The Black Douglas Part 10

Here the Earl invited her to dismount and occupy the central seat.

"Till your arrival it lacked an occupant, saving my little sister; but to-day the G.o.ds have been good to the house of Douglas, and for the first time since the death of my father I see it filled."

Smilingly the lady consented, and with a wave of his hand the Earl William invited the Marshal de Retz to take the place on the other side of the Lady Sybilla.

Then turning haughtily to the herald of the King of Scots, who had been standing alone, he said:--

"And now, sir, what would you with the Earl Douglas?"

The ascetic, monkish man found his words with little loss of time, showing, however, no resentment for Earl William's neglect of any reverence to the banner under whose protection he came.

"I am Sir James Irving of Drum," he said, "and I stand here on behalf of Sir Alexander Livingston, tutor and guardian of the King of Scots, to invite your friendship and aid. The Lord Crichton, sometime Chancellor of this realm, hath rebelled against the royal authority and fortified him in Edinburgh Castle. So both Sir Alexander Livingston and the most n.o.ble lady, the Queen Mother, desire the a.s.sistance of the great power of the Earl of Douglas to suppress this revolt."

Scarcely had these words been uttered when another knight stepped forward out of the train which had followed the Earl of Avondale.

"I am here on behalf of the Chancellor of Scotland, who is no rebel against any right authority, but who wishes only to bring this distracted realm back into some a.s.sured peace, and to deliver the young King out of the hands of flatterers and lechers. I have the honour, therefore, of requesting on behalf of the Chancellor of Scotland, Sir William Crichton, the true representative of royal authority, the aid and alliance of my Lord of Douglas."

A smile of haughty contempt pa.s.sed over the face of the Earl, and he dismissed both heralds, uttering in the hearing of all those words which afterwards became so famous over Scotland:

"Let dog eat dog! Wherefore should the lion care?"

CHAPTER XII

MISTRESS MAUD LINDESAY

The sports of the first day of the great wappenshaw were over. The Lord James Douglas, second son of the Gross One, had won the single tourneying by unhorsing all his opponents without even breaking a lance. For the second time Sholto MacKim wore on his cap the golden buckle of archery, and took his way happily homeward, much uplifted that the somewhat fraudulent eyes of Mistress Maud Lindesay had smiled upon him whilst the French lady was fastening it there.

The knightly part of the great muster had already gone back to their tents and lodgings. The commonalty were mostly stringing away through the vales and hill pa.s.ses to their homes, no longer in ordered companies, but in bands of two or three. Disputes and misunderstandings arose here and there between men of different provinces. The Galloway men called "Annandale thieves" at those border lads who came at the summons of the hereditary Warden of the Marches. The borderers replied by loud bleatings, which signified that they held the Galwegians of no better understanding than their native sheep.

It was a strange and varied company which rode home to Thrieve to receive the hospitality of the young Earl of Douglas and Duke of Touraine. The castle itself, being no more than a military fortress, containing in addition to the soldiers' quarters only the apartments designed for the family (and scant enough even of those) could not, of course, accommodate so great a company.

But as was the custom at all great houses, though more in England and France than in poverty-stricken Scotland, the Earl of Douglas had in store an abundant supply of tents, some of them woven of arras and ornamented with cloth of gold, others of humbler but equally serviceable material.

His mother, the Countess of Douglas, who knew nothing of the occurrences of the night of the great storm, nor guessed at the suspicions of witchcraft and diablerie which made a h.e.l.l of the breast of Malise, the master armourer, received her son's guests with distinguished courtesy. Malise himself had gone to find the Abbot, so soon as ever he set eyes on the companion of the Marshal de Retz, that they might consult together--only, however, to discover that the gentle churchman had quitted the field immediately after he had obtained the consent of his nephew to the possession of the new chorister, to whom he had taken so sudden and violent a fancy.

The hoofs of the whole cavalcade were erelong sounding hollow and dull upon the wooden bridge, which the Earl's father had erected from the left bank to the southernmost corner of the Isle of Thrieve, a bridge which a single charge of powder, or even a few strokes of a wood-man's axe, had been sufficient to remove and disable, but which nevertheless enabled the castle-dwellers to avoid the extreme inconvenience of pa.s.sing through the ford at all states of the river.

Sholto MacKim, throwing all the consciousness of a shining success into the stiffness of the neck which upheld the slight additional weight of the Earl's gold buckle in his cap, found himself, not wholly by accident, in the neighbourhood of his heart's beloved, Maud Lindesay. For, like a valiant seneschal, she had kept her place all day close beside the Fair Maid of Galloway.

And now the little girl was more than ever eager to keep near to her friend, for the amba.s.sador of the King of France had bent one look upon her, so strange and searching that Margaret, though not naturally timid, had cried aloud involuntarily and clasped her friend's hand with a grasp which she refused to loosen, till Sholto had promised to walk by the side of her pony and allow her to net her trembling fingers into the thick of his cl.u.s.tering curls.

For the armourer's son was, in those simple days, an ancient ally and playmate of the little n.o.ble damsel, and he dreamed, and not without some excuse, that in an age when every man's strong arm and brave heart const.i.tuted his fortune, the time might come when he might even himself to Maud Lindesay, baron's daughter though she were. For both his father and himself were already high in favour with their master the Earl, who could create knighthoods and dispose lordships as easily as (and much more effectually and finally than) the King himself.

The emissaries of the Chancellor and Sir Alexander Livingston did not accompany the others back to the castle after the short and haughty answer which they had received, but with their followers returned the way they had come to their several headquarters, giving, as was natural between foes so bitter, a wide berth to each other on their northward journeys to Edinburgh and Stirling.

"What think you of this day's doings, Mistress Lindesay?" asked Sholto as he swung along beside the train with little Margaret Douglas's hand still clutching the thick curls at the back of his neck.

The maid of honour tossed her shapely head, and, with a little pretty upward curl of the lip, exclaimed: "'Twas as stupid a tourney as ever I saw. There was not a single handsome knight nor yet one beautiful lady on the field this day."

"What of James of Avondale when knights are being judged?" said Sholto, with a kind of gloomy satisfaction, boyish and characteristic; "he at least looked often enough in your direction to prove that he did not agree with you about the lack of the beautiful lady."

At this Maud Lindesay elevated her pretty nostrils yet further into the air. "James of Avondale, indeed--" she said, "he is not to be compared either for dignity or strength with the Earl himself, nor yet with many others whom I know of lesser estate."

"Sholto MacKim," cried the clear piping voice of the little Margaret, "how in the world am I to keep hold of your hair if you shake and jerk your head about like that? If you do not keep still I will send for that pretty boy over there in the scarlet vest, or ask my cousin James to ride with me. And he will, too, I know--for he likes bravely to be beside my dear, sweet Maud Lindesay."

After this Sholto held his head erect and forth-looking, as if he had been under the inspection of the Earl and were doubtful of his weapons pa.s.sing muster.

There came a subtle and roguish smile into the eyes of Mistress Maud Lindesay as she observed the stiffening of Sholto's bearing.

"Who were those others of humbler estate?" he queried, sending his words straight out of his lips like pellets from a pop-gun, being in fear lest he should unsettle the hand of the small tyrant upon his hair.

"Your brother Laurence for one," replied the minx, for no other purpose than to see the flush of disappointment tinge his brow with sudden red.

"I wish my brother Laurence were in--" he began. But the girl interrupted him.

"Hush," she said, holding up her finger, "do not swear, especially at a son of the holy church. Ha, ha! A fit clerk and a reverend will they make of Laurence MacKim! I have heard of your ploys and ongoings, both of you. Think not I am to be taken in by your meekness and pretence of dutiful service. You go athwart the country making love to poor maidens, and then, when you have won their hearts, you leave them lamenting."

And she affected to heave a deep sigh.

"Ah, Maudie," said the little girl, reproachfully, "now you are being bad. I know it by your voice. Do not be unkind to my Sholto, for his hair is so pleasant to touch. I wish you could feel it. And, besides, when you are wicked to him, you make him jerk, and if he does it often I shall have to send him away."

The Maid of Galloway was indeed entirely correct. For Maud Lindesay, accustomed all her life to the homage of many men, and having been brought up in a great castle in an age when chivalrous respect to women had not yet given place to the licence of the Revival of Letters, practised irritation like a fine art. She was brimful of the superfluity of naughtiness, yet withal as innocent and playful as a kitten.

But Sholto, both from a feeling that he belonged to an inferior rank, and also being exceedingly conscious of his youth, chose to be bitterly offended.

"You mistake me greatly, Mistress Lindesay," he said in an uneven schoolboy's voice, to which he tried in vain to add a touch of worldly coldness; "I do not make love to every girl I meet, nor yet do I love them and leave them as you say. You have been most gravely misinformed."

"Nay," tripped the maid of honour, with arch quickness of reply, "I said not that you were naturally equipped for such amorous quests. I meant to designate your brother Laurence. 'Tis pity he is to be a clerk. Though one day doubtless he will make a very proper and consolatory father confessor--"

Sholto walked on in silence, his eyes fixed before him, and in such high dudgeon that he pretended to be unconscious of what the girl had been saying. Then the little Margaret began to prattle in her pretty way, and the youth answered "yes" and "no" sulkily and at random, his thoughts being alternately on the doing of some great deed to make his mistress repent her cruelty, and on a leap into the castle pool, in whose unsunned deeps he might find oblivion from all the flouts of hard-hearted beauty.

Maud kept her eyes upon him, a smile of satisfaction on her lips so long as he was not looking at her. She liked to play her fish as satisfactorily as she could before gra.s.sing it at her feet.

"Besides, it will do him good," she said to herself. "He hath lately won the gold badge of archery, and, like all men, is apt to think overmuch of himself at such times. Moreover, I can always make it up to him after--if I like, that is."

But as often as Sholto dropped a little behind, keeping pace with Maid Margaret's slower palfrey so that Maud was sure he looked at her, the pretty coquette cast down her eyes in affected humility and sorrow.

Whereupon immediately Sholto felt his resentment begin to melt like snow off a dike top when the sun of April is shining.

But neither of them uttered another word till they reached the drawbridge which crossed the nether moat and conducted to the n.o.ble gateway of Thrieve. Then, at the foot of the stairway to the hall, Sholto, having swung the little maid from her pony, after a moment of sullen hesitation went across to a.s.sist Mistress Maud Lindesay out of her saddle.

As he lifted the girl down his heart thundered tumultuously in his breast, for he had never so touched her before. Her lashes rested modestly on her cheek--long, black, and upcurled a little at the ends.

As her foot touched the ground, she raised them a moment, and looked at him with one swift flash of violet eyes made darker by the seclusion from which she had released them. Then in another moment she had dropped them again, detaching them from his with a mighty affectation of confusion.

"Please, Sholto, I am sorry. I did not mean it." She spoke like a child that is sorry for a fault and is fearful of being chidden.