The Black Douglas Part 21

"Good-by, kind Sir Sholto!" piped the childish voice of the Maid of Galloway, as she made a little courtesy to Sholto MacKim in imitation of her companion. "I know not where you are going, but Maudie bids me, so I will!"

"And wherefore say you good-by to me?" cried Sholto, finding his words at once in the wholesome atmosphere of raillery which everywhere accompanied that quipsome damosel, Mistress Maud Lindesay.

"Why, because we are humble folk, and must get our ways upstairs out of the way of dignities. Permit me to kiss your glove, fair lord!" and here she tripped down the steps and pretended to take his hand.

"Hold off!" he cried, s.n.a.t.c.hing it away angrily, for her tone vexed and thwarted him.

The girl affected a great terror, which merged immediately into a meek affectation of resignation.

"No--you are right--we are not worthy even to kiss your knightly hand," she said, "but we will respectfully greet you." Here she swept him a full reverence, and ran up the steps again before he could take hold of her. Then, standing on the topmost step, and holding her friend's hand in hers, she spoke to the Maid of Galloway in a tone hushed and regretful, as one speaks of the dead.

"No, Margaret," she said, "he will no more play with us. Hide-and-seek about the stack-yard ricks at the Mains is over in the gloamings. Sir Sholto cares no more for us. He has put away childish things. He will not even blow out a lamp for us with his own honourable lips. No, he will call his squire to do it!"

Sholto looked the indignation he would not trust himself to speak.

"He will dine with the Earl in hall, and quaff and stamp and shout with the best when they drink the toasts. But he has become too great a man to carry you and me any more over the stepping-stones at the ford, or pull with us the ripe berries when the briars are drooping purple on the braes of Keltonhill. Bid him good-by, Margaret, for he was our kind friend once. And when he rides out to battle, perhaps, if we are good and respectful, he may again wave us a hand and say: 'There are two la.s.sies that once I kenned!'"

At this inordinate flouting the patience of the new knight, growing more and more angry at each word, came quickly to the breaking point; for his nerves were jarred and jangled by the excitement of the day.

He gave vent to a short sharp cry, and started up the steps with the intention of making Mistress Lindesay pay in some fashion for her impertinence. But that active and gamesome maid was most entirely on the alert. Indeed, she had been counting from the first upon provoking such a movement. And so, with her nimble charge at her heels, Mistress Lindesay was already at the inner port, and through the iron-barred gate of the turret stair, before the youthful captain of the guard, still c.u.mbered with his armour, could reach the top of the outer steps.

As soon as Sholto saw that he was hopelessly distanced, he slackened his gait, and, with a sober tread befitting a knight and officer of a garrison, he walked along the pa.s.sage which led to the chamber allotted to the captain of the guard, from which that day Landless Jock had removed his effects.

The soldiers of the guard, who had heard of the honours which had so swiftly come upon the young man, rose and respectfully saluted their chief. And Sholto, though he had been silent when the sharp tongue of the mirth-loving maid tormented him, found speech readily enough now.

"I thank you," he said, acknowledging their salutations. "We have known each other before. Fortune and misfortune come to all, and it will be your turns one day. But up or down, good or ill, we shall not be the worse comrades for having kept the guard and sped the bolt together."

Then there came one behind him who stood at the door of his chamber, as he was unhelming himself, and said: "My captain, there stand at the turret stair the ladies Margaret and Maud with a message for you."

"A message for me--what is it?" said Sholto, testily, being (and small blame to him) a trifle ruffled in his temper.

"Nay, sir," said the man, respectfully, "that I know not, but methinks it comes from my lord."

It will not do to say to what our gallant Sholto condemned all tricksome queans and spiteful damosels in whose eyes dwelt mischief br.i.m.m.i.n.g over, and whose tongues spoke softest words that yet stung and rankled like fairy arrows dipped in gall and wormwood.

But since the man stood there and repeated, "I judge the message to be one from my lord," Sholto could do no less than hastily pull on his doublet and again betake himself along the corridor to the foot of the stair.

When he arrived there he saw no one, and was about to depart again as he had come, when the head of Maud Lindesay appeared round the upper spiral looking more distractedly mischievous and bewitching than ever, her head all rippling over with dark curls and her eyes fairly scintillating light. She nodded to him and leaned a little farther over, holding tightly to the bal.u.s.ter meanwhile.

"Well," said Sholto, roughly, "what are my lord's commands for me, if, indeed, he has charged you with any?"

"He bids me say," replied Mistress Maud Lindesay, "that, since lamps are dangerous things in maidens' chambers, he desires you to a.s.sist in the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of the waxen tapers to-night--that is, if so menial a service shame not your knighthood."

"Pshaw!" muttered Sholto, "my lord said naught of the sort."

"Well then," said Maud Lindesay, smiling down upon him with an expression innocent and sweet as that of an angel on a painted ceiling, "you will be kind and come and help us all the same?"

"That I will not!" said Sholto, stamping his foot like an ill-tempered boy.

"Yes, you will--because Margaret asks you?"

_"I will not!"_

"Then because _I_ ask you?"

Spite of his best endeavours, Sholto could not take his eyes from the girl's face, which seemed fairer and more desirable to him now than ever. A quick sob of pa.s.sion shook him, and he found words at last:

"Oh, Maud Lindesay, why do you treat thus one who loves you with all his heart?"

The girl's face changed. The mischief died out of it, and something vague and soft welled up in her eyes, making them mistily grey and l.u.s.trous. But she only said: "Sholto, it is growing dark already! It is time the tapers were trimmed!"

Then Sholto followed her up the stairs, and though I do not know, there is some reason for thinking that he forgave her all her wickedness in the sweet inters.p.a.ce between the gloaming and the mirk, when the lamps were being lighted on earth, and in heaven the stars were coming out.

CHAPTER XXV

THE DOGS AND THE WOLF HOLD COUNCIL

It was a week or two after the date of the great wappenshaw and tourneying at the Castle of Thrieve, that in the midmost golden haze of a summer's afternoon four men sat talking together about a table in a room of the royal palace of Stirling.

No one of the four was any longer young, and one at least was immoderately fat. This was James, Earl of Avondale, granduncle of the present Earl of Douglas, and, save for young David, the Earl's brother, nearest heir to the t.i.tle and all the estates and honours pertaining thereto, with the single exception of the Lordship of Galloway.

The other three were, first, Sir Alexander Livingston, the guardian of the King's person, a handsome man with a curled beard, who was supposed to stand high in the immediate favours of the Queen, and who had long been tutor to his Majesty as well as guardian of his royal person. Opposite to Livingston, and carefully avoiding his eye, sat a man of thin and foxy aspect, whose smooth face, small shifty mouth, and perilous triangular eyes marked him as one infinitely more dangerous than either of the former--Sir William Crichton, the Chancellor of the realm of Scotland.

The fourth was speaking, and his aspect, strange and ofttimes terrifying, is already familiar to us. But the pallid corpse-like face, the blue-black beard, the wild-beast look, in the eyes of the Marshal de Retz, amba.s.sador of the King of France, were now more than ever heightened in effect by the studied suavity of his demeanour and the graciousness of language with which he was clothing what he had to say.

"I have brought you together after taking counsel with my good Lord of Avondale. I am aware, most n.o.ble seigneurs, that there have been differences between you in the past as to the conduct of the affairs of this great kingdom; but I am obeying both the known wishes and the express commands of my own King in endeavouring to bring you to an agreement. You will not forget that the Dauphin of France is wedded to the Scottish princess nearest the throne, and that therefore he is not unconcerned in the welfare of this realm.

"Now, messieurs, it cannot be hid from you that there is one overriding and insistent peril which ought to put an end to all your misunderstandings. There is a young man in this land, more powerful than you or the King, or, indeed, all the powers legalised and established within the bounds of Scotland.

"Who is above the law, gentlemen? I name to you the Earl of Douglas.

Who hath a retinue ten times more magnificent than that with which the King rides forth? The Earl of Douglas! Who possesses more than half Scotland, and that part the fairest and richest? Who holds in his hands all the strong castles, is joined by bond of service and manrent with the most powerful n.o.bles of the land? Who but the Earl of Douglas, Duke of Touraine, Warden of the Marches, hereditary Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom?"

At this point the crafty eyes of Crichton the Chancellor were turned full upon the speaker. His hand tugged nervously at his thin reddish beard as if it had been combing the long goat's tuft which grew beneath his smooth chin.

"But did not you yourself come all the way from France to endue him with the duchy of Touraine?" he said. "Doth that look like pulling him down from his high seat?"

The marshal moved a politic hand as if asking silence till he had finished his explanation.

"Pardon," he said; "permit me yet a moment, most High Chancellor--but have you heard so little of the skill and craft of Louis, our most notable Dauphin, that you know not how he ever embraces men with the left arm whilst he pierces them with the dagger in his right?"

The Chancellor nodded appreciation. It was a detail of statecraft well known to him, and much practised by his house in all periods of their history.

"Now, my lords," the amba.s.sador continued, "you are here all three--the men who need most to end this tyranny--you, my Lord of Avondale, will you deign to deliver your mind upon this matter?"

The fat Earl hemmed and hawed, clearing his throat to gain time, and knitting and unknitting his fingers over his stomach.