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S. R. Crockett - The Black Douglas

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




Malise was vanquished, less by the sarcasm of the Earl than by the
fear that perhaps the Highlandman might indeed have his place of
honour as chief military expert by his master's right hand at the
examination of weapons that day on the green holms of Balmaghie.

"I may have been overhasty, my lord," he said hesitatingly, "but still
do I think that the woman was far from canny."

The Earl laughed and, turning him about by the shoulders, gave him a
push down the stair, crying, "Oh, Malise, Malise, have you lived so
long in the world without finding out that a beautiful woman is always
uncanny!"

The levy that day of clansmen owning fealty to the Douglas was no
hasty or local one. It was not, indeed, a "rising of the countryside,"
such as took place when the English were reported to be over the
border, when the beacon fires were thrown west from Criffel to Screel,
from Screel to Cairnharrow, and then tossed northward by the three
Cairnsmuirs and topmost Merrick far over the uplands of Kyle, till
from the sullen brow of Brown Carrick the bale fire set the town drum
of Ayr beating its alarming note. Still this muster was a day on
which every Douglas vassal must ride in mail with all his spears
behind him--or bide at home and take the consequences.

All the night from distant parishes and outlying valleys horsemen had
been riding, clothed in complete panoply of mail. These were the
knights, barons, freeholders, who owned allegiance to the house of
Douglas. Each lord was followed by his appointed tail of esquires and
men-at-arms; behind these dense clusters of heavily armed spearmen
marched steadily along the easiest paths by the waterside and over the
lower hill passes. Light running footmen slung their swords over their
backs by leathern bandoliers and pricked it briskly southwards over
the bent so brown. Archers there were from the border towards the
Solway side--lithe men, accustomed to spring from tussock to tuft of
shaking grass, whose long strides and odd spasmodic side leapings
betrayed even on the plain and unyielding pasture lands the place of
their amphibious nativity.

"The Jack herons of Lochar," these were named by the men of Galloway.
But there was no jeering to their faces, for not one of those
Maxwells, Sims, Patersons, and Dicksons would have thought twice of
leaping behind a tree stump to wing a cloth-yard shaft into a
scoffer's ribs at thirty yards, taking his chance of the dule tree and
the hempen cord thereafter for the honour of Lochar.




CHAPTER VIII

THE CROSSING OF THE FORD


It was still early morning of the great day, when Sholto and Laurence
MacKim, leaving their mother in the kitchen, and their young sister
Magdalen trying a yet prettier knot to her kerchief, took their way by
the fords of Glen Lochar to an eminence then denominated plainly the
Whinny Knowe, the same which afterwards gained and has kept to this
day the more fatal designation of Knock Cannon. The lads were dressed
as became the sons of so prosperous a craftsman (and master armourer
to boot) as Malise MacKim of the Carlinwark.

Laurence, the younger, wore his archer's jack over the suit of purple
velvet, high boots of yellow leather, and, withal, a dainty cap set
far back on his head, from which sprouted the wing of a blackcock in
as close imitation as Master Laurence dared compass of the Earl
Douglas himself. His bow was slung at his back all ready for the
inspection. A sash of orange silk was twisted about his slim waist,
and in this he would set his thumb knowingly, and stare boldly as
often as the pair of brothers overtook a pretty girl. For Master
Laurence loved beauty, and thought not lightly of his own.

Sholto, though, as we shall soon see, despised not love, had eyes more
for the knights and men-at-arms, and considered that his heaven would
be fully attained as soon as he should ride one of those great
prancing horses, and carry a lance with the pennon of the Douglas upon
it.

Meanwhile he wore the steel cap of the home guard, the ringed neck
mail, the close-fitting doublet of blue dotted over with red Douglas
hearts and having the white cross of St. Andrew transversely upon it.
About his waist was a peaked brace of shining plate armour, damascened
in gold by Malise himself, and filling out his almost girlish waist to
manlier proportions. From this depended a row of tags of soft leather.
Close chain-mail covered his legs, to which at the knees were added
caps of triple plate. A sheaf of arrows in a blue and gold quiver on
his right side, a sword of metal on his left, and a short Scottish bow
in his hand completed the attire of a fully equipped and efficient
archer of the Earl's guard.

The lads were soon at the fords of Lochar, where in the dry summers
the stones show all the way across--one in the midst being named the
Black Douglas, noted as the place where, as tradition affirms,
Archibald the Grim used to pause in crossing the ford to look at his
new fortress of Thrieve, rising on its impregnable island above the
rich water meadows.

Now neither Sholto nor Laurence wished to wet their leg array before
the work and pageant of the day began. This was the desire of
Laurence, because of the maids who would assemble on the Boreland
Braes, and of Sholto inasmuch as he hoped to win the prize for the
best accoutrement and the most point-device attiring among all the
archers of the Earl's guard. The young men had asked crusty Simon
Conchie, the boatman at the Ferry Croft, to set them over, offering
him a groat for his pains. But he was far too busy to pay any
attention to mere silver coin on such an occasion, only pausing long
enough to cry to them that they must e'en cross at the fords, as many
of their betters would do that day.

There was nothing for it, therefore, but either to strip to the waist
or to wait the chances of the traffic. Both Sholto and Laurence were
exceedingly loath to take the former course. They had not, however,
long to hesitate, for a train of sumpter mules, belonging to the Lord
Herries of Terregles, whose father had been with Archibald the Tineman
in France, came up laden with the choicest products of the border
country which he designed to offer as part of the "Service-Kane" to
his overlord, the Earl of Douglas.

Now mules are all of them snorting, ill-conditioned brutes, and are
ever ready to run away upon the least excuse, or even without any. So
as soon as those of Lord Herries' train caught the glint of Sholto's
blue baldric and shining steel girdle-brace appearing suddenly from
behind a knoll, they incontinently bolted every way with noses to the
ground, scattering packs and brandishing heels like young colts turned
out to grass. It chanced that one of the largest mules made directly
towards the fords of Lochar, and the youths, catching the flying
bridle at either side, applied a sort of brake which sufficiently
slowed the beast's movements to enable such agile skipjacks as Sholto
and Laurence to mount. But as they were concerned more with their
leaping from the ground than with what was already upon the animal's
back, their heads met with a crash in the midst, in which collision
the superior weight of the younger had very naturally the better of
the encounter.

Sholto dropped instantly back to the ground. He was somewhat stunned
by the blow, but the sight of his brother triumphantly splashing
through the shallows aroused him. He arose, and seizing the first
stone that came to hand hurled it after Laurence, swearing fraternally
that he would smite him in the brisket with a dirk as soon as he
caught him for that dastard blow. The first stone flew wide, though
the splash caused the mule to shy into deeper water, to the damping of
his rider's legs. But the second, being better aimed, took the animal
fairly on the rump, and, fetching up on a fly-galled spot, frightened
it with bumping bags and loud squeals into the woods of Glen Lochar,
which come down close to the fords on every side. Here presently
Laurence found himself, like Absalom, caught in the branches of a
beech, and left hanging between heaven and earth. A rider in complete
plate of black mail caught him down, still holding on to his bow, and,
placing him across the saddle, brought down the flat of his gauntleted
hand upon a spot of the lad's person which, being uncovered by mail,
responded with a resounding smack. Then, amid the boisterous laughter
of the men-at-arms, he let Laurence slip to the ground.

But the younger son of Brawny Kim, master armourer of Carlinwark, was
not the lad to take such an insult meekly, even from a man-at-arms
riding on horseback. He threw his bow into the nearest thicket, and
seizing the most convenient ammunition, which chanced to be in great
plenty that day upon the braes of Balmaghie, pursued his insulter
along the glade with such excellent aim and good effect that the
black unadorned armour of the horseman showed disks of defilement all
over, like a tree trunk covered with toadstool growths.

"Shoot down the intolerable young rascal! Shall he thus beard my Lord
Maxwell?" cried a voice from the troop which witnessed the chase. And
more than one bow was bent, and several hand-fusils levelled from the
company which followed behind.

But the injured knight threw up his visor.

"Hold, there!" he cried, "the boy is right. It was I who insulted him,
and he did right to be revenged, though the rogue's aim is more to be
admired than his choice of weapons. Come hither, lad. Tell me who thou
art, and what is thy father's quality?"

"I am Laurence MacKim, an archer of my lord's guard, and the younger
son of Malise MacKim, master armourer to the Douglas."

Laurence, being still angry, rang out his titles as if they had been
inscribed in the book of the Lion-King-at-Arms.

"Saints save us," cried the knight in swart armour, "all that!"

Then, seeing the boy ready to answer back still more fiercely, he
continued with a courteous wave of the hand.

"I humbly ask your pardon, Master Laurence. I am glad the son of
Brawny Kim hath no small part of his father's spirit. Will you take
service and be my esquire, as becomes well a lad of parts who desires
to win his way to a knighthood?"

The heart of Laurence MacKim beat quickly--a horse to ride--an
esquire--perhaps if he had luck and much fighting, a knighthood.
Nevertheless, he answered with a bold straight look out of his black
eyes.

"I am an archer of my lord Douglas' outer guard. I can have no
promotion save from him or those of his house--not even from the King
himself."

"Well said!" cried the knight; "small wonder that the Douglas is the
greatest man in Scotland. I will speak to the Earl William this day
concerning you."

Lord Maxwell rode on at the head of his company with a courteous
salutation, which not a few behind him who had heard the colloquy
imitated. Laurence stood there with his heart working like yeast
within him, and his colour coming and going to think what he had been
offered and what he had refused.

"God's truth," he said to himself, "I might have been a great man if I
had chosen, while Sholto, that old sober sides, was left lagging
behind."

Then he looked about for his bow and went swaggering along as if he
were already Sir Laurence and the leader of an army.

But Nemesis was upon him, and that in the fashion which his pride
would feel the most.

"Take that, beast of a Laurence!" cried a voice behind him.

And the lad received a jolt from behind which loosened his teeth in
their sockets and discomposed the dignified stride with which in
imagination he was commanding the armies of the Douglas.




CHAPTER IX

LAURENCE SINGS A HYMN


Laurence turned and beheld his brother. In another instant the two
young men had clinched and were rolling on the ground, wrestling and
striking according to their ability. Sholto might easily have had the
best of the fray, but for the temper aroused by Laurence's recent
degradation, for the elder brother was taller by an inch, and of a
frame of body more lithe and supple. Moreover, the accuracy of Sholto
MacKim's shape and the severe training of the smithy had not left a
superfluous ounce of flesh on him anywhere.

In a minute the brothers had become the centre of a riotous, laughing
throng of varlets--archers seeking their corps, and young squires sent
by their lords to find out the exact positions allotted to each
contingent by the provost of the camp. For as the wappenshaw was to be
of three days' duration in all its nobler parts, a wilderness of tents
had already begun to arise under the scattered white thorns of the
great Boreland Croft which stretched up from the river.

These laughed and jested after their kind, encouraging the youths to
fight it out, and naming Laurence the brock or badger from his
stoutness, and the slim Sholto the whitterick or, as one might say,
weasel.

"At him, Whitterick--grip him! Grip him! Now you have him at the
pinch! Well pulled, Brock! 'Tis a certainty for Brock--good Brock!
Well done--well done! Ah, would you? Hands off that dagger! Let
fisticuffs settle it! The Whitterick hath it--the Whitterick!"

And thus ran the comment. Sholto being cumbered with his armour,
Laurence might in time have gotten the upper grip. But at this moment
a diversion occurred which completely altered the character of the
conflict. A stout, reddish young man came up, holding in his hand a
staff painted with twining stripes of white and red, which showed him
to be the marshal of that part of the camp which pertained to the Earl
of Angus. He looked on for a moment from the skirts of the crowd, and
then elbowed his way self-importantly into the centre, till he stood
immediately above Laurence and Sholto.

"What means this hubbub, I say? Quit your hold there and come with me;
my Lord of Angus will settle this dispute."

He had come up just when the young men were in the final grips, when
Sholto had at last gotten his will of his brother's head, and was, as
the saying is, giving him "Dutch spice" in no very knightly fashion.

The Angus marshal, seeing this, seized Sholto by the collar of his
mailed shirt, and drawing him suddenly back, caused him to lose hold
of his brother, who as quickly rose to his feet. The red man began to
beat Sholto about the headpiece right heartily with his staff, which
exercise made a great ringing noise, though naturally, the skull cap
being the work of Malise MacKim, little harm ensued to the head
enclosed therein.

But Master Laurence was instantly on fire.

"Here, Foxy-face," he cried, "let my brother a-be! What business is it
of yours if two gentlemen have a difference? Go back to your Angus
kernes and ragged craw-bogle Highland folk!"

Meanwhile Sholto had recovered from his surprise, and the crowd of
varlets was melting apace, thinking the Angus marshal some one of
consequence. But the brothers MacKim were not the lads to take beating
with a stick meekly, and the provost, who indeed had nothing to do
with the Galloway part of the encampment, had far better have confined
his officiousness to his own quarters.

"Take him on the right, Sholto," cried Laurence, "and I will have at
him from this side." The Red Angus drew his sword and threatened
forthwith to slay the lads if they came near him. But with a spring
like that of a grey Grimalkin of the woods, Sholto leapt within his
guard ere he had time to draw back his arm for thrust or parry, and at
the same moment Laurence, snatching the red and white staff out of his
hand, dealt him so sturdy a clout between the shoulders that, though
he was of weight equal to both of his opponents taken together, he was
knocked breathless at the first blow and went down beneath the impetus
of Sholto's attack.

Laurence coolly disengaged his brother, and began to thrash the Angus
man with his own staff upon all exposed parts, till the dry wood
broke. Then he threw the pieces at his head, and the two brothers went
off arm in arm to find a woody covert in which to repair damages
against the weapon-showing, and the inspection of their lord and his
keen-eyed master armourer.

As soon as they had discovered such a sequestered holt, Laurence, who
had frequent experience of such rough-and-tumble encounters, stripped
off his doublet of purple velvet, and, turning the sleeve inside out,
he showed his brother that it was lined with a rough-surfaced felt
cloth almost of the nature of teasle. This being rubbed briskly upon
any dusty garment or fouled armour proved most excellent for restoring
its pristine gloss and beauty. The young men, being as it were born to
the trade and knowing that their armament must meet their father's
inexorable eye, as he passed along their lines with the Earl, rubbed
and polished their best, and when after half an hour's sharp work each
examined the other, not a speck or stain was left to tell of the
various casual incidents of the morning. Two bright, fresh-coloured
youths emerged from their thicket, immaculately clad, and with
countenances of such cherubic innocence, that my lord the Abbot
William of the great Cistercian Abbey of Dulce Cor, looking upon them
as with bare bowed heads they knelt reverently on one knee to ask his
blessing, said to his train, "They look for all the world like young
angels! It is a shame and a sin that two such fair innocents should be
compelled to join in aught ruder than the chanting of psalms in holy
service."

Whereat one of his company, who had been witness to their treatment of
the Angus provost and also of Laurence's encounter with the knight of
the black armour, was seized incontinently with a fit of coughing
which almost choked him.

"Bless you, my sons," said the Abbot, "I will speak to my nephew, the
Earl, concerning you. Your faces plead for you. Evil cannot dwell in
such fair bodies. What are your names?"

The younger knelt with his fingers joined and his eyes meekly on the
grass, while Sholto, who had risen, stood quietly by with his steel
cap in his hand.

"Laurence MacKim," answered the younger, modestly, without venturing
to raise his eyes from the ground, "and this is my brother Sholto."

"Can you sing, pretty boy?" said the Abbot to Laurence.

"We have never been taught," answered downright Sholto. But his
brother, feeling that he was losing chances, broke in:

"I can sing, if it please your holiness."

"And what can you sing, sweet lad?" asked the Abbot, smiling with
expectation and setting his hand to his best ear to assist his
increasing deafness.

"Shut your fool's mouth!" said Sholto under his breath to his brother.

"Shut your own! 'Tis ugly as a rat-trap at any rate!" responded
Laurence in the same key. Then aloud to the Abbot he said, "An it
please you, sir, I can sing 'O Mary Quean!'"

The Abbot smiled, well pleased.

"Ah, exceeding proper, a song to the honour of the Queen of Heaven (he
devoutly crossed himself at the name),--I knew that I could not be
mistaken in you."

"Your pardon, most reverend," interjected Sholto, anxiously, "please
you to excuse my brother; his voice hath just broken and he cannot
sing at present." Then, under his breath, he added, "Laurie MacKim,
you God-forgotten fool, if you sing that song you will get us both
stripped in a thrice and whipped on the bare back for insolence to the
Earl's uncle!"

"Go to," said his brother, "I _will_ sing. The old cook is monstrous
deaf at any rate."

"Sing," said the Abbot, "I would hear you gladly. So fair a face must
be accompanied by the pipe of a nightingale. Besides, we sorely need a
tenor for the choir at Sweetheart."

So, encouraged in this fashion, the daring Laurence began:

_"Nae priests aboot me shall be seen
To mumble prayers baith morn and e'en,
I'll swap them a' for Mary Quean!
I'll bid nae mess for me be sung,
Dies ille, dies irae,
Nor clanking bells for me be rung,
Sic semper solet fieri!
I'll gang my ways to Mary Quean."_

"Ah, very good, very good, truly," said the Abbot, thrusting his hand
into his pouch beneath his gown, "here are two gold nobles for thee,
sweet lad, and another for your brother, whose countenance methinks is
somewhat less sweet. You have sung well to the praise of our Lady!
What did you say your name was? Of a surety, we must have you at
Sweetheart. And you have the Latin, too, as I heard in the hymn. It is
a thing most marvellous. Verily, the very unction of grace must have
visited you in your cradle!"

Laurence held down his head with all his native modesty, but the more
open Sholto grew red in the face, hearing behind him the tittering and
shoulder-shaking of the priests and lay servants in the Abbot's train,
and being sure that they would inform their master as soon as he
passed on concerning the true import of Master Laurence's song. He was
muttering in a rapid recitative, "Oh, wait--wait, Laurie MacKim, till
I get you on the Carlinwark shore. A sore back and a stiff skinful of
bones shalt thou have, and not an inch of hide on thee that is not
black and blue. Amen!" he added, stopping his maledictions quickly,
for at that moment the Abbot came somewhat abruptly to the end of his
speech.

The great churchman rode away on his fair white mule, with a smile and
a backward wave of his hand.

"I will speak to my nephew concerning you this very day, my child," he
cried.

And the countenance of that most gentle youth kept its sweet innocence
and angelic grace to the last, but that of Sholto was more dark and
frowning than ever.




CHAPTER X

THE BRAES OF BALMAGHIE


By ten of the clock the braes of Balmaghie were a sight most glorious
to look upon. Well nigh twelve thousand men were gathered there, of
whom five thousand were well-mounted knights and fully equipped
men-at-arms, every man of them ready and willing to couch a lance or
ride a charge.

The line of the tents which had been set up extended from opposite the
Castle island of Thrieve to the kirk hill of Balmaghie. Every knight's
following was strictly kept within its own pale, or fence of green
wands set basket-wise, pointed and thrust into the earth like the
spring traps of those who catch mowdiewarts. Many also were the
quarrels and bickerings of the squires who had been sent forward to
choose and arrange the several encampments. Nor were rough and tumble
fights such as we have seen the MacKims indulging in, thought
derogatory to the dignity of any, save belted knights only.

Each camp displayed the device of its own lord, but higher than all,
from the top of every mound and broomy hillock floated the banner of
the overlord. This was the lion of Galloway, white on a ground of
blue, and beneath it, but on the same staff, a pennon whereon was the
bleeding heart of the Douglas family.

The lists were set up on the level meadow that is called the Boat
Croft. At either end a pavilion had been erected, and the jousting
green was strongly fenced in, with a rising tier of seats for the
ladies along one side, and a throne in the midst for the Douglas
himself, as high and as nobly upholstered as if the King of Scots had
been presiding in person.

At ten by the great sun-dial of Thrieve, the Earl, armed in complete
armour of rare work, damascened with gold, and bearing in his hand the
truncheon of commander, rode first through the fords of Lochar, and
immediately after him came his brother David, a tall handsome boy of
fourteen, whose olive skin and highbred beauty attested his Douglas
birth.

Next rode the Earl of Angus, a red, foxy-featured man, with mean and
shifty eyes. He sat his horse awkwardly, perpetually hunching his
shoulders forward as if he feared to fall over his beast's head. And
saving among his own company, no man did him any honour, which caused
him to grin with wicked sidelong smiles of hate and envy.

Then amid the shouting of the people there appeared, on a milk-white
palfrey, Margaret, the Earl's only sister, already famous over all
Scotland as "The Fair Maid of Galloway." With her rode one who, in the
esteem of most who saw the pair that day, was a yet rarer flower, even
Maud Lindesay, who had come out of the bleak North to keep the lonely
little maid company. For Margaret of Douglas was yet no more than a
child, but Maud Lindesay was nineteen years of age and in the first
perfect bloom of her beauty.

Behind these two came the whole array of the knights and barons who
owned allegiance to the Douglas,--Herons and Maxwells, Ardwell
Macullochs, Gordons from the Glen of Kells, with Agnews and MacDowalls
from the Shireside. But above all, and outnumbering all, there were
the lesser chiefs of the mighty name--Douglases of the North, the
future Moray and Ormond among them, the noble young sons of James the
Gross of Avondale, who rode nearest their cousin, the head of the
clan. Then came Douglases of the Border, Douglases of the Hermitage,
of Renfrew, of Douglasdale. Every third man in that great company
which splashed and caracoled through the fords of Lochar, was a
William, a James, or an Archibald Douglas. The King himself could not
have raised in all Scotland such a following, and it is small wonder
if the heart of the young man expanded within him.

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