The Black Douglas Part 11

And even though knowing full well by bitter experience all her naughtiness and hypocrisy, Sholto, gulping his heart well down into his throat, could not do otherwise than forgive a thing so pretty and so full of the innocent artifices which make mown hay of the hearts of men.

With a touch of his lips upon the hand of Margaret the Maid in token of fealty, Sholto MacKim turned on his heel and went away towards the fords of Thrieve, muttering to himself, "No, she does not mean it, I do believe. But I have ever heard that of all women she who never means it is the most dangerous."

And this is a dict which no wise man can gainsay.

CHAPTER XIII

A DAUNTING SUMMONS

Not far before them had ridden the Earl and the Lady Sybilla. Behind these two came the Marshal de Retz and the fat Lord of Avondale. They were telling each other tales of the wars of La Pucelle, the latter laughing and shaking shoulders, but at the end of every side-splitting legend the Frenchman would glance over his shoulder at Maud Lindesay and the little maiden Margaret.

As Sholto pa.s.sed them on his return he stood aside, poised at the salute, looking meanwhile with awe on the great and notable French soldier. Yet at the first glimpse of his unvisored face there fell upon the young man a dislike so fierce and instinctive that he grasped his bow and fumbled in his quiver for an arrow, in order to send it through the unlaced joints of the Marshal's gorget, which for ease's sake his squire had undone when they left the field.

Sholto MacKim was at the fords waiting the chance of crossing and the pleasure of the surly keeper of the bridge, Elson A'Cormack, who sat in his wheelhouse, grunting curses on all who pa.s.sed that way.

"Foul feet, slow bellies, fus.h.i.+onless and slack ye are to run my lord's errands! But quick enow to return home upon your trampling clattering ruck of horses, and every rascal of you expecting to ride over my bridge of good pine planking instead of was.h.i.+ng the dirt from your hoofs in honest Dee water."

The long files of hors.e.m.e.n threaded their way across the green plain of the isle towards the open s.p.a.ce in front of Thrieve Castle, the points of their spears s.h.i.+ning high in the air, and the shafts so thick underneath that, seen from a distance, they made a network of slender lines reticulated against the brightness of the sun.

The great island strength of the Douglases was then in its highest state of perfection as a fortress and of dignity as a residence.

Archibald the Grim, who built the keep, could not have foreseen the wondrous beauty and strength to which Thrieve would attain under his successors. This night of the wappenshaw the lofty grey walls were hung with gaily coloured tapestries draped from the overhanging gallery of wood which ran round the top of the castle. From the four corners of the roof flew the banners of four provinces which owned the sway of the mighty house,--Galloway, Annandale, Lanark, and the Marches,--while from the centre, on a flagstaff taller than any, flew their standard royal, for so it might be called, the heart and stars of the Douglases' more than royal house.

While the outer walls thus blazed with colour, the woods around gave back the constant reverberation of cannon, as with hand guns and artillery of weight the garrison greeted the return of the Earl and his guests. The green castle island from end to end was planted thick with tents and gay with pavilions of many hues and various design, their walls covered with intricate devices, and each flying the colours of its owner, while on poles without dangled s.h.i.+elds and harness of various kinds, ready for the younger squires to clean and oil for the use of their masters on the remaining days of the tournament.

Sholto waited at the bridge-head, impatient of the press, and eager to be left alone with his own thoughts, that he might con over and over the words and looks of his heart's idol, and suck all the sweet pain he could out of her very hardheartedness. Suddenly tossed backwards like a ball from lip to lip, according to the universal and, indeed, obligatory custom of the time, there reached him the "pa.s.sing of the word." He heard his own name repeated over and over in fifty voices and tones, waxing louder as the "word" neared him.

"Sholto MacKim--Sholto MacKim, son of Malise, the armourer, wanted to speak with the Earl. Sholto MacKim. Sholto--"

A great nolt of a Moray Highlandman, with a mouth like a gash, shouted it in his very ear.

Surprised and somewhat anxious at heart, Sholto cast over in his mind all the deeds, good and evil, which might procure him the honour of an interview with Earl William Douglas, but could think of nothing except his having involuntarily played the spy at the young lord's meeting with the lady in the wood. It was therefore with some natural trepidation that the young man obeyed the summons.

"At any rate," he meditated with a slight return of complacency, as he b.u.t.ted and shoved his way castle-wards, "he can scarcely mean to have my head. For he was all day with my father at his elbow, and at the worst I shall have another chance of seeing"--he did not call the beloved by her Christian name even to himself, so he compromised by adding somewhat lamely--"_her_."

Thus Sholto, putting speed in his heels and swinging along over the trampled sward with the easy tireless trot of a sleuthhound, threaded his way among the groups of villein p.r.i.c.kers and swearing men-at-arms who c.u.mbered the main approaches of the castle.

He found the Earl walking swiftly up and down a little raised platform which extended round three sides of Thrieve, outside the main defences, but yet within the nether moat, the sluggish water of which it over-looked on its inner side.

Earl William was manifestly discomposed and excited by the events of the day, and especially by the fact that the Lady Sybilla seemed utterly unconscious of ever having set eyes upon him before, appearing entirely oblivious of having received him in a pavilion of rose-coloured silk under the shelter of a grove of tall pines. The young lord instinctively recoiled from any communication with his master armourer, whose grave and impa.s.sive face revealed nothing which might be pa.s.sing in his mind. Then the Earl's thoughts turned upon Sholto, who had been the first to observe his beauteous companion of the Carlinwark woods.

Earl William was even younger than Sholto, but the cares and dignities of a great position had rendered him far less boyish in manner and carriage than the son of Malise MacKim.

His head, now released from his helm, rose out from the richly ornamented collar of his armour with the grace of a flower and the strength of a tree rooted among rocks. He had already laid aside his gorget, and when Sholto was announced, the Earl's ancient retainer, old Landless Jock of Abernethy, was bringing him a cap of soft velvet which he threw on the back of his head with an air of supreme carelessness. Then he rose and walked up and down, carrying his armour as if it had been a mere feather weight, whereas it was tilting harness of double plate and designed only for wearing on horseback.

Sholto marked in the young lord a boyish eagerness equal to his own.

Indeed, his impatient manner recalled his late feelings, as he had stood on the bridge and desired to be left alone with his thoughts of Maud Lindesay.

Sholto stood still and quiet on the topmost step of the ascent from the moat-bridge waiting for the Earl to signify his will.

CHAPTER XIV

CAPTAIN OF THE EARL'S GUARD

"Sholto MacKim," said the Earl of Douglas, abruptly, "saw you the lady who arrived with the foreign amba.s.sador?"

"She is indeed wondrous fair to look on," answered Sholto, the whole heart in him instantly wary, while outwardly he seemed more innocent than before.

"Have your eyes ever lighted on that lady before?"

"Nay, my lord, of a surety no. In what manner should they, seeing that I have never been in France in my life, nor indeed more than a score of miles from this castle of Thrieve?"

"Thou art a good lad, and also ready of wit, Master Sholto," said the Earl, looking at the armourer's son musingly. "Clear of eye and true of hand, so they tell me. Did you not win the arrow prize this day?"

Lord William raised his eyes to where in the bonnet of the youth his own golden badge of archery glistened.

"And I also won the swording prize at the last wappenshaw on the moot hill of Urr," said Sholto, taking courage, and being resolved that if his fortune stood not now on tiptoe, it should not be on account of any superfluity of modesty on his own part.

"Ah," said the Earl, "I remember. It was two golden hearts joined together with an arrow and a star in the midst--a fitting Douglas emblem, by the bones of Saint Bride! Where hast thou left that badge that thou dost not wear it along with the other?"

Sholto blushed and muttered that he had forgotten it at home. He was all of a breaking perspiration lest he should have to tell the Earl that he had given it to Maud Lindesay, as indeed he meant to do presently, along with the golden buckle of archery,--that is if the dainty, mischievous-hearted maiden could be persuaded to accept thereof.

"Ah," said the Earl, smiling, "I comprehend. There is some maid in the question, and if I advance you to the command of my house-guard and give you an officer's responsibility, you will of a surety be ever desiring to go gadding to the greenwood--and around the loch of Carlinwark are most truly dangerous glades."

"Nay, indeed nay," cried Sholto, eagerly. "If it is my lord's will to appoint me to his guard, by Saint Bride and all the other saints I swear never to leave the island, unless it be sometimes of a Sunday afternoon for an hour or two--just to see my mother."

"Your mother!" quoth the Earl, laughing heartily. "So then my two golden hearts are in your mother's keeping. Art a good lad, Sholto, and as for guile it is simply not in thee!"

Sholto looked modestly down upon the earth, as if conscious of his own exceeding merits, but willing for the nonce to say nothing about them.

But the young Earl came over to him, and dealing him a sound buffet on the back, cried: "Nay, lad, that lamb-like look I have seen tried on mine uncle the Abbot of Sweetheart. Thy brother Laurence is in the way of clerkly advancement on account of that same sweetly innocent regard, which he hath in even greater perfection. But I am a young man, remember--and one youth flings not glamour easily into the eyes of another. Sholto, neither you nor I are any better than we should be, and if we are not so evil as some others, let us not set up as overwhelmingly virtuous. For at twenty virtue is mostly but lack of opportunity."

Sholto blushed so becomingly at this accusation that if the Earl had not seen the brothers locked in the death grip like crabs in a fishwife's creel, even he might have been deceived.

"Nevertheless," continued the Earl, "in spite of your claims to virtue, I am resolved to make you officer of my castle-guard--if not in name, at least in fact. For old Landless Jock of Abernethy must keep the name while he lives, and stand first when my steward pays out the chuckling golden Lions at Whitsun and eke Lady Day. But you shall have enough and be no longer a charge upon your father. Malise should be a proud man, having both his sons provided for in one day."

The Earl turned him about with his usual quick imperiousness.

"Malise," he cried, "Malise MacKim!"

And again the "word" ran through the castle, escaped the gate, circ.u.mnavigated the moat, and ran round the circle of the tents till the shouts of "Malise, Malise," could have been heard almost at the deserted fords of Lochar, where sundry varlets were watching for a chance to search the deserted pavilions for anything left behind therein by the knights and squires.

Presently there was seen ascending to the moat platform the huge form of the master armourer himself. He stood waiting his master's pleasure, with a knife which he had been sharpening in his hand. It was a curious weapon, long, thin, and narrow in the blade, which was double-edged and ground fine as a razor on both sides.