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S. R. Crockett - The Black Douglas

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




"Nay, Maud," said Sholto, trying to draw the girl again near him,
because she kept him at arm's length by the unyielding strength of her
wrist, "none shall ever come near my heart save Maud Lindesay alone! I
would that I could ride away as sure of you as you are of Sholto
MacKim!"

"Indeed," cried the girl, with some show of returning spirit, "to that
you have no claim. Never have I said that I loved you, nor indeed that
I thought about you at all."

"It is true," answered Sholto, "and yet--I think you will remember me
when the lamps are blown out. God speed, belovedst, I hear the trumpet
blow, and the horses trampling."

For out on the green before the castle the Earl's guard was mustering,
and Fergus MacCulloch, the Earl's trumpeter, blew an impatient blast.
It seemed to speak to this effect:

_"Hasten ye, hasten ye, come to the riding,
Hasten ye, hasten ye, lads of the Dee--
Douglasdale come, come Galloway, Annandale,
Galloway blades are the best of the three!"_

Sholto held out his arms at the first burst of the stirring sound, and
the girl, all her wayward pride falling from her in a moment, came
straight into them.

"Good-by, my sweetheart," he said, stooping to kiss the lips that now
said him not nay, but which quivered pitifully as he touched them,
"God knows whether these eyes shall rest again on the desire of my
heart."

Maud looked into his face steadily and searchingly.

"You are sure you will not forget me, Sholto?" she said; "you will
love me as much to-morrow when you are far away, and think me as fair
as you do when you hold me thus in your arms upon the battlements of
Thrieve?"

Before Sholto had time to answer, the trumpet rang out again, with a
call more instant and imperious than before.

[Illustration: "BUT THERE COMETH A NIGHT WHEN EVERY ONE OF US WATCHES
THE GREY SHALLOWS TO THE EAST FOR THOSE THAT SHALL RETURN NO MORE!"]

Sholto clasped her close to him as the second summons shrilled up into
the air.

"God keep my little lass!" he said; "fear not, Maud, I have never
loved any but you!"

He was gone. And through her tears Maud Lindesay watched him from the
top of the great square keep, as he rode off gallantly behind the Earl
and his brother.

"In time past I have dreamed," she thought to herself, "that I loved
this one and that; but it was not at all like this. I cannot put him
out of my mind for a moment, even when I would!"

As the brothers William and David Douglas crossed the rough bridge of
pine thrown over the narrows of the Dee, they looked back
simultaneously. Their mother stood on the green moat platform of
Thrieve, with their little sister Margaret holding up her train with a
pretty modesty. She waved not a hand, fluttered no kerchief of
farewell, only stood sadly watching the sons with whom she had
travailed, like one who watches the dear dead borne to their last
resting-place.

"So," she communed, "even thus do the women of the Douglas House watch
their beloveds ride out of sight. And so for many times they return
through the ford at dawn or dusk. But there cometh a night when every
one of us watches the grey shallows to the east for those that shall
return no more!"

"See, see!" cried the little Margaret, "look, dear mother, they have
taken off their caps, and even Sholto hath his steel bonnet in his
hand. They are bidding us farewell. I wish Maudie had been here to
see. I wonder where she has hidden herself. How surprised she will be
to find that they are gone!"

It was a true word that the little Maid of Galloway spoke, for,
according to the pretty custom of the young Earl, the cavalcade had
halted ere they plunged into the woods of Kelton. The Douglas lads
took their bonnets in their hands. Their dark hair was stirred by the
breeze. Sholto also bared his head and looked towards the speck of
white which he could just discern on the summit of the frowning keep.

"Shall ever her eyelashes rise and fall again for me, and shall I see
the smile waver alternately petulant and tender upon her lips?"

This was his meditation. For, being a young man in love, these things
were more to him than matins and evensong, king or chancellor, heaven
or hell--as indeed it was right and wholesome that they should be.




CHAPTER XXIX

CASTLE CRICHTON


Crichton Castle was much more a defenced chateau and less a feudal
stronghold than Thrieve. It stood on a rising ground above the little
Water of Tyne, which flowed clear and swift beneath from the blind
"hopes" and bare valleys of the Moorfoot Hills. But the site was well
chosen both for pleasure and defence. The ground fell away on three
sides. Birch, alder, ash, girt it round and made pleasant summer
bowers everywhere.

The fox-faced Chancellor had spent much money on beautifying it, and
the kitchens and larders were reported to be the best equipped in
Scotland. On the green braes of Crichton, therefore, in due time the
young Douglases arrived with their sparse train of thirty riders. Sir
William Crichton had ridden out to meet them across the innumerable
little valleys which lie around Temple and Borthwick to the brow of
that great heathy tableland which runs back from the Moorfoots clear
to the Solway.

With him were only the Marshal de Retz and his niece, the Lady
Sybilla.

Not a single squire or man-at-arms accompanied these three, for, as
the Chancellor well judged, there was no way more likely effectually
to lull the suspicions of a gallant man like the Douglas than to
forestall him in generous confidence.

The three sat their horses and looked to the south for their guests at
that delightsome hour of the summer gloaming when the last bees are
reluctantly disengaging themselves from the dewy heather bells and the
circling beetles begin their booming curfew.

"There they come!" cried de Retz, suddenly, pointing to a few specks
of light which danced and dimpled between them and the low horizon of
the south, against which, like a spacious armada, leaned a drift of
primrose sunset clouds.

"There they come--I see them also!" said the Lady Sybilla, and
suddenly sighed heavily and without cause.

"Where, and how many?" cried the Chancellor, in a shrill pipe usually
associated with the physically deformed, but which from him meant no
more than anxious discomposure.

The marshal pointed with the steady hand of the practised commander to
the spot at which his keen eye had detected the cavalcade.

"Yonder," he said, "where the pine tree stands up against the sky."

"And how many? I cannot see them, my eyesight fails. I bid you tell me
how many," gasped the Chancellor.

The ambassador looked long.

"There are, as I think, no more than twenty or thirty riders."

Instantly the Chancellor turned and held out his hand.

"We have him," he muttered, withdrawing it again as soon as he saw
that the ambassador did not take it, being occupied gazing under his
palm at the approaching train of riders.

The Lady Sybilla sat silent and watched the company which rode towards
them--with what thoughts in her heart, who shall venture to guess? She
kept her head studiously averted from the Marshal de Retz, and once
when he touched her arm to call attention to something, she shuddered
and moved a little nearer to the Chancellor. Nevertheless, she obeyed
her companion implicitly and without question when he bade her ride
forward with them to receive the Chancellor's guests.

Crichton took it on himself to rally the girl on her silence.

"Of what may you be thinking so seriously?" he said.

"Of thirty pieces of silver," she replied instantly.

And at these words the marshal turned upon the girl a regard so black
and relentless that the Chancellor, happening to encounter it, shrank
back abashed, even as some devilkin caught in a fault might shrink
from the angry eyes of the Master of Evil.

But the Lady Sybilla looked calmly at her kinsman.

"Of what do you complain?" he asked her.

"I complain of nothing," she made him answer. "I am that which I am,
and I am that which you have made me, my Lord of Retz. Fear not, I
will do my part."

Right handsome looked the young Earl of Douglas, as with a flush of
expectation and pleasure on his face he rode up to the party of three
who had come out to meet him. He made his obeisance to Sybilla first,
with a look of supremest happiness in his eyes which many women would
have given their all to see there. As he came close he leaped from his
horse, and advancing to his lady he bent and kissed her hand.

"My Lady Sybilla," he said, "I am as ever your loyal servant."

The Chancellor and the ambassador had both dismounted, not to be
outdone in courtesy, and one after the other they greeted him with
what cordiality they could muster. The narrow, thin-bearded face of
the Chancellor and the pallid death-mask of de Retz, out of which
glittered orbs like no eyes of human being, furnished a singular
contrast to the uncovered head, crisp black curls, slight moustache,
and fresh olive complexion of the young Earl of Douglas.

And as often as he was not looking at her, the eyes of the Lady
Sybilla rested on Lord Douglas with a strange expression in their
deeps. The colour in her cheek came and went. The vermeil of her lip
flushed and paled alternate, from the pink of the wild rose-leaf to
the red of its autumnal berry.

But presently, at a glance from her kinsman, Sybilla de Thouars seemed
to recall herself with difficulty from a land of dreams, and with an
obvious effort began to talk to William Douglas.

"Whom have you brought to see me?" she said.

"Only a few men-at-arms, besides Sholto my squire, and my brother
David," he made answer. "I did not wait for more. But let me bring the
lad to you. Sholto you did not like when he was a plain archer of the
guard, and I fear that he will not have risen in your grace since I
dubbed him knight."

David Douglas willingly obeyed the summons of his brother, and came
forward to kiss the hand of the Lady Sybilla.

"Here, Sholto," cried his lord, "come hither, man. It will do your
pride good to see a lady who avers that conceit hath eaten you up."

Sholto came at the word and bowed before the French damosel as he was
commanded, meekly enough to all outward aspect. But in his heart he
was saying over and over to himself words that consoled him mightily:
"A murrain on her! The cozening madam, she will never be worth naming
on the same day as Maud Lindesay!"

"Nay," cried the Lady Sybilla, laughing; "indeed, I said not that I
disliked this your squire. What woman thinks the worse of a lad of
mettle that he does not walk with his head between his feet. But 'tis
pity that there is no fair cruel maid to bind his heart in chains, and
make him fetch and carry to break his pride. He thinks overmuch of his
sword-play and arrow skill."

"He must go to France for that humbling," said the Earl, gaily, "or
else mayhap some day a maid may come from France to break his heart
for him. The like hath been and may be again."

"I would that I had known there were such gallant blades as you three,
my Lords of Douglas and their knight, sighing here in Scotland to have
your hearts broke for the good of your souls. I had then brought with
me a tierce of damsels fair as cruel, who had done it in the flashing
of a swallow's wing. But 'tis a contract too great for one poor maid."

"Yet you yourself ventured all alone into this realm of forlorn and
desperate men," answered the Earl, scarcely recking what he said, nor
indeed caring so that her dark eyes should continue to rest on him
with the look he had seen in them at his first coming.

"All alone--yes, much, much alone," she answered with a strange
glance about her. "My kinsman loves not womankind, and neither in his
castles nor yet in his company does he permit any of the sex long to
abide."

The men now mounted again, and the three rode back in the midst of the
cavalcade of Douglas spears, the Chancellor talking as freely and
confidently to the Earl as if he had been his friend for years, while
the Earl of Douglas kept up the converse right willingly so long as,
looking past the Chancellor, his eyes could rest also upon the
delicately poised head and graceful form of the Lady Sybilla.

And behind them a horse's length the Marshal de Retz rode, smiling in
the depths of his blue-black beard, and looking at them out of the
wicks of his triangular eyes.

Presently the towers of the Castle of Crichton rose before them on its
green jutting spur. The Tyne Valley sank beneath into level meads and
rich pastures, while behind the Moorfoots spread brown and bare
without prominent peaks or distinguished glens, but nevertheless with
a certain large vagueness and solemnity peculiarly their own.

The _fetes_ with which the Chancellor welcomed his guests were many
and splendid. But in one respect they differed from those which have
been described at Castle Thrieve. There was no military pomp of any
kind connected with them. The Chancellor studiously avoided all
pretence of any other distinction than that belonging to a plain man
whom circumstances have raised against his will to a position of
responsibility.

The thirty spears of the Earl's guard, indeed, constituted the whole
military force within or about the Castle of Crichton.

"I am a lawyer, my lord, a plain lawyer," he said; "all Scots lawyers
are plain. And I must ask you to garrison my bit peel-tower of
Crichton in a manner more befitting your own greatness, and the honour
due to the ambassador of France, than a humble knight is able to do."

So Sholto was put into command of the court and battlements of the
castle, and posted and changed guard as though he had been at Thrieve,
while the Chancellor bustled about, affecting more the style of a rich
and comfortable burgess than that of a feudal baron.

"'Tis a snug bit hoose," he would say, dropping into the countryside
speech; "there's nocht fine within it from cellar to roof tree, save
only the provend and the jolly Malmsey. And though I be but a poor
eater myself, I love that my betters, who do me the honour of
sojourning within my gates, should have the wherewithal to be merry."

And it was even as he said, for the tables were weighted with
delicacies such as were never seen upon the boards of Thrieve or
Castle Douglas.




CHAPTER XXX

THE BOWER BY YON BURNSIDE


And ever as he gazed at her the Earl of Douglas grew more and more in
love with the Lady Sybilla. There was no covert side through which a
burn plunged downward from the steep side of Moorfoot, but they
wandered it alone together. Early and late they might have been met,
he with his face turned upon her, and she looking straight forward
with the same inscrutable calm. And all who saw left them alone as
they took their way to gather flowers like children, or, as it might
be, stood still and silent like a pair of lovers under the evening
star. For in these summer days and nights bloomed untiringly the brief
passion-flower of William Douglas's life.

Meanwhile Sholto gritted his teeth in impotent rage, but had nothing
to do save change guard and keep a wary eye upon the Chancellor, who
went about rubbing his hands and glancing sidelong as the copses
closed behind the Earl of Douglas and the Lady Sybilla. As for the
ambassador of France, he was, as was usual with him, much occupied in
his own chamber with his servants Poitou and Henriet, and save when
dinner was served in hall appeared little at the festivities.

Sholto wished at times for the presence of his father; but at others,
when he saw William Douglas and Sybilla return with a light on their
faces, and their eyes large and vague, he bethought him of Maud
Lindesay, and was glad that, for a little at least, the sun of love
should shine upon his lord.

It was in the gracious fulness of the early autumn, when the sheaves
were set up in many a park and little warded holt about the Moorfoot
braes, that William Douglas and Sybilla de Thouars stood together upon
a crest of hill, crowned with dwarf birch and thick foliaged alder--a
place in the retirement of whose sylvan bower they had already spent
many tranced hours.

The Lady Sybilla sat down on a worn grey rock which thrust itself
through the green turf. William Douglas stood beside her pulling a
blade of bracken to pieces. The girl had been wearing a broad flat cap
of velvet, which in the coolness of the twilight she had removed and
now swung gently to and fro in her hand as she looked to the north,
where small as a toy and backed by the orange glow of sunset, the
Castle of Edinburgh could be seen black upon its wind-swept ridge. The
girl was speaking slowly and softly.

"Nay, Earl Douglas," she said, "marriage must not be named to Sybilla
de Thouars, certainly never by an Earl of Douglas and Duke of
Touraine. He must wed for riches and fair provinces. His house is
regal already. He is better born than the King, more powerful also.
The daughter of a Breton squire, of a forlorn and deserted mother, the
kinswoman of Gilles de Retz of Machecoul and Champtoce, is not for
him."

"A Douglas makes many sacrifices," said the young man with
earnestness; "but this is not demanded of him. Four generations of us
have wedded for power. It is surely time that one did so for love."

The girl reached him her hand, saying softly: "Ah, William, would that
it had been so. Too late I begin to think on those things which might
have been, had Sybilla de Thouars been born under a more fortunate
star. As it is I can only go on--a terror to myself and a bane to
others."

The young man, absorbed in his own thoughts, did not hear her words.

"The world itself were little to give in order that in exchange I
might possess you," he answered.

The girl laughed a strange laugh, and drew back her hand from his.

"Possess me, well--but marry me--no. Honest men and honourable like
Earl Douglas do not wed with the niece of Gilles de Retz. I had
thought my heart within me to be as flint in the chalk, yet now I pray
you on my knees to leave me. Take your thirty lances and your young
brother and ride home. Then, safe in your island fortress of Thrieve,
blot out of your heart all memory that ever you found pleasure in a
creature so miserable as Sybilla de Thouars."

"But," said the young Earl, passionately, "tell me why so, my lady. I
do not understand. What obstacle can there be? You tell me that you
love me, that you are not betrothed. Your kinsman is an honourable
man, a marshal and an ambassador of France, a cousin of the Duke of
Brittany, a reigning sovereign. Moreover, am not I the Douglas? I am
responsible to no man. William Douglas may wed whom he will--king's
daughter or beggar wench. Why should he not join with the honourable
daughter of an honourable house, and the one woman he has ever loved?"

The girl let her velvet cap fall on the ground, and sank her face
between her hands. Her whole body was shaken with emotion.

"Go--go," she cried, starting to her feet and standing before him,
"call out your lances and ride home this night. Never look more upon
the face of such a thing as Sybilla de Thouars. I bid you! I warn you!
I command you! I thought I had been of stone, but now when I see you,
and hear your words, I cannot do that which is laid upon me to do."

William of Douglas smiled.

"I cannot go," he said simply, "I love you. Moreover, I will not go--I
am Earl of Douglas."

The girl clasped her hands helplessly.

"Not if I tell you that I have deceived you, led you on?" she said.
"Not if I swear that I am the slave of a power so terrible that there
are no words in any language to tell the least of the things I have
suffered?"

The Earl shook his head. The girl suddenly stamped her foot in anger.
"Go--go, I tell you," she cried; "stay not a day in this accursed
place, wherein no true word is spoken and no loyal deed done, save
those which come forth from your own true heart."

"Nay," said William Douglas, with his eyes on hers, "it is too late,
Sybil. I have kissed the red of your lips. Your head hath lain on my
breast. My whole soul is yours. I cannot now go back, even if I would.
The boy I have been, I can be no more for ever."

The girl rose from the stone on which she had been sitting. There was
a new smile in her eyes. She held out her hands to the youth who
stood so erect and proud before her. "Well, at the worst, William
Douglas," she said, "you may never live to wear a white head, but at
least you shall touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
taste the fruitage and smell the blossoms thereof more than a hundred
greybeards. I had not thought that earth held anywhere such a man, or
that aught but blackness and darkness remained this side of hell for
one so desolate as I. I have bid you leave me. I have told you that
which, were it known, would cost me my life. But since you will not
go,--since you are strong enough to stand unblenching in the face of
doom,--you shall not lose all without a price."

She opened her arms wide, and her eyes were glorious.

"I love you," she said, her lips thrilling towards him, "I love you,
love you, as I never thought to love any man upon this earth."




CHAPTER XXXI

THE GABERLUNZIE MAN


The next morning the Chancellor came down early from his chamber, and
finding Earl Douglas already waiting in the courtyard, he rubbed his
hands and called out cheerfully: "We shall be more lonely to-day, but
perhaps even more gay. For there are many things men delight in which
even the fairest ladies care not for, fearing mayhap some invasion of
their dominions."

"What mean you, my Lord Chancellor?" said the Douglas to his host,
eagerly scanning the upper windows meanwhile.

"I mean," said the Chancellor, fawningly, "that his Excellency, the
ambassador of France, hath ridden away under cloud of night, and hath
taken his fair ward with him."

The Earl turned pale and stood glowering at the obsequious Chancellor
as if unable to comprehend the purport of his words. At last he
commanded himself sufficiently to speak.

"Was this resolution sudden, or did the Lady Sybilla know of it
yesternight?"

"Nay, of a surety it was quite sudden," replied the Chancellor. "A
message arrived from the Queen Mother to the Marshal de Retz
requesting an immediate meeting on business of state, whereupon I
offered my Castle of Edinburgh for the purpose as being more
convenient than Stirling. So I doubt not that they are all met there,
the young King being of the party. It is, indeed, a quaint falling
out, for of late, as you may have heard, the Tutor and the Queen have
scarce been of the number of my intimates."

The Earl of Douglas appeared strangely disturbed. He paid no further
attention to his host, but strode to and fro in the courtyard with his
thumbs in his belt, in an attitude of the deepest meditation.

The Chancellor watched him from under his eyebrows with alternate
apprehension and satisfaction, like a timid hunter who sees the lion
half in and half out of the snare.

"I have a letter for you, my Lord Douglas," he said, after a long
pause.

"Ah," cried Douglas, with obvious relief, "why did you not tell me so
at first. Pray give it me."

"I knew not whether it might afford you pleasure or no," answered the
Chancellor.

"Give it me!" cried Douglas, imperiously, as though he spoke to an
underling.

Sir William Crichton drew a square parcel from beneath his long-furred
gown, and handed it to William Douglas, who, without stepping back,
instantly broke the seal.

"Pshaw," cried he, contemptuously, "it is from the Queen Mother and
Alexander Livingston!"

He thought it had been from another, and his disappointment was
written clear upon his face.

"Even so," said the Chancellor, suavely; "it was delivered by the same
servant who brought the message which called away the ambassador and
his companion."

The Earl read it from beginning to end. After the customary greetings
and good wishes the letter ran as follows:

"The King greatly desires to see his noble cousin of Douglas
at the castle of Edinburgh, presently put at his Majesty's
disposal by the High Chancellor of Scotland. Here in this
place are now assembled all the men who desire the peace and
assured prosperity of the realm, saving the greatest of all,
my Lord and kinsman of Douglas. The King sends affectionate
greeting to his cousin, and desires that he also may come
thither, that the ambassador of France may carry back to his
master a favourable report of the unity and kindly
governance of the kingdom during his minority."

The Chancellor watched the Earl as he read this letter. To one more
suspicious than William Douglas it would have been clear that he was
himself perfectly acquainted with the contents.

"I am bidden meet the King at the Castle of Edinburgh," said Douglas;
"I will set out at once."

"Nay, my lord," said Crichton, "not this day, at least. Stay and hunt
the stag on the braes of Borthwick. My huntsmen have marked down a
swift and noble buck. To-morrow to Edinburgh an you will!"

"I thank you, Sir William," the Douglas answered, curtly enough; "but
the command is peremptory. I must ride to Edinburgh this very day."

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