The Black Douglas Part 26

So Sholto was put into command of the court and battlements of the castle, and posted and changed guard as though he had been at Thrieve, while the Chancellor bustled about, affecting more the style of a rich and comfortable burgess than that of a feudal baron.

"'Tis a snug bit hoose," he would say, dropping into the countryside speech; "there's nocht fine within it from cellar to roof tree, save only the provend and the jolly Malmsey. And though I be but a poor eater myself, I love that my betters, who do me the honour of sojourning within my gates, should have the wherewithal to be merry."

And it was even as he said, for the tables were weighted with delicacies such as were never seen upon the boards of Thrieve or Castle Douglas.

CHAPTER x.x.x

THE BOWER BY YON BURNSIDE

And ever as he gazed at her the Earl of Douglas grew more and more in love with the Lady Sybilla. There was no covert side through which a burn plunged downward from the steep side of Moorfoot, but they wandered it alone together. Early and late they might have been met, he with his face turned upon her, and she looking straight forward with the same inscrutable calm. And all who saw left them alone as they took their way to gather flowers like children, or, as it might be, stood still and silent like a pair of lovers under the evening star. For in these summer days and nights bloomed untiringly the brief pa.s.sion-flower of William Douglas's life.

Meanwhile Sholto gritted his teeth in impotent rage, but had nothing to do save change guard and keep a wary eye upon the Chancellor, who went about rubbing his hands and glancing sidelong as the copses closed behind the Earl of Douglas and the Lady Sybilla. As for the amba.s.sador of France, he was, as was usual with him, much occupied in his own chamber with his servants Poitou and Henriet, and save when dinner was served in hall appeared little at the festivities.

Sholto wished at times for the presence of his father; but at others, when he saw William Douglas and Sybilla return with a light on their faces, and their eyes large and vague, he bethought him of Maud Lindesay, and was glad that, for a little at least, the sun of love should shine upon his lord.

It was in the gracious fulness of the early autumn, when the sheaves were set up in many a park and little warded holt about the Moorfoot braes, that William Douglas and Sybilla de Thouars stood together upon a crest of hill, crowned with dwarf birch and thick foliaged alder--a place in the retirement of whose sylvan bower they had already spent many tranced hours.

The Lady Sybilla sat down on a worn grey rock which thrust itself through the green turf. William Douglas stood beside her pulling a blade of bracken to pieces. The girl had been wearing a broad flat cap of velvet, which in the coolness of the twilight she had removed and now swung gently to and fro in her hand as she looked to the north, where small as a toy and backed by the orange glow of sunset, the Castle of Edinburgh could be seen black upon its wind-swept ridge. The girl was speaking slowly and softly.

"Nay, Earl Douglas," she said, "marriage must not be named to Sybilla de Thouars, certainly never by an Earl of Douglas and Duke of Touraine. He must wed for riches and fair provinces. His house is regal already. He is better born than the King, more powerful also.

The daughter of a Breton squire, of a forlorn and deserted mother, the kinswoman of Gilles de Retz of Machecoul and Champtoce, is not for him."

"A Douglas makes many sacrifices," said the young man with earnestness; "but this is not demanded of him. Four generations of us have wedded for power. It is surely time that one did so for love."

The girl reached him her hand, saying softly: "Ah, William, would that it had been so. Too late I begin to think on those things which might have been, had Sybilla de Thouars been born under a more fortunate star. As it is I can only go on--a terror to myself and a bane to others."

The young man, absorbed in his own thoughts, did not hear her words.

"The world itself were little to give in order that in exchange I might possess you," he answered.

The girl laughed a strange laugh, and drew back her hand from his.

"Possess me, well--but marry me--no. Honest men and honourable like Earl Douglas do not wed with the niece of Gilles de Retz. I had thought my heart within me to be as flint in the chalk, yet now I pray you on my knees to leave me. Take your thirty lances and your young brother and ride home. Then, safe in your island fortress of Thrieve, blot out of your heart all memory that ever you found pleasure in a creature so miserable as Sybilla de Thouars."

"But," said the young Earl, pa.s.sionately, "tell me why so, my lady. I do not understand. What obstacle can there be? You tell me that you love me, that you are not betrothed. Your kinsman is an honourable man, a marshal and an amba.s.sador of France, a cousin of the Duke of Brittany, a reigning sovereign. Moreover, am not I the Douglas? I am responsible to no man. William Douglas may wed whom he will--king's daughter or beggar wench. Why should he not join with the honourable daughter of an honourable house, and the one woman he has ever loved?"

The girl let her velvet cap fall on the ground, and sank her face between her hands. Her whole body was shaken with emotion.

"Go--go," she cried, starting to her feet and standing before him, "call out your lances and ride home this night. Never look more upon the face of such a thing as Sybilla de Thouars. I bid you! I warn you!

I command you! I thought I had been of stone, but now when I see you, and hear your words, I cannot do that which is laid upon me to do."

William of Douglas smiled.

"I cannot go," he said simply, "I love you. Moreover, I will not go--I am Earl of Douglas."

The girl clasped her hands helplessly.

"Not if I tell you that I have deceived you, led you on?" she said.

"Not if I swear that I am the slave of a power so terrible that there are no words in any language to tell the least of the things I have suffered?"

The Earl shook his head. The girl suddenly stamped her foot in anger.

"Go--go, I tell you," she cried; "stay not a day in this accursed place, wherein no true word is spoken and no loyal deed done, save those which come forth from your own true heart."

"Nay," said William Douglas, with his eyes on hers, "it is too late, Sybil. I have kissed the red of your lips. Your head hath lain on my breast. My whole soul is yours. I cannot now go back, even if I would.

The boy I have been, I can be no more for ever."

The girl rose from the stone on which she had been sitting. There was a new smile in her eyes. She held out her hands to the youth who stood so erect and proud before her. "Well, at the worst, William Douglas," she said, "you may never live to wear a white head, but at least you shall touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, taste the fruitage and smell the blossoms thereof more than a hundred greybeards. I had not thought that earth held anywhere such a man, or that aught but blackness and darkness remained this side of h.e.l.l for one so desolate as I. I have bid you leave me. I have told you that which, were it known, would cost me my life. But since you will not go,--since you are strong enough to stand unblenching in the face of doom,--you shall not lose all without a price."

She opened her arms wide, and her eyes were glorious.

"I love you," she said, her lips thrilling towards him, "I love you, love you, as I never thought to love any man upon this earth."

CHAPTER x.x.xI

THE GABERLUNZIE MAN

The next morning the Chancellor came down early from his chamber, and finding Earl Douglas already waiting in the courtyard, he rubbed his hands and called out cheerfully: "We shall be more lonely to-day, but perhaps even more gay. For there are many things men delight in which even the fairest ladies care not for, fearing mayhap some invasion of their dominions."

"What mean you, my Lord Chancellor?" said the Douglas to his host, eagerly scanning the upper windows meanwhile.

"I mean," said the Chancellor, fawningly, "that his Excellency, the amba.s.sador of France, hath ridden away under cloud of night, and hath taken his fair ward with him."

The Earl turned pale and stood glowering at the obsequious Chancellor as if unable to comprehend the purport of his words. At last he commanded himself sufficiently to speak.

"Was this resolution sudden, or did the Lady Sybilla know of it yesternight?"

"Nay, of a surety it was quite sudden," replied the Chancellor. "A message arrived from the Queen Mother to the Marshal de Retz requesting an immediate meeting on business of state, whereupon I offered my Castle of Edinburgh for the purpose as being more convenient than Stirling. So I doubt not that they are all met there, the young King being of the party. It is, indeed, a quaint falling out, for of late, as you may have heard, the Tutor and the Queen have scarce been of the number of my intimates."

The Earl of Douglas appeared strangely disturbed. He paid no further attention to his host, but strode to and fro in the courtyard with his thumbs in his belt, in an att.i.tude of the deepest meditation.

The Chancellor watched him from under his eyebrows with alternate apprehension and satisfaction, like a timid hunter who sees the lion half in and half out of the snare.

"I have a letter for you, my Lord Douglas," he said, after a long pause.

"Ah," cried Douglas, with obvious relief, "why did you not tell me so at first. Pray give it me."

"I knew not whether it might afford you pleasure or no," answered the Chancellor.

"Give it me!" cried Douglas, imperiously, as though he spoke to an underling.