The Black Douglas Part 8

"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 a.s.sist 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 G.o.d-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 fas.h.i.+on, 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 n.o.bles 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 t.i.ttering 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 pa.s.sed 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 sh.o.r.e. 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 n.o.bly 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 s.h.i.+fty 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 s.h.i.+reside. 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 n.o.ble 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.

Presently, soon after the arrival of the cavalcade, the great wappenshaw was set in array, and forming up company by company the long double line extended as far as the eye could reach from north to south along the side of the broad and sluggish-moving river.

Sholto, who in virtue of his courage and good marksmans.h.i.+p had been placed over the archer company which waited on the right of the ford, fell in immediately behind the _cortege_ of the Earl. He was first man of all to have his equipment examined, and his weapons obtained, as they deserved, the commendation of his liege lord, and the grim unwilling approval of Malise, the master armourer, whose unerring eye could not detect so much as a speck on the s.h.i.+rt of mail, or a grain of rust on the waist brace of s.h.i.+ning steel.

Then the Earl rode down the lines, and Sholto, remembering the encounter amidst the dust of the roadway, breathed more freely when he saw his father's back.

And surely that day the heart of the Douglas must have beat proud and high within him, for there they stood, company behind ordered company, the men on whom he could count to the death. And truly the lad of eighteen, who in Scotland was greater than the King, looked upon their steadfast thousands with a swelling heart.

The Abbot had made particular inquiries where Laurence was stationed, which was in the archer company of the Laird of Kelton. Most of the monkish band had been made too happy by the deception practised on their Abbot concerning "Mary Quean," and were too desirous to have such a rogue to play his pranks in the dull abbey, to tell any tales on Laurence MacKim. But one, Berguet, a Belgian priest who had begged his way to Scotland, and whose nature was that of the spy and sycophant, approached and volunteered the information to the Abbot that this lad to whom he was desirous of showing favour, was a ribald and hypocritical youth.

"Eh, what?" said the Abbot, "a bodle for thy ill-set tongue, false loon, dost think I did not hear him sing his fair and seemly orisons?

I tell thee, rude out-land jabberer, that I am a Douglas, and have ears better than those of any Frenchman that ever breathed. For this thou shalt kneel six nights on the cold stone of the holy chapel house, and say of paternosters ten thousand and of misereres thou shall sing three hundred. And this shall chance to teach thee to be scanter with thy foul breath when thou speakest to the Abbot of the Foundation of Devorgill concerning better men than thyself."

The Belgian priest gasped and fell back, and none other was found to say aught against Master Laurence, which, considering the ten thousand paternosters and the three hundred misereres, was not unnatural.

As the Earl pa.s.sed along the line he was annoyed by the iterated requests of his uncle to be informed when they should come to the company of the Laird of Kelton. And the good Abbot, being like all deaf men apt to speak a little loud, did not improve matters by constantly making remarks behind his hand, upon the appearance or character (as known to him) of the various dependents of the Douglas House who had come out to show their loyalty and exhibit their preparedness for battle.

As thus it was. The young Earl would come in his inspection to a company of Solway-side men--stiff-jointed fishers of salmon nets out of the parishes of Rerrick or Borgue--or, as it might be, rough colts from the rock scarps of Colvend, scramblers after wild birds' nests on perilous heuchs, and poachers on the deer preserves of Cloak Moss, as often as they had a chance. Then the Earl, having zealously commended the particular Barnbacle or Munches who led them, all would be peace and concord, till out of the crowd behind would issue the growling comment of his uncle, the Abbot of Dulce Cor.

"A close-fisted old thief! The saints pity him not! He will surely fry in h.e.l.l! Last Shrovetide did he not drive off five of our best milch cows, and hath steadfastly refused to restore them? _Anathema maranatha_ to his vile body and condemned be his huckstering soul!"

Needless to add, every word of this comment and addition was heard by the person most concerned.

Or it might be, "Henry A'milligan--his mother's son, G.o.d wot. And his father's, too, doubtless--if only one could know who his father was.

The devil dwell in his fat belly! _Exorciso te_--"

So it went on till the temper of the young lord of Galloway was strained almost to the breaking point, for he wished not to cause a disturbance among so great a company and on a day of such renown.

At last they came to the muster of the clean-run limber lads of Kelton, artificers mostly, and stated retainers of the castle and its various adjacent bourgs of Carlinwark, Rhonehouse, Gelston, and Mains of Thrieve.

Some one at this point took the Abbot by the elbow and shouted in his ear that this was the company he desired to see. Then he rode forward to the left hand of his nephew, as Malise and he pa.s.sed slowly down the line examining the weapons.

"Laurence MacKim, I would see Laurence MacKim!" cried the Abbot, holding up his hand as if in the chapel of his monastery. The Earl stopped, and Malise turned right about on his heel in great astonishment.

"What wants old marrowbones with our Laurie?" he muttered; "surely he cannot have gotten into mischief with the la.s.ses already. But I kenna--I kenna. When I was sixteen I can mind--I can mind. And the loon may well be his father's own son."

And Malise, the man of brawn, watched out of his quiet grey eyes the face of the Abbot William, wondering what was to come next.

Laurence stood forth at a word of command from the Earl. He saluted, and then dropped the point of his sword meekly upon the ground. His white-and-rose cherub's face expressed the utmost goodness and innocence.