTER XXVI

The Lion Tamer

CHAPTER XXVII

The Young Lords ride away

CHAPTER XXVIII

On the Castle Roof

CHAPTER XXIX

Castle Crichton

CHAPTER XXX

The Bower by yon Burnside

CHAPTER XXXI

The Gaberlunzie Man

CHAPTER XXXII

"Edinburgh Castle, Tower, and Town"

CHAPTER XXXIII

The Black Bull's Head

CHAPTER XXXIV

Betrayed with a Kiss

CHAPTER XXXV

The Lion at Bay

CHAPTER XXXVI

The Rising of the Douglases

CHAPTER XXXVII

A Strange Meeting

CHAPTER XXXVIII

The MacKims come to Thrieve

CHAPTER XXXIX

The Gift of the Countess.

CHAPTER XL

The Mission of James the Gross

CHAPTER XLI

The Withered Garland

CHAPTER XLII

Astarte the She-wolf

CHAPTER XLIII

Malise fetches a Clout

CHAPTER XLIV

Laurence takes New Service

CHAPTER XLV

The Boasting of Gilles de Sille

CHAPTER XLVI

The Country of the Dread

CHAPTER XLVII

Caesar Martin's Wife

CHAPTER XLVIII

The Mercy of La Meffraye

CHAPTER XLIX

The Battle with the Were-wolves

CHAPTER L

The Altar of Iron

CHAPTER LI

The Marshal's Chamber

CHAPTER LII

The Jesting of La Meffraye

CHAPTER LIII

Sybilla's Vengeance

CHAPTER LIV

The Cross under the Apron

CHAPTER LV

The Red Milk

CHAPTER LVI

The Shadow behind the Throne

CHAPTER LVII

The Tower of Death

CHAPTER LVIII

The White Tower of Machecoul

CHAPTER LIX

The Last Sacrifice to Barran-Sathanas

CHAPTER LX

His Demon hath deserted him

CHAPTER LXI

Leap Year in Galloway

THE BLACK DOUGLAS

CHAPTER I

THE BLACK DOUGLAS RIDES HOME

Merry fell the eve of Whitsunday of the year 1439, in the fairest and
heartsomest spot in all the Scottish southland. The twined May-pole
had not yet been taken down from the house of Brawny Kim, master
armourer and foster father to William, sixth Earl of Douglas and Lord
of Galloway.

Malise Kim, who by the common voice was well named "The Brawny," sat
in his wicker chair before his door, overlooking the island-studded,
fairy-like loch of Carlinwark. In the smithy across the green
bare-trodden road, two of his elder sons were still hammering at some
armour of choice. But it was a ploy of their own, which they desired
to finish that they might go trig and point-device to the Earl's
weapon-showing to-morrow on the braes of Balmaghie. Sholto and
Laurence were the names of the two who clanged the ringing steel and
blew the smooth-handled bellows of tough tanned hide, that wheezed and
puffed as the fire roared up deep and red before sinking to the right
welding-heat in a little flame round the buckle-tache of the girdle
brace they were working on.

And as they hammered they talked together in alternate snatches and
silences?--Sholto, the elder, meanwhile keeping an eye on his father.
For their converse was not meant to reach the ear of the grave, strong
man who sat so still in the wicker chair with the afternoon sun
shining in his face.

"Hark ye, Laurence," said Sholto, returning from a visit to the door
of the smithy, the upper part of which was open. "No longer will I be
a hammerer of iron and a blower of fires for my father. I am going to
be a soldier of fortune, and so I will tell him--"

"When wilt thou tell him?" laughed his brother, tauntingly. "I wager
my purple velvet doublet slashed with gold which I bought with mine
own money last Rood Fair that you will not go across and tell him now.
Will you take the dare?"

"The purple velvet--you mean it?" said Sholto, eagerly. "Mind, if you
refuse, and will not give it up after promising, I will nick that
lying throat of yours with my gullie knife!"

And with that Sholto threw down his pincers and hammer, and valorously
pushed open the lower door of the smithy. He looked with bold, dark
blue eye at his father, and strode slowly across the grimy door-step.
Brawny Kim had not moved for an hour. His great hands lay in his lap,
and his eyes looked at the purple ridges of Screel, across the
beautiful loch of Carlinwark, which sparkled and dimpled restlessly
among its isles like a wilful beauty bridling under the gaze of a
score of gallants.

But, even as he went, Sholto's step slowed, and lost its braggart
strut and confidence. Behind him Laurence chuckled and laughed,
smiting his thigh in his mocking glee.

"The purple velvet, mind you, Sholto! How well it will become you,
coft from Rob Halliburton, our mother's own brother, seamed with red
gold and lined with yellow satin and cramosie. Well indeed will it set
you when Maud Lindesay, the maid who came from the north for company
to the Earl's sister, looks forth from the canopy upon you as you
stand in the archers' rank on the morrow's morn."

Sholto squared his shoulders, and with a little backward hitch of his
elbow which meant "Wait till I come back, and I will pay you for this
flouting," he strode determinedly across the green space towards his
father.

The master armourer of Earl Douglas did not lift his eyes till his son
had half crossed the road. Then, even as if a rank of spearmen at the
word of command had lifted their glittering points to the "ready,"
Sholto MacKim stopped dead where he was, with a sort of gasp in his
throat, like one who finds his defenceless body breast high against
the line of hostile steel.

"The purple velvet!" came the cautious whisper from behind. But the
taunt was powerless now.

The smith held his son a moment with his eyes.

"Well?" came in the deep low voice, more like the lowest tones of an
organ than the speech of a man.

Sholto stood fixed, then half turning on his heel he began to walk
towards the corner of the dwelling-house, over which a gay streamer of
the early creeping convolvulus danced and swung in the stirring of the
light breeze.

"You wish speech with me?" said his father, in the same level and
thrilling undertone.

"No," said Sholto, hesitant in spite of himself, "but I thought--that
is I desired--saw you my sister Magdalen pass this way? I have
somewhat to give her."

"Ah, so," said Brawny Kim, without moving, "a steel breastplate,
belike. Thou hast the brace-buckle in thy hand. Doth the little
Magdalen go with you to the weapon-show to-morrow?"

"No, father," said Sholto, stammering, "but I was uneasy for the
child. It is full an hour since I heard her voice."

"Then," said his father, "finish your work, put out the fire, and go
seek your sister."

Sholto brought his hands together and made the little inclination of
the head which was a sign of filial respect. Then, solemn as if he had
been in his place in the ordered line of the Earl's first levy of
archer men, he turned him about and went back to the smithy.

Laurence lay all abroad on the heap of charcoal of which the
armourer's welding fire was made. He was fairly expiring with
laughter, and when his brother angrily kicked him in the ribs, he only
waggled an ineffectual hand and feebly crowed in his throat like a
cock, in his efforts to stifle the sounds of mirth.

"Get up, fool," hissed his angry brother; "help me with this accursed
hammer-striking, or I will make an end of such a giggling lout as you.
Here, hold up."

And seizing his younger brother by the collar of his blue working
blouse, he dragged him upon his feet.

"Now, by the saints," said Sholto, "if you cast your gibes upon me,
by Saint Andrew I will break every bone in your idiot's body."

"The purple velvet--oh, the purple velvet!" gasped Laurence, as soon
as he could recover speech, "and the eyes of Maud Lindesay!"

"That will teach you to think rather of the eyes of Laurence MacKim!"
cried Sholto, and without more ado he hit his brother with his
clinched knuckles a fair blow on the bridge of his nose.

The next moment the two youths were grappling together like wild cats,
striking, kicking, and biting with no thought except of who should
have the best of the battle. They rolled on the floor, now tussling
among the crackling faggots, anon pitching soft as one body on the
peat dust in the corner, again knocking over a bench and bringing down
the tools thereon to the floor with a jingle which might have been
heard far out on the loch. They were still clawing and cuffing each
other in blind rage, when a hand, heavy and remorseless, was laid upon
each. Sholto found himself being dabbled in the great tempering
cauldron which stood by his father's forge. Laurence heard his own
teeth rattle as he was shaken sideways till his joints waggled like
those of a puppet at Keltonhill Fair. Then it was his turn to be
doused in the water. Next their heads were soundly knocked together,
and finally, like a pair of arrows sent right and left, Laurence sped
forth at the window in the gable end and found himself in the midst of
a gooseberry bush, whilst Sholto, flying out of the door, fell
sprawling on all fours almost under the feet of a horse on which a
young man sat, smilingly watching the scene.

Brawny Kim scattered the embers of the fire on the forge-hearth, and
threw the breastplate and girdle-brace at which the boys had been
working into a corner of the smithy. Then he turned to lock the door
with the massive key, which stood so far out from the upper leaf that
to it the horses waiting their turns to be shod were ordinarily
tethered.

As he did so he caught sight of the young man sitting silent on the
black charger. Instantly a change passed over his face. With one
motion of his hand he swept the broad blue bonnet from his brow, and
bowed the grizzled head which had worn it low upon his breast. Thus
for the breathing of a breath the master armourer stood, and then,
replacing his bonnet, he looked up again at the young knight on
horseback.

"My lord," he said, after a long pause, in which he waited for the
youth to speak, "this is not well--you ride unattended and unarmed."

"Ah, Malise," laughed the young Earl, "a Douglas has few privileges if
he may not sometimes on a summer eve lay aside his heavy prisonment of
armour and don such a suit as this! What think you, eh? Is it not a
valiant apparel, as might almost beseem one who rode a-courting?"

The mighty master-smith looked at the young man with eyes in which
reverence, rebuke, and admiration strove together.

"But," he said, wagging his head with a grave humorousness, "your
lordship needs not to ride a-courting. You are to be married to a
great dame who will bring you wealth, alliance, and the dower of
provinces."

The young man shrugged his shoulders, and swung lightly off his
charger, which turned to look at him as he stood and patted its neck.

"Know you not, Malise," he said, "that the Earl of Douglas must needs
marry provinces and the Lord of Galloway wed riches? But what is there
in that to prevent Will Douglas going courting at eighteen years of
his age as a young man ought. But have no fear, I come not hither
seeking the favour of any, save of that lily flower of yours, the only
true May-blossom that blooms on the Three Thorns of Carlinwark. I
would look upon the angel smile on the face of your little daughter
Magdalen. An she be here, I would toss her arm-high for a kiss of her
mouth, which I would rather touch than that of lady or leman. For I do
ever profess myself her vassal and slave. Where have you hidden her,
Malise? Declare it or perish!"

The smith lifted up his voice till it struck on the walls of his
cottage and echoed like thunder along the shores of the lake.

"Dame Barbara," he cried, and again, getting no answer, "ho, Dame
Barbara, I say!"

Then at the second hallo, a shrill and somewhat peevish voice
proceeded from within the house opposite.

"Aye, coming, can you not hear, great nolt! 'Deed and 'deed 'tis a
pretty pass when a woman with the cares of an household must come
running light-toe and clatter-heel to every call of such a lazy lout.
Husband, indeed--not house-band but house-bond, I wot--house-torment,
house-thorn, house-cross--"

A sonsy, well-favoured, middle-aged head, strangely at variance with
the words which came from it, peeped out, and instantly the scolding
brattle was stilled. Back went the head into the dark of the house as
if shot from a bombard.

Malise MacKim indulged in a low hoarse chuckle as he caught the words:
"Eh, 'tis my Lord William! Save us, and me wanting my Ryssil gown that
cost me ten silver shillings the ell, and no even so muckle as my
white peaked cap upon my head."

Her husband glanced at the young Earl to see if he appreciated the
savour of the jest. Then he looked away, turning the enjoyment over
and over under his own tongue, and muttering: "Ah, well, 'tis not his
fault. No man hath a sense of humour before he is forty years of his
age--and, for that matter, 'tis all the riper at fifty."

The young man's eyes were looking this way and that, up and down the
smooth pathway which skirted like a green selvage the shores of the
loch.

"Malise," he said, as if he had already forgotten his late eager quest
for the little Magdalen, "Darnaway here has a shoe loose, and
to-morrow I ride to levy, and may also joust a bout in the tilt-yard
of the afternoon. I would not ask you to work in Whitsuntide, but that
there cometh my Lord Fleming and Alan Lauder of the Bass, bringing
with them an embassy from France--and I hear there may be fair ladies
in their company."

"Ah!" quoth Malise, grimly, "so I have heard it said concerning the
embassies of Charles, King of France!"

But the young man only smiled, and dusted off one or two flecks of
foam which had blown backwards from his horse's bit upon the rich
crimson doublet of finest velvet, which, cinctured closely at the
waist, fell half-way to his knees in heavy double pleats sewn with
gold. A hunting horn of black and gold was suspended about his neck by
a bandolier of dark leather, subtiley embroidered with bosses of gold.
Laced boots of soft black hide, drawn together on the outside from
ankle to mid-calf with a golden cord, met the scarlet "chausses" which
covered his thighs and outlined the figure of him who was the noblest
youth and the most gallant in all the realm of Scotland.

Earl William wore no sword. Only a little gold-handled poignard with a
lady's finger ring set upon the point of the hilt was at his side, and
he stood resting easily his hand upon it as he talked, drawing it an
inch from its sheath and snicking it back again nonchalantly, with a
sound like the clicking of a well-oiled lock.

"Clink the strokes strongly and featly, Malise, for to-morrow, when the
Black Douglas rides upon Black Darnaway under the eyes of--well--of
the ladies whom the ambassadors are bringing to greet me, there must
be no stumbling and no mistakes. Or on the head of Malise MacKim the
matter shall be, and let that wight remember that the Douglas does not
keep a dule tree up there by the Gallows Slock for nothing."

The mighty smith was by this time examining the hoofs of the Earl's
charger one by one with such instinctive delicacy of touch that
Darnaway felt the kindly intent, and, bending his neck about, blew and
snuffled into the armourer's tangled mat of crisp grey hair.

"Up there!" exclaimed MacKim, as the warm breath tickled his neck, and
at the burst of sound the steed shifted and clattered upon the
hard-beaten floor of the smithy, tossing his head till the bridle
chains rang again.

"Eh, my Lord William," an altered voice came from the door-step, where
Dame Barbara MacKim, now clothed and in her right mind, stood louting
low before the young Earl, "but this is a blythe and calamitatious day
for this poor bit bigging o' the Carlinwark--to think that your honour
should visit his servants! Will you no come ben and sit doon in the
house-place? 'Tis far from fitting for your feet to pass thereupon.
But gin ye will so highly favour--"

"Nay, I thank you, good Dame Barbara," said the Earl, very courteously
taking off the close-fitting black cap with the red feather in it
which was upon his head. "I must bide but a moment for your husband to
set right certain nails in the hoofs of Darnaway here, to ready me for
the morrow. Do you come to see the sport? So buxom a dame as the
mistress of Carlinwark should not be absent to encourage the lads to
do their best at the sword-play and the rivalry of the butts."

And as the dame came forth courtesying and bowing her delighted
thanks, Earl William, setting a forefinger under her triple chin,
stooped and kissed her in his gayest and most debonair manner.

"Eh, only to think on't," cried the dame, clapping her hands together
as she did at mass, "that I, Barbara MacKim, that am marriet to a
donnert auld carle like Malise there, should hae the privileege o' a
salute frae the bonny mou' o' Yerl William--(Thank ye kindly, my
lord!)--and be inveeted to the weepen-shawing to sit amang the leddies
and view the sport. Malise, my man, caa' ye no that an honour, a
privileege? Is that no owing to me being the sister--on my faither's
side--o' Ninian Halliburton, merchant and indweller in Dumfries?"

"Nay, nay, good dame," laughed the Earl, "'tis all for the sake of
your own very sufficient charms! I trust that your good man here is
not jealous, for beauty, you well do ken, ever sends the wits of a
Douglas woolgathering. Nevertheless, let us have a draught of your
home-brewed ale, for kissing is but dry work, after all, and little do
I think of it save" (he set his cap on his head with a gallant wave of
his hand) "in the case of a lady so fair and tempting as Dame Barbara
MacKim!"

At this the dame cast up her hands and her eyes again. "Eh, what will
Marget Ahanny o' the Shankfit say noo--this frae the Yerl William. Eh,
sirce, this is better than an Abbot's absolution. I declare 'tis mair
sustainin' than a' the consolations o' religion. Malise, do you hear,
great dour cuif that ye are, what says my lord? And you to think so
little of your married wife as ye do! Think shame, you being what ye
are, and me the ain sister to that master o' merchandise and Bailie o'
Dumfries, Maister Ninian Halliburton o' the Vennel!"

And with that she vanished into the black oblong of the door opposite
the smithy.

CHAPTER II

MY FAIR LADY

The strong man of Carlinwark made no long job of the horseshoeing.
For, as he hammered and filed, he marked the eye of the young Earl
restlessly straying this way and that along the green riverside paths,
and his fingers nervously tapping the ashen casing of the smithy
window-sill. Malise MacKim smiled to himself, for he had not served a
Douglas for thirty years without knowing by these signs that there was
the swing of a kirtle in the case somewhere.

Presently the last nail was made firm, and Black Darnaway was led,
passaging and tossing his bridle reins, out upon the green sward.
Malise stood at his head till the Douglas swung himself into the
saddle with a motion light as the first upward flight of a bird.

He put his hand into a pocket in the lining of his "soubreveste" and
took out a golden "Lion" of the King's recent mintage. He spun it in
the air off his thumb and then looked at it somewhat contemptuously as
he caught it.

"I think you and I, Master-Armourer, could send out a better coinage
than that with the old Groat press over there at Thrieve!" he said.

Malise smiled his quiet smile.

"If the Earl of Douglas deigns to make me the master of his mint, I
promise him plenty of good, sound, broad pieces of a noble
design--that is, till Chancellor Crichton hangs me for coining in the
Grassmarket of Edinburgh."

"That would he never, with the Douglas lances to prick you a way out
and the Douglas gold to buy the good-will of traitorous judges!"

Half unconsciously the Earl sighed as he looked at the fair lake
growing rosy in the light of the sunset. His boyish face was
overspread with care, and for the moment seemed all too young to have
inherited so great a burden. But the next moment he was himself again.

"I know, Malise," he said, "that I cannot offer you gold in return for
your admirable handicraft. But 'tis nigh to Keltonhill Fair, do you
divide this gold Lion betwixt those two brave boys of yours. Faith,
right glad was I to be Earl of Douglas and not a son of his master
armourer when I saw you disciplining for their souls' good Messires
Sholto and Laurence there!"

The smith smiled grimly.

"They are good enough lads, Sholto and Laurence both, but they will be
for ever gnarring and grappling at each other like messan dogs round a
kirk door."

"They will not make the worse soldiers for that, Malise. I pray you
forgive them for my sake."

The master armourer took the hand of his young lord on which he was
about to draw a riding glove of Spanish leather. Very reverently he
kissed the signet ring upon it.

"My dear lord," he said, "I can refuse naught to any of your great and
gracious house, and least of all to you, the light and pleasure of
it--aye, and the light of a surly old man's heart, more even than the
duty he owes to his own married wife! Oh, be careful, my lord, for you
are the desire of many hearts and the hope of all this land."

He hesitated a moment, and then added with a kind of curious
bashfulness--

"But I am concerned about ye this nicht, William Douglas--I fear that
ye could not--would not permit me--"

"Could not permit what--out with it, old grumble-pate?"

"That I should saddle my Flanders mare and ride after you. Malise
MacKim would not be in the way even if ye went a-trysting. He kens
brawly, in such a case, when to turn his head and look upon the hills
and the woods and the bonny sleeping waters."

The Earl laughed and shook his head.

"Na, na, Malise," he said, "were I indeed on such a quest the sight of
your grey pow would fright a fair lady, and the mere trampling of that
club-footed she-elephant of yours put to flight every sentiment of
love. Remember the Douglas badge is a naked heart. Can I ride
a-courting, therefore, with all my fighting tail behind me as though I
besought an alliance with the King of England's daughter?"

Silently and sadly the strong man watched the young Earl ride away to
the south along that fair lochside. He stood muttering to himself and
looking long under his hand after his lord. The rider bowed his head
as he passed under the rich blazonry of the white May-blossom, which,
like creamy lace, covered the Three Thorns of Carlinwark, now deeply
stained with rose colour from the clouds of sunset.

[Illustration: WILLIAM OF DOUGLAS REINED UP DARNAWAY UNDERNEATH
THE WHISPERING FOLIAGE OF A GREAT BEECH.]

"Aye, aye," he said, "the Douglas badge is indeed a heart--but it is a
bleeding heart. God avert the omen, and keep this young man safe--for
though many love him, there be more that would rejoice at his fall."

The rider on Black Darnaway rode right into the saffron eye of the
sunset. On his left hand Carlinwark and its many islets burned rich
with spring-green foliage, all splashed with the golden sunset light.
Darnaway's well-shod hoofs sent the diamond drops flying, as, with
obvious pleasure, he trampled through the shallows. Ben Gairn and
Screel, boldly ridged against the southern horizon, stood out in dark
amethyst against the glowing sky of even, but the young rider never so
much as turned his head to look at them.

Presently, however, he emerged from among the noble lakeside trees
upon a more open space. Broom and whin blossom clustered yellow and
orange beneath him, garrisoning with their green spears and golden
banners every knoll and scaur. But there were broad spaces of turf
here and there on which the conies fed, or fought terrible battles for
the meek ear-twitching does, "spat-spatting" at each other with their
fore paws and springing into the air in their mating fury.

William of Douglas reined up Darnaway underneath the whispering
foliage of a great beech, for all at unawares he had come upon a sight
that interested him more than the noble prospect of the May sunset.

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