Henry Gally - "A Critical Essay on Characteristic Writings"

Edwin E. Slosson - "Creative Chemistry"

David Rorie - "The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots"

Lucy Fitch Perkins - "The Puritan Twins"

A Life Split in Two
An astonishing account of the intricate and unexpected swarm intelligence of wasps, bees, ants and termites.

E Pluribus Unum
Two centuries after Gibbon, a historian plots the trajectory of another great empire’s demise.

Little Britain
Carolyn Chute’s new novel is a love song to a voiceless part of America: the rural poor.

S. R. Crockett - The Black Douglas

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




The Marshal de Retz smiled--a smile so chill, cruel, hard, that the
very soldiers on guard, seeing it, longed to slay him on the spot.

"May I, in return, ask my Lord Earl of Douglas and Duke of Touraine
what is that to him?" he said, with sneering emphasis upon the titles.

"It matters to me," replied William Douglas, boldly, "more than life,
and almost as much as honour. The Lady Sybilla did me the grace to
tell me that she loved me. And I in turn am bound to her in life and
death."

The Chancellor and the tutor broke into laughter, but the marshal
continued to smile his terrible smile of determinate evil.

"Listen," he said at last, "hear this, my Lord of Touraine; ever since
we came to this kingdom, and, indeed, long before we left the realm of
France, the Lady Sybilla intended nothing else than your deception and
destruction. Poor dupe, do you not yet understand? She it was that
cozened you with fair words. She it was that advised you to come
hither that we might hold you in our hands. For her sake you obeyed.
She was the willing bait of the trap your foes set for you. What think
you of the Lady Sybilla now?"

William of Douglas did not answer in words, but as the marshal ceased
speaking, he drew himself together like a lithe animal that sways this
way and that before springing. His right hand dropped softly from his
brother's shoulder upon the hilt of his own dagger.

Then with one sudden bound he was over the barrier and upon the dais.
Almost his blade was at the marshal's throat, and but for the crossed
partisans of two guards who stood on either side of de Retz, he had died
there and then by the dagger of William Douglas. As it was, the youth
was brought to a stand with his breast pressed vainly against the steel
points, and paused there crying out in fury, "Liar and toad! Come out
from behind these varlets that I may slay thee with my hand."

A score of men-at-arms approached from behind, and forced the young
man back to his place.

"Bring in the Lady Sybilla," said the marshal, still smiling, while
the judges sat silent and afraid at the anger of one man.

And even while the Earl stood panting after his outburst of furious
anger, they opened the door at the back of the dais and through it
there entered the Lady Sybilla. Instantly the eyes of William Douglas
fixed themselves upon her, but she did not raise hers nor look at him.
She stood at the farther side at the edge of the dais, her hands
joined in front of her, and her hair streamed down her back and fell
in waves over her white dress.

An angel of light coming through the open door of heaven could not
have appeared more innocent and pure.

The Marshal de Retz turned towards his sister-in-law, and, with his
eyes fixed upon hers and with the same pitiless chill in them, he said
in a low tone, "Look at me."

The girl raised her eyes slowly, and, as it had been, reluctantly, and
in them, instead of the meek calm of an angel, there appeared the
terror and dismay of a lost soul that listens to its doom.

"Sybilla," hissed rather than spoke de Retz, "is
it true that ever since by the lakeside of Carlinwark you met the Earl
of Douglas you have deceived him and sought his doom?"

"I care not to hear the answer," said the young man, "even did I
believe that which you by your power may compel her to say. Unfaith in
another is not unfaith in me. I am bound to this lady in love and
honour--aye, even unto death, if that be her will!"

"I have, indeed, deceived him!" replied the girl, slowly, the words
seeming to be forced from her one by one.

"You hear, William of Douglas!" said the marshal, turning upon the
young man, who stood still and motionless, never taking his eyes off
the slender figure in white.

The marshal continued his pitiless questioning.

"At Castle Thrieve you persuaded him to follow you to Crichton and
afterwards to Edinburgh, knowing well that you brought him to his
death."

"It is true!" said the girl, with a voice like one speaking out of the
grave itself.

"You hear, William of Douglas!" said the marshal.

"And at Castle Crichton you played the play to the end. With false
cozening words you deceived this young man. You led him on with love
on your lips and hate in your heart. You kissed him with the Judas
kiss. You led his soul captive to death by the drawing of your eyes."

In a voice that could hardly be heard the girl replied, her whole
figure fixed and turned to stone by the intensity of her tormentor's
gaze.

_"I did these things! I am accursed!"_

The ambassador turned with a fleering triumph.

"You hear, William of Douglas," he said, "you hear what your true love
says!"

Then it was that, with the calm air and steady voice of a great
gentleman, William Douglas answered, "I hear, but I do not believe."

A spasm of joy passed over the countenance of the Lady Sybilla. She
half sprang towards her lover as if to clasp him in her arms.

But in the midst, between intent and act, she restrained herself.

"No, I am not worthy," she said. And again, and lower, like a
lamentation, "I am not worthy!"

Then, while all watched eagerly, the marshal rose from his seat to his
full height.

"Girl--look at me!" he cried in a loud and terrible voice. But Sybilla
did not seem to hear him.

She was looking at the Earl, and her eyes were great and grey and
vague.

"Listen, my true lord, and then hate me if you will," she said;
"listen, William of Douglas. Never before have I found in all the
world one man true to the core. I did not believe that such an one
lived. Hear this and then turn from me in loathing.

"For the sake of this man's life, forfeit ten times over" (she
pointed, as she spoke, at the marshal), "to whom, by the powers of
hell, my soul is bound, I came at the bidding of the King of France
and of this man, my master, to compass the destruction of the Earl of
Douglas. Our King's son desired his duchy, and promised to this man
pardon for his evil deeds. I came to satisfy them both. On my guilty
head be the punishment. It is true that I cozened and led you on. It
is true that at Castle Thrieve I deceived you, knowing well that which
would happen. I knew to what you would follow me, and for the sake of
the evil wrought by your fathers, I was glad. But afterwards at
Crichton, when, in the woods by the waterside, I told you that I loved
you, I did not lie. I did love you then. And by God's grace I do love
you now--yea, before all men I declare it. Once for a season of
glorious forgetting, all too brief, I was yours to love, now I am
yours to hate and to despise. I tried to save you, but though you had
my warning you would not go back or forget me. Now it is too late!"

As she spoke over the face of William Douglas there had come a
glow--the red blood flooding up and routing the white determined
pallor of his cheek.

"My lady," he answered her, gently, "be not grieved for a little thing
that is past. That you love me truly is enough. I ask for no more,
least of all for pity. I have not lived long. I have not had time
allotted me wherein to do great things, but for your sake I can die as
well as any! You have given me of your love, and of the flower
thereof. I am glad. That you have loved me was my crown of life. Now
it remains but to pay a little price soon paid, for a joy exceeding
great."

But the Chancellor had had enough of this. He rose, and, stretching
forth his hand towards the barrier, he said: "William of Douglas, you
and your brother are condemned to instant death as enemies of the King
and his ministers. Soldiers, do your duty. Lead them forth to the
block!"

And with these words he left the dais, followed by Sir Alexander
Livingston. The girl stood in the place whence she had spoken her last
words. Then, as the men-at-arms went shamefacedly to take the Earl by
the arm, she suddenly threw herself across the platform, leaped
lightly over the barrier, and fell into his arms.

"William, once I would have betrayed you," she said, "but now I love
you. I will die with you--or by the great God I will live to avenge
you."

"Hush, sweetheart," said William Douglas, touching her brow gently
with his lips, and putting her into the arms of an officer of the
court whom her uncle had sent to remove her. "Fear not for me! Death
is swift and easy. I expected nothing else. That you love me is
enough! Dear love, fare thee well!"

But the girl heard him not. She had fainted in the arms that held her.
Yet the Marshal de Retz had still more for her to suffer. He stood
beside her and dashed water upon her till she awoke, that she might
see that which remained to be done.

* * * * *

It was a scene dreary beyond all power of words to tell it, when into
the courtyard of the Castle of Edinburgh they brought the two noble
young men forth to die. The sun had long risen, but the first flush of
broad morning sunshine still lingered upon the low platform on which
stood the block, and beside it the headsman sullenly waiting to do his
appointed work.

The young Lords of Douglas came out looking brave and handsome as
bridegrooms on a day of betrothing. William had once more his hand on
David's shoulder, his other rested carelessly on his thigh as his
custom was. The brothers were bareheaded, and to the eyes of those who
looked on they seemed to be conversing together of light matters of
love and ladies' favours.

High above upon a balcony, hung like an iron cage upon the castle
wall, appeared the Chancellor and the tutor. The young King was with
them, weeping and crying out, "Do nothing to my dear cousins--I
command you--I am the King!"

But the tutor roughly bade him be still, telling him that he would
never reign if these young men lived, and presently another came there
and stood beside him. The Marshal de Retz it was, who, with a fiendish
smile upon his sleek parchment face, conducted the Lady Sybilla to see
the end. But it was a good end to see, and nobler far than most lives
that are lived to fourscore years.

The brothers embraced as they came to the block, kneeled down, and
said a short prayer like Christians of a good house. So great was
their enemies' haste that they were not allowed even a priest to
shrive them, but they did what they could.

The executioner motioned first to David. An attendant brought him the
heading cup of wine, which it was the custom to offer to those about
to die upon the scaffold.

"Drink it not," said Earl William, "lest they say it was drugged."

And David Douglas bowed his head upon the block, being only in the
fifteenth year of his age.

"Farewell, brother," he said, "be not long after me. It is a darksome
road to travel so young."

"Fear not, Davie lad," said William Douglas, tenderly, "I will
overtake you ere you be through the first gate."

He turned a little aside that he might not see his brother die, and
even as he did so he saw the Lady Sybilla lean upon the balcony paler
than the dead.

Then when it came to his turn they offered the Earl William also the
heading cup filled with the rich wine of Touraine, his own fair
province that he was never to see.

He lifted the cup high in his right hand with a knightly and courtly
gesture. Looking towards the balcony whereon stood the Lady Sybilla,
he bowed to her.

"I drink to you, my lady and my love," he cried, in a voice loud and
clear.

Then, touching but the rim of the goblet with his lips, he poured out
the red wine upon the ground.

* * * * *

And thus passed the gallantest gentleman and truest lover in whom God
ever put heart of grace to live courteously and die greatly, keeping
his faith in his lady even against herself, and holding death itself
sweet because that in death she loved him.




CHAPTER XXXVI

THE RISING OF THE DOUGLASES


It was upon the Earl's own charger, Black Darnaway, that Sholto rode
southward to raise to their chief's assistance the greatest and
compactest clan that ever, even in Scotland, had done the bidding of
one man.

The young man's heart was high and hopeful within him. The King's
guardians dared not, so he told himself, let aught befall the puissant
Douglases in the Castle of Edinburgh, without trial and under cover of
the most courteous hospitality.

"Try the Earl of Douglas!" so Sholto thought within him. He laughed at
the notion. "Why, Earl William could by a word bring a hundred
thousand men of Galloway and the Marches to make a fitting jury."

So he meditated, his thoughts running fast and fiery to the beating of
Black Darnaway's feet as he climbed the heathery slopes which led
towards Douglasdale. Day was breaking as he rode down to the town of
Lanark yet asleep and smokeless in the caller airs of the morn. At the
gates of this frontier town he delivered his first summons of
feudality. For the burghers of Lanark were liegemen of the Douglases
of Douglasdale, and were (though not with much good-will) bound to
furnish service at call.

Sholto had some difficulty in making himself heard athwart the
ponderous wooden gates, bossed with leather and studded with iron. At
first he shouted angrily to the silences, but presently nearer and
nearer came a bellow as of a brazen bull, thunderous and far echoing.

"Fower o' the clock and a braw, braw morning."

It was Grice Elshioner, watchman of the town of Lanark, evidencing to
the magistrates and lieges thereof that he was earning his three
shillings in the week--a handsome wage in these hard times, and one
well able to provide belly-timber for himself and also for the wife
and weans who, dwelling in a close off the High-street, were called by
his name.

Sholto thundered again upon the rugged portal.

"Open there! Open, I say, in the name of the Earl of Douglas!"

"Fower o' the morning! Lord, what's a' the steer? In the name o' the
Yerl o' Douglas! But wha kens that it isna the English? Na, na, Grice
Elshioner opens not to every night-raking loon that likes to cry the
name o' the Yerl o' Douglas ower oor toon wa'!"

And Grice the valorous would have taken him off with a fresh,
sleep-dispelling bellow had it not been that he heard himself summoned
in a voice that brooked no delay.

"Open, varlet of a watchman, or by Saint Bride I will have you
swinging in half an hour from the bars of your own portcullis. I who
speak am Sholto MacKim, captain of the Earl's guard. Every liegeman in
the town must arm, mount, and ride this instant to Edinburgh. I give
you fair warning. You hear my words, I will not enter your rascal
town. But if so much as one be wanting at the muster, I swear in the
name of my master that his house shall be burned with fire and razed
to the ground, and his wife be a widow or ever the cock craw on
another Sabbath morn!"

And without waiting for a reply Sholto laid the reins upon the neck of
Black Darnaway and rode on southward up Douglas Water to the home nest
of the lordly race.

And behind him, with a wail in it, blared through the narrow streets
the stormy voice of Grice Elshioner, watchman of Lanark, "Wauken ye,
wauken ye, burgesses a'! The Douglas hath sent to bid ye mount and
ride."

The _birr_ of the war drum saluted Sholto's ears ere he had turned the
corner of the town parks. Then came the answering shouts of the
burghers who thrust inquiring and indignant heads out of gable windows
and turret speering-holes.

"_Birr!_" continued the undaunted and insistent town drum.

"Harness your backs! Fill your bellies, and stand ready! The Douglas
has need o' ye, lieges a'!" cried the sonorous voice of the watch.
Sholto smiled as he listened.

"I have at least set them on the alert. They will join the Douglasdale
men as they pass by, or we will show them reason why. But they of
Lanark are ill-set town-ward men, and of no true leal heart, save an
it be to their own coffers. Yet will they march with us for fear of
the harrying hand and the burning roof tree."

The sun rose fair on the battlements of Douglas Castle as Sholto rode
up to the level mead, whereon a little company of men was exercising.
He could hear the words of command cried gruffly in the broad Galloway
speech. Landless Jock was drilling his spearmen, and as the shining
triple line of points dropped to the "ready to receive," the old
knight and former captain of the Earl's guard came forward a little
way to welcome his successor with what grace was at his command.

"Eh, siree, and what has brocht sic a braw young knight and grand
frequenter o' courts sae far as Douglas Castle? Could ye no even let
puir Landless Jock hae the tilt-yaird here to exercise his handfu' in,
and keep his auld banes a wee while frae the rust and the green
mould?"

But even as the crusty old soldier spoke these words, the white
anxiety in Sholto's face struck through his half-humorous complaint,
and the words died on his lips in a perturbed "What is't--what is't
ava, laddie?"

Sholto told him in the fewest words.

"The Yerl and Dawvid in the power o' their hoose's enemies. Blessed
Saint Anthony, and here was I flighterin' and ragin' aboot my
naethings. Here, lads, blaw the horn and cry the slogan. Fetch the
horses frae the stall and stand ready in your war gear within ten
minutes by the knock. Aye, faith, will we raise Douglasdale! Gang your
ways to Gallowa'--there shall not a man bide at hame this day. Certes,
we wull that! Ca' in the by-gaun at Lanark--aye, lad, and, gin the
rascals are no willing or no ready, we will hang the provost and
magistrates at their ain door-cheeks to learn them to bide frae the
cried assembly o' their liege lord!"

Sholto had done enough in Douglasdale. He turned north again on a yet
more important errand. It was forenoon full and broad when he halted
before the little town of Strathaven, upon which the Castle of
Avondale looks down. It seemed of the greatest moment that the
Avondale Douglases should know that which had befallen their cousin.
For no suspicion of treachery within the house and name of Douglas
itself touched with a shade of shadow the mind of Sholto MacKim.

He thundered at the town-ward port of the castle (to which a steep
ascent led up from a narrow vennel), where presently the outer guard
soon crowded about him, listening to his story and already fingering
bowstring and examining rope-matches preparatory to the expected march
upon Edinburgh.

"I have not time to waste, comrades; I would see my lords," said
Sholto. "I must see them instantly."

And even as he spoke there on the steps before him appeared the dark,
handsome face and tall but slightly stooping figure of William Douglas
of Avondale. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, and his
serious thought-weighted brow bent upon the concourse about Sholto.

With a push of his elbows this way and that, the young captain of the
Earl's guard opened a road through the press.

In short, emphatic sentences he told his tale, and at the name of
prisonment and treachery to his cousins the countenance of William
Douglas grew stern and hard. His face twitched as if the news came
very near to him. He did not answer for a moment, but stood biting his
lips and glooming upon Sholto, as though the young man had been a
prisoner waiting sentence of pit or gallows for evil doing.

"I must see James concerning this ill news," he said when Sholto had
finished telling him of the Black Bull's Head at the Chancellor's
banquet-table.

He turned to go within.

"My lord," said Sholto, "will you give me another horse, and let
Darnaway rest in your stables? I must instantly ride south again to
raise Galloway."

"Order out all the horses which are ready caparisoned," commanded
William of Avondale, "and do you, Captain Sholto, take your choice of
them."

He went within forthwith and there ensued a pause filled with the
snorting and prancing of steeds, as, mettlesome with oats and hay,
they issued from their stalls, or with the grass yet dewy about their
noses were led in from the field. Darnaway took his leave of Sholto
with a backward neigh of regret, as if to say he was not yet tired of
going on his master's service.

Then presently on the terrace above appeared lazy Lord James, busily
buckling the straps of his body-armour and talking hotly the while
with his brother William.

"I care not even whether our father--" he cried aloud ere, with a
restraining hand upon his wrist, his elder brother could succeed in
stopping him.

"Hush, James," he said, "at least be mindful of those that stand
around."

"I care not, I tell you, William," cried the headstrong youth,
squaring his shoulders as he was wont to do before a fight. "I tell
you that you and I are no traitors to our name, and who meddles with
our coz, Will of Thrieve, hath us to reckon with!"

William of Avondale said nothing, but held out his hand with a slow,
determinate gesture. Said he, "An it were the father that begat us."
Whereat, with all the impetuousness of his race and nature, James
dashed his palm into that of his brother.

"Whiles, William," he cried, "ye appear clerkish and overcautious, and
I break out and miscall ye for no Douglas, when ye will not spend your
siller like a man and are afraid of the honest pint stoup. But at the
heart's heart ye are aye a Douglas--and though the silly gaping
commons like ye not so well as they like me, ye are the best o' us,
for all that."

So it came to pass that within the space of half an hour the Avondale
Douglases had sent men to the four airts, young Hugh Douglas himself
riding west, while James stirred the folk of Avondale and Strathavon,
and in all the courtyards and streets of the little feudal bourg there
began the hum and buzz of the war assembly.

Lord William went with Sholto to see staunch Darnaway duly stabled,
and to approve the horse which was to bear the messenger to the south
without halt, now that his mission was accomplished in the west. When
they came out Sholto's riding harness had been transferred to a noble
grey steed large enough to carry even the burly James, let alone the
slim captain of the archer guard of Thrieve.

In the court, ranked and ready, bridle to bridle were ranged the
knights and squires in waiting about the Castle of Avondale, while out
on a level green spot on the edge of the moor gathered the denser
array of the townfolk with spears and partisans.

In an hour the Avondale Douglases were ready to ride to the assistance
of their cousins. Alas, that Earl William would take no advice, for
had these and others gone in with him to the fatal town, there would
have been no Black Bull's Head on the Chancellor's dinner table in the
banqueting-hall of Edinburgh Castle.




CHAPTER XXXVII

A STRANGE MEETING


It was approaching the evening of the third day after riding forth
upon his mission when Sholto, sleepless yet quite unconscious of
weariness, approached the loch of Carlinwark and the cottage of Brawny
Kim. West and south he had raised the Douglas country as it had never
been raised before. And now behind him every armiger and squire, every
spearman and light-foot archer, was hasting Edinburgh-ward, eager to
be first to succour the young and headstrong chief of his great house.

Sholto had ridden and cried the slogan as was his duty, without
allowing his mind to dwell over much upon whether all might not arrive
too late. And ever as he rode out of village or across the desolate
moors from castle to fortified farmhouse, it seemed that not he but
some other was upon this quest.

Something sterner and harder stirred in his breast. Light-hearted
Sholto MacKim, the careless lad of the jousting day, the proud young
captain of the Earl's guard, was dead with all his vanity. And in his
place a man rode southward grim and determined, with vengeful angers
a-smoulder in his bosom,--hunger, thirst, love, the joy of living and
the fear of death all being swallowed up by deadly hatred of those who
had betrayed his master.

Maud Lindesay was doubtless within a few miles of Sholto, yet he
scarcely gave even his sweetheart a thought as he urged his weary grey
over the purple Parton moors towards the loch of Carlinwark and the
little hamlet nestling along its western side under the ancient thorn
trees of the Carlin's hill.

He rode down over the green and empty Crossmichael braes on which the
broom pods were crackling in the afternoon sunshine, through hollows
where the corn lingered as though unwilling to have done with such a
scene of beauty, and find itself mewed in dusty barns, ground in
mills, or close pressed in thatched rick. He breasted the long smooth
rise and entered the woods which encircle the bright lakelet of
Carlinwark, the pearl of all southland Scottish lochs.

With a strange sense of detachment he looked down upon the green sward
between him and his mother's gable end, upon which as a child he had
wandered from dawn to dusk. Then it was nearly as large as the world,
and the grass was most comfortable to bare feet. There were children
playing upon it now, even as there had been of old, among them his own
little sister Magdalen, whose hair was spun gold, and her eyes blue as
the forget-me-not on the marshes of the Isle Wood. The children were
dressed in white, five little girls in all, as for a festal day, and
their voices came upward to Sholto's ear through the arches of the
great beeches which studded the turf with pavilions of green shade,
tenderly as they had done to that of William Douglas in the
spring-time of the year.

Copyright (c) 2007. topmasterworks.com. All rights reserved.