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S. R. Crockett - The Black Douglas

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




At the first knock he heard a foot come slowly across the floor. It
was my lady, who opened the latch herself and stood before Sholto in
the habit she had worn when at the castle gateway Malise had told his
news. Her couch was unpressed. Her window stood open towards the
south. A candle still glimmered upon a little altar in an angle of the
wall. She had been kneeling all night before the image of the Virgin,
with her lips upon the feet of her who also was a woman, and who by
treachery had lost a son.

"I would have your permission to depart, my Lady Countess," said
Sholto, bowing his head upon his breast that he might not intrude upon
her eyes of grief; "the castle is safe, and I can be well spared. By
God's grace I shall not return till I bring either the maids
themselves or settled news of them. Have I your leave to go?"

The Lady of Douglas looked at him a moment without speech.

"Surely you are not the same who rode away behind my son William. You
went out light and gay as David, my other young son. There is now a
look of Earl William himself in your face--his mother tells you so.
Well, you were suckled at the same breast as he. May a double portion
of his spirit rest on you! That lowering regard is the Douglas mark.
Follow on and turn not back till you find. Strike and cease not, till
all be avenged. I have now no son left to save or to strike. Go,
Sholto MacKim. He who is dead loved you and made you knight. I said at
the time that you were too young and would have dissuaded him. But
when did a Douglas listen to woman's advice--his mother's or his
wife's? Foster brother you are--brother you shall be. By this kiss I
make you even as my son."

She bent and laid her lips on the young man's brow. They were hot as
iron uncooled from the smithy anvil.

"Come with me," she added, and with a vehemence strangely at odds with
her calm of the night before, she took Sholto by the hand and drew him
after her into the room that had been Earl William's.

From the bundle of keys at her side she took a small one of French
design. With this she unlocked a tall cabinet which stood in a corner.
She threw the folding doors open, and there in the recess hung a
wonderful suit of armour, of the sort called at that time "secret."

"This," said the Lady of Douglas, "I had designed for my son. Ten
years was it in the making. His father trysted it from a cunning
artificer in Italy. All these years has it been perfecting for him. It
comes too late. His eyes shall never see it, nor his body wear it. But
I give it to you. No Avondale shall ever do it upon him. It will fit
you, for you and he were of a bigness. No sword can cut through these
links, were it steel of Damascus forged for a Sultan. No spear-thrust
can pierce it, though I leave you to avenge the bruise. Yet it will
lie soft as silk, concealed and unsuspected under the rags of a beggar
or the robes of a king. The cap will turn the edge of an axe, even
when swung by a giant's hand, yet it will fit into the lining of a
Spanish hat or velvet bonnet. This your present errand may prove more
dangerous than you imagine. Go and put it on."

Sholto kneeled down and kissed the hand of his liege lady. Then when
he had risen she gave him down the armour piece by piece, dusting
each with her kerchief with a sort of reverent action, as one might
touch the face of the dead. In Sholto's hands it proved indeed light
almost as woven cloth of homespun from Dame Barbara's loom, and
flexible as the spun silk of Lyons which the great wear next their
bodies.

With it there went an under-suit of finest and softest leather, that
the skin should not be chafed by the cunning links as they worked
smoothly over one another at each movement of the body within.

Sholto buckled on his lady's gift with a swelling heart. It was his
dead master's armour. And as piece by piece fitted him as a glove fits
the hand, the spirit of William Douglas seemed to enter more and more
into the lad.

Then Sholto covered this most valuable gift with his own clothing
which he had brought from the house of Carlinwark, and presently
emerged, a well-looking but still slim squire of decent family.

Then the Countess belted on him the sword of price which went
therewith, a blade of matchless Toledan steel, but covered with a
plain scabbard of black pigskin.

"Draw and thrust," commanded the lady, pointing at the rough stone of
the wall at the end of the passage.

Sholto looked ruefully at the glittering blade which he held in his
hand, flashing blue from point to double guard.

"Thrust and fear not," said the Countess of Douglas the second time.

Sholto lunged out at the stone with all his might. Fire flew from the
smitten blue whinstone where the point, with all the weight of his
young body behind it, impinged on the wall. A tingling shock of
acutest agony ran up the striker's wrist to the shoulder blade. The
sword dropped ringing on the pavement, and Sholto's arm fell numb and
useless to his side.

"Lift the sword and look," commanded the Lady Douglas.

Sholto did as he was bidden, with his left hand, and lo, the point
which had bent like a hoop was sharp and straight as if just from the
armourer's. "Can you strike with your left hand?" asked the lady.

"As with my right," answered the son of Malise the Brawny.

There was a bar at a window in the wall bending outward in shape like
the letter U.

"Then strike a cutting stroke with your left hand."

Sholto took the sword. It seemed to him short-sighted policy that in
the hour of his departure on a perilous quest he should disable
himself in both arms. But Sholto MacKim was not the youth to question
an order. He lifted the sword in his left hand, and with a strong
ungraceful motion struck with all his might.

At first he thought that he had missed altogether. There was no
tingling in his arm, no jar when the blade should have encountered the
iron. But the Countess was examining the centre of the hoop.

"I have missed," said Sholto.

"Come hither and look," she said, without turning round.

And when he looked, lo, the thick iron had been cut through almost
without bending. The sides of the break were fresh, bright, and true.

"Now look at the edge of your sword," she said.

There was no slightest dint anywhere upon it, so that Sholto,
armourer's son as he was, turned about the blade to see if by any
chance he could have smitten with the reverse.

Failing in this, he could only kneel to his lady and say, "This is a
great gift--I am not worthy."

For in these times of peril jewels and lands were as nothing to the
value of such a suit of armour, which kings and princes might well
have made war to obtain.

The faintest disembodied ghost of a smile passed over the face of the
Countess of Douglas.

"It is the best I can do with it now," she said, "and at least no one
of the Avondales shall ever possess it."

After the Lady Douglas had armed the young knight and sped him upon
his quest, Sholto departed over the bridge where the surly custodian
still grumbled at his horse's feet trampling his clean wooden
flooring. The young man rode a Spanish jennet of good stock, a plain
beast to look upon, neither likely to attract attention nor yet to
stir cupidity.

His father and Laurence were already on their way. Sholto had arranged
that whether they found any trace of the lost ones or no, they were
all to meet on the third day at the little town of Kirkcudbright. For
Sholto, warned by the Lady Sybilla, even at this time had his idea,
which, because of the very horror of it, he had as yet communicated to
no one.

It chanced that as the youth rode southward along the banks of the
Dee, glancing this way and that for traces of the missing maids, but
seeing only the grass trampled by hundreds of feet and the boats in
the stream dragging every pool with grapnels and ropes, two horsemen
on rough ponies ambled along some distance in front of him. By their
robes of decent brown they seemed merchants on a journey, portly of
figure, and consequential of bearing.

As Sholto rapidly made up to them, with his better horse and lighter
weight, he perceived that the travellers were those two admirable and
noteworthy magistrates of Dumfries, Robert Semple and his own uncle
Ninian Halliburton of the Vennel.

Hearing the clatter of the jennet's hoofs, they turned about suddenly
with mighty serious countenances. For in such times when the wayfarer
heard steps behind him, whether of man or beast, it repaid him to give
immediate attention thereto.

So at the sound of hoofs Ninian and his friend set their hands to
their thighs and looked over their shoulders more quickly than seemed
possible to men of their build.

"Ha, nephew Sholto," cried Ninian, exceedingly relieved, "blithe am I
to see you, lad. You will tell us the truth of this ill news that has
upturned the auld province. By your gloomy face I see that the major
part is overtrue. The Earl is dead, and he awes me for twenty-four
peck of wheaten meal, forbye ten firlots of malt and other sundries,
whilk siller, if these hungry Avondale Douglases come into possession,
I am little likely ever to see. Surely I have more cause to mourn
him--a fine lad and free with his having. If ye gat not settlement
this day, why then ye gat it the neist, with never a word of drawback
nor craving for batement."

Sholto told them briefly concerning the tragedy of Edinburgh. He had
no will for any waste of words, and as briefly thereafter of the loss
of the little maid and her companion.

The Bailie of Dumfries lifted up his hands in consternation.

"'Tis surely a plot o' thae Avondales. Stra'ven folk are never to
lippen to. And they hae made a clean sweep. No a Gallowa' Douglas
left, if they hae speerited awa' the bonny bit lass. Man, Robert, she
was heir general to the province, baith the Lordship o' Gallowa' and
the Earldom o' Wigton, for thae twa can gang to a lassie. But as soon
as the twa laddies were oot o' the road, Fat Jamie o' Avondale cam'
into the Yerldom o' Douglas and a' the Douglasdale estates, forbye the
Borders and the land in the Hielands. Wae's me for Ninian Halliburton,
merchant and indweller in Dumfries, he'll never see hilt or hair o'
his guid siller gin that wee lassie be lost. Man, Sholto, is't no an
awfu' peety?"

During this lamentation, to which his nephew paid little attention,
looking only from side to side as they three rode among the willows by
the waterside, the other merchant, Robert Semple, had been pondering
deeply.

"How could she be lost in this country of Galloway?" he said, "a land
where there are naught but Douglases and men bound body and soul to
the Douglas, from Solway even to the Back Shore o' Leswalt? 'Tis just
no possible--I'll wager that it is that Hieland gipsy Mistress
Lindesay that has some love ploy on hand, and has gane aff and aiblins
ta'en the lass wi' her for company."

At these words Sholto twisted about in his saddle, as if a wasp had
stung him suddenly.

"Master Semple," he said, "I would have you speak more carefully.
Mistress Lindesay is a baron's daughter and has no love ploys, as you
are pleased to call them."

The two burgesses shook with jolly significant laughter, which angered
Sholto exceedingly.

"Your mirth, sirs, I take leave to tell you, is most mightily ill
timed," he said, "and I shall consider myself well rid of your
company."

He was riding away when his uncle set his hand upon the bridle of
Sholto's jennet.

"Bide ye, wild laddie," he said, "there is nae service in gaun aff
like a fuff o' tow. My freend here meaned to speak nae ill o' the
lass. But at least I ken o' ae love ploy that Mistress Lindesay is
engaged in, or your birses wadna be so ready to stand on end, my bonny
man. But guid luck to ye. Ye hae the mair chance o' finding the flown
birdies, that ye maybes think mair o' the bonny norland quey than ye
think o' the bit Gallowa' calf. But God speed ye, I say, for gin ye
bringna back the wee lass that's heir to the braid lands o' Thrieve,
it's an ill chance Ninian Halliburton has ever to fill his loof wi'
the bonny gowden 'angels' that (next to high heeven) are a man's best
freends in an evil and adulterous generation."




CHAPTER XL

THE MISSION OF JAMES THE GROSS


From all sides the Douglases were marching upon Edinburgh. After the
murder of the young lords the city gates had been closed by order of
the Chancellor. The castle was put into a thorough state of defence.
The camp of the Avondale Douglases, William and James, was already on
the Boroughmuir, and the affrighted citizens looked in terror upon the
thickening banners with the bloody Douglas heart upon them, and upon
the array of stalwart and determined men of the south. Curses both
loud and deep were hurled from the besiegers' lines at every head seen
above the walls, together with promises to burn Edinburgh, castle and
burgh alike, and to slocken the ashes with the blood of every living
thing within, all for the cause of the Black Dinner and the Bull's
Head set before the brothers of Douglas.

But at midnoon of a glorious day in the late September, a man rode out
from the west port of the city, a fat man flaccid of body, pale and
tallowy of complexion. A couple of serving-men went behind him, with
the Douglas arms broidered on their coats. They looked no little
terrified, and shook upon their horses, as indeed well they might.
This little cavalcade rode directly out of the city gates towards the
pavilion of the young Douglases of Avondale. As they went two running
footmen kept them company, one on either side of their leader, and as
that unwieldy horseman swayed this way and that in the saddle, first
one and then the other applied with his open palm the force requisite
to keep the rider erect upon his horse.

It was the new Earl of Douglas, James the Gross, on his way to visit
the camp of his sons. As he approached the sentries who stood on guard
upon the broomy braes betwixt Merchiston and Bruntsfield, he was
challenged in a fierce southland shout by one of the Carsphairn levies
who knew him not.

"Stand back there, fat loon, gin ye wantna a quarrel shot intil that
swagging tallow-bag ye ca' your wame!"

"Out of my way, hill varlet!" cried the man on horseback.

But the Carsphairn man stood with his cross-bow pointed straight at the
leader of the cavalcade, crying at the same time in a loud,
far-carrying voice over his shoulder, "Here awa', Anthon--here awa',
Bob! Come and help me to argue wi' this fat rogue."

Several other hillmen came hurrying up, and the little company of
riders was brought to a standstill. Then ensued this colloquy.

"Who are you that dare stop my way?" demanded the Earl.

"Wha may ye be that comes shuggy-shooin' oot o' the bluidy city o'
Edinburgh intil oor camp," retorted him of Carsphairn, "sitting your
beast for all the warld like a lump o' potted-head whammelled oot o' a
bowl?"

"I am the Earl of Douglas."

"The Yerl o' Dooglas! Then a bonny hand they hae made o' him in
Edinburgh. I heard they had only beheaded him."

"I tell you I am Earl of Douglas. I bid you beware. Conduct me to the
tent of my sons!"

At this point an aged man of some authority stood forward and gazed
intently at James the Gross, looking beneath his hand as at an
extensive prospect of which he wished to take in all the details.

"Lads," he said, "hold your hands--it rins i' my head that this
craitur' may be Jamie, the fat Yerl o' Avondale. We'll let him gang by
in peace. His sons are decent lads."

There came from the hillmen a chorus of "Avondale he may be--there's
nae sayin' what they can breed up there by Stra'ven. But we are weel
assured that he is nae richt Douglas. Na, nae Douglas like yon man was
ever cradled or buried in Gallowa'."

At this moment Lord William Douglas, seeing the commotion on the
outposts, came down the brae through the broom. Upon seeing his father
he took the plumed bonnet from off his head, and, ordering the
Carsphairn men sharply to their places, he set his hand upon the
bridle of the gross Earl's horse. So with the two running footmen
still preserving some sort of equilibrium in his unsteady bulk, James
of Avondale was brought to the door of a tent from which floated the
banner of the Douglas house, blue with a bleeding heart upon it.

At the entering in of the pavilion, all stained and trodden into the
soil by the feet of passers-by, lay the royal banner of the Stewarts,
so placed by headstrong James Douglas the younger, in contempt of
both tutor and Chancellor, who, being but cowards and murderers, had
usurped the power of the king within the realm.

That sturdy youth came to the door of his pavilion half-dressed as he
had lain down, yawning and stretching reluctantly, for he had been on
duty all night perfecting the arrangements for besieging the town.

"James--James," cried his father, catching sight of his favourite son
rubbing sleepily his mass of crisp hair, "what's this that I hear?
That you and William are in rebellion and are defying the power o' the
anointed king--?"

At this moment the footman undid the girths of his horse, which, being
apparently well used to the operation, stood still with its feet
planted wide apart. Then they ran quickly round to the side towards
which the swaying bulk threatened to fall, the saddle slipped, and,
like a top-heavy forest tree, James the Gross subsided into the arms
of his attendants, who, straining and panting, presently set him on
his feet upon the blazoned royal foot-cloth at the threshold of the
pavilion.

Almost he had fallen backwards when he saw the use to which his daring
sons had put the emblem of royal authority.

"Guid save us a', laddies," he cried, staggering across the flag into
the tent, "ken ye what ye do? The royal banner o' the King o'
Scots--to mak' a floor-clout o'! Sirce, sirce, in three weeks I shall
be as childless as the Countess o' Douglas is this day."

"That," said William Douglas, coldly, indicating with his finger the
trampled cloth, "is not the banner of Scotland, but only that of the
Seneschal Stewarts. The King of Scots is but a puling brat, and they
who usurp his name are murderous hounds whose necks I shall presently
stretch with the rogue's halter!"

Young James Douglas had set an oaken folding chair for his father at
the upper end of the pavilion, and into this James the Gross fell
rather than seated himself.

His sons William and James continued to stand before him, as was the
dutiful habit of the time. Their father recovered his breath before
beginning to speak.

"What's this--what's this I hear?" he exclaimed testily, "is it true
that ye are in flat rebellion against the lawful authority of the
king? Laddies, laddies, ye maun come in wi' me to his excellence the
Chancellor and make instanter your obedience. Ye are young and for my
sake he will surely overlook this. I will speak with him."

"Father," said William Douglas, with a cold firmness in his voice, "we
are here to punish the murderers of our cousins. We shall indeed enter
the guilty city, but it will be with fire and sword."

"Aye," cried rollicking, headstrong James, "and we will roast the
Crichton on a spit and hang that smug traitor, Tutor Livingston, over
the walls of David's Tower, a bonny ferlie for his leman's wonder!"

There came a cunning look into the small pig's eyes of James the
Gross.

"Na, na, foolish laddies, thae things will ye no do. Mind ye not the
taunts and scorns that the Earl--the late Earl o' Douglas that is--put
upon us a'? Think on his pride and vainglory, whilk Scripture says
shall be brocht low. Think in especial how this righteous judgment
that has fallen on him and on his brother has cleared our way to the
Earldom."

The choleric younger brother leaped forward with an oath on his lips,
but his calmer senior kept him back with his hand.

"Silence, James!" he said; "I will answer our father. Sir, we have
heard what you say, but our minds are not changed. What cause to
associate yourself with traitors and mansworn you may have, we do not
know and we do not care."

At his son's first words James the Gross rose with a sudden surprising
access of dignity remarkable in one of his figure.

"I bid you remember," he said, speaking southland English, as he was
wont to do in moments of excitement, "I bid you remember, sirrah, that
I am the Earl of Douglas and Avondale, Justicer of Scotland--and your
father."

William Douglas bowed, respectful but unmoved.

"My lord," he said, "I forget nothing. I do not judge you. You are in
authority over our house. You shall do what you will with these forces
without there, so be you can convince them of your right. Black
murder, whether you knew and approved it or no, has made you Earl of
Douglas. But, sir, if you take part with my cousins' murderers now, or
screen them from our just vengeance and the vengeance of God, I tell
you that from this day you are a man without children. For in this
matter I speak not only for myself, but for all your sons!" He turned
to his brother.

"James," he said, "call in the others." James went to the tent door
and called aloud.

"Archibald, Hugh, and John, come hither quickly."

A moment after three young men of noble build, little more than lads
indeed, but with the dark Douglas allure stamped plainly upon their
countenances, entered, bowed to their father, and stood silent with
their hands crossed upon the hilts of their swords.

William Douglas went on with the same determinate and relentless calm.

"My lord," he said, very respectfully, "here stand your five sons, all
soldiers and Douglases, waiting to hear your will. Murder has been
done upon the chief of our house by two men of cowardly heart and mean
consideration, Crichton and Livingston, instigated by the false
ambassador of the King of France. We have come hither to punish these
slayers of our kin, and we desire to know what you, our father, think
concerning the matter."

James the Gross was still standing, steadying himself with his hand on
the arm of the oaken chair in which he had been sitting. He spoke with
some difficulty, which might proceed either from emotion or from the
plethoric habit of the man.

"Have I for this brought children into the world," he said, "that they
should lift up their hands against the father that begat them? Ye know
that I have ever warned you against the pride and arrogance of your
cousins of Galloway."

"You mean, of the late Earl of Douglas and the boy his brother,"
answered William; "the pride of eighteen and fourteen is surely vastly
dangerous."

"I mean those who have been tried and executed in Edinburgh by royal
authority for many well-grounded offences against the state," cried
the Earl, loudly.

"Will you deign to condescend upon some of them?" said his son, as
quietly as before.

"Your cousins' pride and ostentation of riches and retinue, being far
beyond those of the King, constituted in themselves an eminent danger
to the state. Nay, the turbulence of their followers has more than
once come before me in my judicial capacity as Justicer of the realm.
What more would you have?"

"Were you, my lord, of those who condemned them to death?"

"Not so, William; it had not been seemly in a near kinsman and the
heir to their dignities--that is, save and except Galloway, which by
ill chance goes in the female line, if we find not means to break that
unfortunate reservation. Your cousins were condemned by my Lords
Crichton and Livingston."

"We never heard of either of them," said William, calmly.

"In their judicial aspect they may be styled lords, as is the Scottish
custom," said James the Gross, "even as when I was laird of Balvany
and a sitter on the bed of justice, it was my right to be so
nominated."

"Then our cousins were condemned with your approval, my Lord of
Douglas and Avondale?" persisted his son.

James the Gross was visibly perturbed.

"Approval, William, is not the word to use--not a word to use in the
circumstances. They were near kinsmen!"

"But upon being consulted you did not openly disapprove--is it not so?
And you will not aid us to avenge our cousins' murder now?"

"Hearken, William, it was not possible--I could not openly disapprove
when I also was in the Chancellor's hands, and I knew not but that he
might include me in the same condemnation. Besides, lads, think of the
matter calmly. There is no doubt that the thing happens most
conveniently, and the event falls out well for us. Our own barren
acres have many burdens upon them. What could I do? I have been a poor
man all my life, and after the removal of obstacles I saw my way to
become the richest man in Scotland. How could I openly object?"

William Douglas bowed.

"So--" he said, "that is what we desired to know! Have I your
permission to speak further?"

His father nodded pleasantly, seating himself again as one that has
finished a troublesome business. He rubbed his hands together, and
smiled upon his sons.

"Aye, speak gin ye like, William, but sit doon--sit doon, lads. We are
all of one family, and it falls out well for you as it does for me.
Let us all be pleasant and agreeable together!"

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