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S. R. Crockett - The Black Douglas

S >> S. R. Crockett >> The Black Douglas




It was lucky for himself that he did not succeed, for, undoubtedly,
the Douglases then on the field would have torn him to pieces for what
they not unnaturally considered his treachery. As it was, there
sounded a mighty roar of anger all about the barriers, and the crowd
pressed so fiercely and threateningly that it was as much as the
archers could do to keep them within reasonable bounds.

"Saints' mercy!" puffed stout Ninian Halliburton, "let us get out of
this place. I am near bursen. Haud off there, varlet, ken ye not that
I am a Bailie of Dumfries? Keep your feet off the tail o' my brown
velvet gown. It cost nigh upon twenty silver shillings an ell!"

"A Douglas! A Douglas! Treachery! Treachery!" yelled a wild Minnigaff
man, thrusting a naked brand high into the air within an inch of the
burgess's nose. That worthy citizen almost fell backwards in dismay,
and indeed must have done so but for the pressure of the crowd behind
him. He was, therefore, much against his will compelled to keep his
place in the front rank of the spectators.

"Well done, young lad," cried the crowd, seeing Sholto ward and strike
at Poitou and his master, "God, but he is fechtin' like the black deil
himself!"

"It will be as chancy for him," cried the wild Minnigaff hillman, "for
I will tear the harrigals oot o' Sholto MacKim if onything happen to
the Earl!"

But the captain of the guard, light as a feather, had easily avoided
the thrust of the marshal's spear, taking it at an angle and turning
it aside with his shield. Then, springing up behind him, he pulled the
French knight down to the ground with the hook of his axe, by that
trick of attack which was the lesson taught once for all to the Scots
of the Lowlands upon the stricken field of the Red Harlaw.

The marshal fell heavily and lay still, for he was a man of feeble
body, and the weight of his armour very great.

"Slay him! Slay him!" yelled the people, still furious at what, not
without reason, they considered rank treachery.

Sholto recovered himself, and reached his master only in time to find
Poitou bending over Earl Douglas with a dagger in his hand.

With a wild yell he lashed out at the Breton squire, and Sholto's axe
striking fair on his steel cap, Poitou fell senseless across the body
of Douglas.

"Well done, Sholto MacKim--well done, lad!" came from all the barrier,
and even Ninian Halliburton cried: "Ye shall hae a silken doublet for
that!" Then, recollecting himself, he added, "At little mair than cost
price!"

"God in heeven, 'tis bonny fechtin!" cried the man from Minnigaff.
"Oh, if I could dirk the fause hound I wad dee happy!"

And the hillman danced on the toes of the Bailie of Dumfries and shook
the barriers with his hand till he received a rap over the knuckles
from the handle of a partisan directed by the stout arms of Andro the
Penman.

"Haud back there, heather-besom!" cried the archer, "gin ye want ever
again to taste 'braxy'!"

Over the rest of the field the fortune of war had been somewhat
various. William of Douglas had unhorsed his brother Hugh at the first
shock, but immediately foregoing his advantage with the most
chivalrous courtesy, he leaped from his own horse and drew his sword.

On the right Alan Fleming, being by the marshal's action suddenly
deprived of his opponent, had wheeled his charger and borne down
sideways upon James of Douglas, and that doughty champion, not having
fully recovered from the shock of his encounter with the Earl, and
being taken from an unexpected quarter, went down as much to his own
surprise as to that of the people at the barriers, who had looked upon
him as the strongest champion on the field.

It was evident, therefore, that, in spite of the loss of their leader,
the Earl's party stood every chance to win the field. For not only was
Alan Fleming the only knight left on horseback, but Malise MacKim had
disposed of the laird of Stra'ven, squire to William of Avondale,
having by one mighty axe stroke beaten the Lanarkshire man down to his
knees.

"A Douglas! A Douglas!" shouted the populace; "now let them have it!"

And the adherents of the Earl were proceeding to carry out this
intent, when my Lord Maxwell unexpectedly put an end to the combat by
throwing down his truncheon and proclaiming a drawn battle.

"False loon!" cried Sholto, shaking his axe at him in the extremity of
his anger, "we have beaten them fairly. Would that I could get at
thee! Come down and fight an encounter to the end. I will take any
Maxwell here in my shirt!"

"Hold your tongue!" commanded his father, briefly, "what else can ye
expect of a border man but broken faith?"

The archers of the guard rushed in, as was their duty, and separated
the remaining combatants. Hugh and his brother William fought it to
the last, the younger with all his vigour and with a fierce energy
born of his brother James's taunts, William with the calm courtesy and
forbearance of an old and assured knight towards one who has yet his
spurs to win.

The stunned knights and squires were conveyed to their several
pavilions, where the Earl's apothecaries were at once in attendance.
William of Douglas was the first to revive, which he did almost as
soon as the laces of his helm had been undone and water dashed upon
his face. His head still sang, he declared, like a hive of bees, but
that was all.

He bent with the anxiety of a generous enemy over the unconscious form
of the Marshal de Retz, from whom they were stripping his armour. At
the removal of the helmet, the strange parchment face with its
blue-black stubbly beard was seen to be more than usually pale and
drawn. The upper lip was retracted, and a set of long white teeth
gleamed like those of a wild beast.

The apothecary was just commencing to strip off the leathern
under-doublet from the ambassador's body to search for a wound, when
Poitou, his squire, happened to open his eyes. He had been laid upon
the floor, as the most seriously wounded of the combatants, though
being the least in honour he fell to be attended last.

Instantly he cried out a strange Breton word, unintelligible to all
present, and, leaping from the floor, he flung himself across the body
of his master, dashing aside the astonished apothecary, who had only
time to discern on the marshal's shoulder the scar of a recent
cautery before Poitou had restored the leathern under-doublet to its
place.

"Hands off! Do not touch my master. I alone can bring him to. Leave
the room, all of you."

"Sirrah!" cried the Earl, sternly, striding towards him, "I will teach
you to speak humbly to more honourable men."

"My lord," cried Poitou, instantly recalled to himself, "believe me, I
meant no ill. But true it is that I only can recover him. I have often
seen him taken thus. But I must be left alone. My master hath a
blemish upon him, and one great gentleman does not humiliate another
in the presence of underlings. My Lord Douglas, as you love honour,
bid all to leave me alone for a brief space."

"Much cared he for honour, when he threw the lance at my master!"
growled Sholto. "Had I known, I would have driven my bill-point six
inches lower, and then would there have been a most satisfactory
blemish in the joining of his neck-bone."




CHAPTER XXIII

SHOLTO WINS KNIGHTHOOD


The ambassador recovered quickly after he had been left with his
servant Poitou, according to the latter's request. The Lady Sybilla
manifested the most tender concern in the matter of the accident of
judgment which had been the means of diverting her kinsman from his
own opponent and bringing him into collision with the Earl Douglas.

"Often have I striven with my lord that he should ride no more in the
lists," she said, "for since he received the lance-thrust in the eye
by the side of La Pucelle before the walls of Orleans, he sees no more
aright, but bears ever in the direction of the eye which sees and away
from that wherein he had his wound."

"Indeed, I knew not that the Marshal de Retz had been wounded in the
eye, or I should not have permitted him to ride in the tourney,"
returned the Earl, gravely. "The fault was mine alone."

The Lady Sybilla smiled upon him very sweetly and graciously.

"You are great soldiers--you Douglases. Six knights are chosen from
the muster of half a kingdom to ride a _melee_. Four are Douglases,
and, moreover, cousins germain in blood."

"Indeed, we might well have compassed the sword-play," said the Earl
William, "for in our twenty generations we never learned aught else.
Our arms are strong enough and our skulls thick enough, for even mine
uncle, the Abbot, hath his Latin by the ear. And one Semple, a plain
burgher of Dumfries, did best him at it--or at least would have shamed
him, but that he desired not to lose the custom of the Abbey."

"When you come to France," replied the girl, smiling on him, "it will
indeed be stirring to see you ride a bout with young Messire Lalain,
the champion of Burgundy, or with that Miriadet of Dijon, whose arm is
like that of a giant and can fell an ox at a blow."

"Truly," said the young Earl, modestly, "you do me overmuch honour. My
cousin James there, he is the champion among us, and alone could
easily have over-borne me to-day, without the aid of your uncle's
blind eye. Even William of Avondale is a better lance than I, and
young Hugh will be when his time comes."

"Your squire fought a good fight," she went on, "though his
countenance does not commend itself to me, being full of all
self-sufficience."

"Sholto--yes; he is his father's son and fought well. He is a MacKim,
and cannot do otherwise. He will make a good knight, and, by Saint
Bride, I will dub him one, ere this sun set, for his valiant laying on
of the axe this day."

The great muster was now over. The tents which had been dotted thickly
athwart the castle island were already mostly struck, and the ground
was littered with miscellaneous debris, soon to be carried off in
trail carts with square wooden bodies set on boughs of trees, and
flung into the river, by the Earl's varlets and stablemen.

The multitudinous liegemen of the Douglas were by this time streaming
homewards along every mountain pass. Over the heather and through the
abounding morasses horse and foot took their way, no longer marching
in military order, as when they came, but each lance taking the route
which appeared the shortest to himself. North, east, and west
spear-heads glinted and armour flashed against the brown of the
heather and the green of the little vales, wherein the horses bent
their heads to pull at the meadow hay as their riders sought the
nearest way back again to their peel-towers and forty-shilling lands.

It was at the great gate of Thrieve that the Earl called aloud for
Sholto. He had been speaking to his cousin William, a strong, silent
man, whose repute was highest for good counsel among all the branches
of the house of Douglas.

Sholto came forward from the head of his archer guard with a haste
which betrayed his anxiety lest in some manner he had exceeded his
duty. The Earl bade him kneel down. A little behind, the young
Douglases of Avondale, William, James, and Hugh, sat their horses,
while the boy David, who had been left at home to keep the castle,
looked forth disconsolately from the window of the great hall. On the
steps stood the little Maid Margaret and her companion, Maud Lindesay,
who had come down to meet the returning train of riders. And, truth to
tell, that was what Sholto cared most about. He did not wish to be
disgraced before them all.

So as he knelt with an anxious countenance before his lord, the Earl
took his cousin William's sword out of his hand, and, laying it on the
shoulder of Sholto MacKim, he said, "Great occasions bring forth good
men, and even one battle tries the temper of the sword. You, Sholto,
have been quickly tried, but thy father hath been long tempering you.
Three days agone you were but one of the archer guard, yesterday you
were made its captain, to-day I dub you knight for the strong courage
of the heart that is within, and the valiant service which this day
you did your lord. Rise, Sir Sholto!"

But for all that he rose not immediately, for the head of the young
man whirled, and little drumming pulses beat in his temples. His heart
cried within him like the overword of a song, "Does she hear? Will she
care? Will this bring me nearer to her?" So that, in spite of his
lord's command, he continued to kneel, till lusty James of Avondale
came and caught him by the elbow. "Up, Sir Knight, and give grace and
good thank to your lord. Not your head but mine hath a right to be
muzzy with the coup I gat this day on the green meadow of the Boat
Croft."

And practical William of Avondale whispered in his cousin's ear, "And
the lands for the youth that we spoke of."

"Moreover," said the Earl, "that you may suitably support the
knighthood which your sword has won, I freely bestow on you the
forty-shilling lands of Aireland and Lincolns with Screel and Ben
Gairn, on condition that you and yours shall keep the watch-fires laid
ready for the lighting, and that in time you rear you sturdy yeomen to
bear in the Douglas train the banneret of MacKim of Aireland."

Sholto stood before his generous lord trembling and speechless, while
James Douglas shook him by the elbow and encouraged him roughly, "Say
thy say, man; hast lost thy tongue?"

But William Douglas nodded approval of the youth.

"Nay," he said, "let alone, James! I like the lad the better that he
hath no ready tongue. 'Tis not the praters that fight as this youth
hath fought this day!"

So all that Sholto found himself able to do, was no more than to kneel
on one knee and kiss his master's hand.

"I am too young," he muttered. "I am not worthy."

"Nay," said his master, "but you have fairly won your spurs. They made
me a knight when I was but two years of my age, and I cried all the
time for my nurse, your good mother, who, when she came, comforted me
with pap. Surely it was right that I should make a place for my
foster-brother within the goodly circle of the Douglas knights."

[Illustration: "I AM TOO YOUNG," HE MUTTERED; "I AM NOT WORTHY."]




CHAPTER XXIV

THE SECOND FLOUTING OF MAUD LINDESAY


Sholto MacKim stood on the lowest step of the ascent into the noble
gateway of Thrieve, hardly able to believe in his own good fortune.
But these were the days when no man awaked without having the
possibility of either a knighthood or the gallows tree to encourage
him to do his duty between dawn and dark.

The lords of Douglas had gone within, and were now drinking the Cup of
Appetite as their armour was being unbraced by the servitors, and the
chafed limbs rubbed with oil and vinegar after the toils of the
tourney. But still Sholto stood where his master had left him, looking
at the green scum of duckweed which floated on the surface of the moat
of Thrieve, yet of a truth seeing nothing whatever, till a low voice
pierced the abstraction of his reverie.

"Sir Sholto!" said Mistress Maud Lindesay, "I bid you a long good-by,
Sir Sholto MacKim! Say farewell to him, Margaret, as you hear me do!"

"Good-by, kind Sir Sholto!" piped the childish voice of the Maid of
Galloway, as she made a little courtesy to Sholto MacKim in imitation
of her companion. "I know not where you are going, but Maudie bids me,
so I will!"

"And wherefore say you good-by to me?" cried Sholto, finding his words
at once in the wholesome atmosphere of raillery which everywhere
accompanied that quipsome damosel, Mistress Maud Lindesay.

"Why, because we are humble folk, and must get our ways upstairs out
of the way of dignities. Permit me to kiss your glove, fair lord!" and
here she tripped down the steps and pretended to take his hand.

"Hold off!" he cried, snatching it away angrily, for her tone vexed
and thwarted him.

The girl affected a great terror, which merged immediately into a meek
affectation of resignation.

"No--you are right--we are not worthy even to kiss your knightly
hand," she said, "but we will respectfully greet you." Here she swept
him a full reverence, and ran up the steps again before he could take
hold of her. Then, standing on the topmost step, and holding her
friend's hand in hers, she spoke to the Maid of Galloway in a tone
hushed and regretful, as one speaks of the dead.

"No, Margaret," she said, "he will no more play with us. Hide-and-seek
about the stack-yard ricks at the Mains is over in the gloamings. Sir
Sholto cares no more for us. He has put away childish things. He will
not even blow out a lamp for us with his own honourable lips. No, he
will call his squire to do it!"

Sholto looked the indignation he would not trust himself to speak.

"He will dine with the Earl in hall, and quaff and stamp and shout
with the best when they drink the toasts. But he has become too great
a man to carry you and me any more over the stepping-stones at the
ford, or pull with us the ripe berries when the briars are drooping
purple on the braes of Keltonhill. Bid him good-by, Margaret, for he
was our kind friend once. And when he rides out to battle, perhaps, if
we are good and respectful, he may again wave us a hand and say:
'There are two lassies that once I kenned!'"

At this inordinate flouting the patience of the new knight, growing
more and more angry at each word, came quickly to the breaking point;
for his nerves were jarred and jangled by the excitement of the day.
He gave vent to a short sharp cry, and started up the steps with the
intention of making Mistress Lindesay pay in some fashion for her
impertinence. But that active and gamesome maid was most entirely on
the alert. Indeed, she had been counting from the first upon provoking
such a movement. And so, with her nimble charge at her heels, Mistress
Lindesay was already at the inner port, and through the iron-barred
gate of the turret stair, before the youthful captain of the guard,
still cumbered with his armour, could reach the top of the outer
steps.

As soon as Sholto saw that he was hopelessly distanced, he slackened
his gait, and, with a sober tread befitting a knight and officer of a
garrison, he walked along the passage which led to the chamber
allotted to the captain of the guard, from which that day Landless
Jock had removed his effects.

The soldiers of the guard, who had heard of the honours which had so
swiftly come upon the young man, rose and respectfully saluted their
chief. And Sholto, though he had been silent when the sharp tongue of
the mirth-loving maid tormented him, found speech readily enough now.

"I thank you," he said, acknowledging their salutations. "We have
known each other before. Fortune and misfortune come to all, and it
will be your turns one day. But up or down, good or ill, we shall not
be the worse comrades for having kept the guard and sped the bolt
together."

Then there came one behind him who stood at the door of his chamber,
as he was unhelming himself, and said: "My captain, there stand at the
turret stair the ladies Margaret and Maud with a message for you."

"A message for me--what is it?" said Sholto, testily, being (and small
blame to him) a trifle ruffled in his temper.

"Nay, sir," said the man, respectfully, "that I know not, but methinks
it comes from my lord."

It will not do to say to what our gallant Sholto condemned all
tricksome queans and spiteful damosels in whose eyes dwelt mischief
brimming over, and whose tongues spoke softest words that yet stung
and rankled like fairy arrows dipped in gall and wormwood.

But since the man stood there and repeated, "I judge the message to be
one from my lord," Sholto could do no less than hastily pull on his
doublet and again betake himself along the corridor to the foot of the
stair.

When he arrived there he saw no one, and was about to depart again as
he had come, when the head of Maud Lindesay appeared round the upper
spiral looking more distractedly mischievous and bewitching than ever,
her head all rippling over with dark curls and her eyes fairly
scintillating light. She nodded to him and leaned a little farther
over, holding tightly to the baluster meanwhile.

"Well," said Sholto, roughly, "what are my lord's commands for me, if,
indeed, he has charged you with any?"

"He bids me say," replied Mistress Maud Lindesay, "that, since lamps
are dangerous things in maidens' chambers, he desires you to assist in
the trimming of the waxen tapers to-night--that is, if so menial a
service shame not your knighthood."

"Pshaw!" muttered Sholto, "my lord said naught of the sort."

"Well then," said Maud Lindesay, smiling down upon him with an
expression innocent and sweet as that of an angel on a painted
ceiling, "you will be kind and come and help us all the same?"

"That I will not!" said Sholto, stamping his foot like an ill-tempered
boy.

"Yes, you will--because Margaret asks you?"

_"I will not!"_

"Then because _I_ ask you?"

Spite of his best endeavours, Sholto could not take his eyes from the
girl's face, which seemed fairer and more desirable to him now than
ever. A quick sob of passion shook him, and he found words at last:

"Oh, Maud Lindesay, why do you treat thus one who loves you with all
his heart?"

The girl's face changed. The mischief died out of it, and something
vague and soft welled up in her eyes, making them mistily grey and
lustrous. But she only said: "Sholto, it is growing dark already! It
is time the tapers were trimmed!"

Then Sholto followed her up the stairs, and though I do not know,
there is some reason for thinking that he forgave her all her
wickedness in the sweet interspace between the gloaming and the mirk,
when the lamps were being lighted on earth, and in heaven the stars
were coming out.




CHAPTER XXV

THE DOGS AND THE WOLF HOLD COUNCIL


It was a week or two after the date of the great wappenshaw and
tourneying at the Castle of Thrieve, that in the midmost golden haze
of a summer's afternoon four men sat talking together about a table in
a room of the royal palace of Stirling.

No one of the four was any longer young, and one at least was
immoderately fat. This was James, Earl of Avondale, granduncle of the
present Earl of Douglas, and, save for young David, the Earl's
brother, nearest heir to the title and all the estates and honours
pertaining thereto, with the single exception of the Lordship of
Galloway.

The other three were, first, Sir Alexander Livingston, the guardian of
the King's person, a handsome man with a curled beard, who was
supposed to stand high in the immediate favours of the Queen, and who
had long been tutor to his Majesty as well as guardian of his royal
person. Opposite to Livingston, and carefully avoiding his eye, sat a
man of thin and foxy aspect, whose smooth face, small shifty mouth,
and perilous triangular eyes marked him as one infinitely more
dangerous than either of the former--Sir William Crichton, the
Chancellor of the realm of Scotland.

The fourth was speaking, and his aspect, strange and ofttimes
terrifying, is already familiar to us. But the pallid corpse-like
face, the blue-black beard, the wild-beast look, in the eyes of the
Marshal de Retz, ambassador of the King of France, were now more than
ever heightened in effect by the studied suavity of his demeanour and
the graciousness of language with which he was clothing what he had to
say.

"I have brought you together after taking counsel with my good Lord of
Avondale. I am aware, most noble seigneurs, that there have been
differences between you in the past as to the conduct of the affairs
of this great kingdom; but I am obeying both the known wishes and the
express commands of my own King in endeavouring to bring you to an
agreement. You will not forget that the Dauphin of France is wedded to
the Scottish princess nearest the throne, and that therefore he is not
unconcerned in the welfare of this realm.

"Now, messieurs, it cannot be hid from you that there is one
overriding and insistent peril which ought to put an end to all your
misunderstandings. There is a young man in this land, more powerful
than you or the King, or, indeed, all the powers legalised and
established within the bounds of Scotland.

"Who is above the law, gentlemen? I name to you the Earl of Douglas.
Who hath a retinue ten times more magnificent than that with which the
King rides forth? The Earl of Douglas! Who possesses more than half
Scotland, and that part the fairest and richest? Who holds in his
hands all the strong castles, is joined by bond of service and manrent
with the most powerful nobles of the land? Who but the Earl of
Douglas, Duke of Touraine, Warden of the Marches, hereditary
Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom?"

At this point the crafty eyes of Crichton the Chancellor were turned
full upon the speaker. His hand tugged nervously at his thin reddish
beard as if it had been combing the long goat's tuft which grew
beneath his smooth chin.

"But did not you yourself come all the way from France to endue him
with the duchy of Touraine?" he said. "Doth that look like pulling him
down from his high seat?"

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