The Black Douglas Part 33

And with these words he left the dais, followed by Sir Alexander Livingston. The girl stood in the place whence she had spoken her last words. Then, as the men-at-arms went shamefacedly to take the Earl by the arm, she suddenly threw herself across the platform, leaped lightly over the barrier, and fell into his arms.

"William, once I would have betrayed you," she said, "but now I love you. I will die with you--or by the great G.o.d I will live to avenge you."

"Hush, sweetheart," said William Douglas, touching her brow gently with his lips, and putting her into the arms of an officer of the court whom her uncle had sent to remove her. "Fear not for me! Death is swift and easy. I expected nothing else. That you love me is enough! Dear love, fare thee well!"

But the girl heard him not. She had fainted in the arms that held her.

Yet the Marshal de Retz had still more for her to suffer. He stood beside her and dashed water upon her till she awoke, that she might see that which remained to be done.

It was a scene dreary beyond all power of words to tell it, when into the courtyard of the Castle of Edinburgh they brought the two n.o.ble young men forth to die. The sun had long risen, but the first flush of broad morning sunshine still lingered upon the low platform on which stood the block, and beside it the headsman sullenly waiting to do his appointed work.

The young Lords of Douglas came out looking brave and handsome as bridegrooms on a day of betrothing. William had once more his hand on David's shoulder, his other rested carelessly on his thigh as his custom was. The brothers were bareheaded, and to the eyes of those who looked on they seemed to be conversing together of light matters of love and ladies' favours.

High above upon a balcony, hung like an iron cage upon the castle wall, appeared the Chancellor and the tutor. The young King was with them, weeping and crying out, "Do nothing to my dear cousins--I command you--I am the King!"

But the tutor roughly bade him be still, telling him that he would never reign if these young men lived, and presently another came there and stood beside him. The Marshal de Retz it was, who, with a fiendish smile upon his sleek parchment face, conducted the Lady Sybilla to see the end. But it was a good end to see, and n.o.bler far than most lives that are lived to fourscore years.

The brothers embraced as they came to the block, kneeled down, and said a short prayer like Christians of a good house. So great was their enemies' haste that they were not allowed even a priest to shrive them, but they did what they could.

The executioner motioned first to David. An attendant brought him the heading cup of wine, which it was the custom to offer to those about to die upon the scaffold.

"Drink it not," said Earl William, "lest they say it was drugged."

And David Douglas bowed his head upon the block, being only in the fifteenth year of his age.

"Farewell, brother," he said, "be not long after me. It is a darksome road to travel so young."

"Fear not, Davie lad," said William Douglas, tenderly, "I will overtake you ere you be through the first gate."

He turned a little aside that he might not see his brother die, and even as he did so he saw the Lady Sybilla lean upon the balcony paler than the dead.

Then when it came to his turn they offered the Earl William also the heading cup filled with the rich wine of Touraine, his own fair province that he was never to see.

He lifted the cup high in his right hand with a knightly and courtly gesture. Looking towards the balcony whereon stood the Lady Sybilla, he bowed to her.

"I drink to you, my lady and my love," he cried, in a voice loud and clear.

Then, touching but the rim of the goblet with his lips, he poured out the red wine upon the ground.

And thus pa.s.sed the gallantest gentleman and truest lover in whom G.o.d ever put heart of grace to live courteously and die greatly, keeping his faith in his lady even against herself, and holding death itself sweet because that in death she loved him.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

THE RISING OF THE DOUGLASES

It was upon the Earl's own charger, Black Darnaway, that Sholto rode southward to raise to their chief's a.s.sistance the greatest and compactest clan that ever, even in Scotland, had done the bidding of one man.

The young man's heart was high and hopeful within him. The King's guardians dared not, so he told himself, let aught befall the puissant Douglases in the Castle of Edinburgh, without trial and under cover of the most courteous hospitality.

"Try the Earl of Douglas!" so Sholto thought within him. He laughed at the notion. "Why, Earl William could by a word bring a hundred thousand men of Galloway and the Marches to make a fitting jury."

So he meditated, his thoughts running fast and fiery to the beating of Black Darnaway's feet as he climbed the heathery slopes which led towards Douglasdale. Day was breaking as he rode down to the town of Lanark yet asleep and smokeless in the caller airs of the morn. At the gates of this frontier town he delivered his first summons of feudality. For the burghers of Lanark were liegemen of the Douglases of Douglasdale, and were (though not with much good-will) bound to furnish service at call.

Sholto had some difficulty in making himself heard athwart the ponderous wooden gates, bossed with leather and studded with iron. At first he shouted angrily to the silences, but presently nearer and nearer came a bellow as of a brazen bull, thunderous and far echoing.

"Fower o' the clock and a braw, braw morning."

It was Grice Elshioner, watchman of the town of Lanark, evidencing to the magistrates and lieges thereof that he was earning his three shillings in the week--a handsome wage in these hard times, and one well able to provide belly-timber for himself and also for the wife and weans who, dwelling in a close off the High-street, were called by his name.

Sholto thundered again upon the rugged portal.

"Open there! Open, I say, in the name of the Earl of Douglas!"

"Fower o' the morning! Lord, what's a' the steer? In the name o' the Yerl o' Douglas! But wha kens that it isna the English? Na, na, Grice Elshioner opens not to every night-raking loon that likes to cry the name o' the Yerl o' Douglas ower oor toon wa'!"

And Grice the valorous would have taken him off with a fresh, sleep-dispelling bellow had it not been that he heard himself summoned in a voice that brooked no delay.

"Open, varlet of a watchman, or by Saint Bride I will have you swinging in half an hour from the bars of your own portcullis. I who speak am Sholto MacKim, captain of the Earl's guard. Every liegeman in the town must arm, mount, and ride this instant to Edinburgh. I give you fair warning. You hear my words, I will not enter your rascal town. But if so much as one be wanting at the muster, I swear in the name of my master that his house shall be burned with fire and razed to the ground, and his wife be a widow or ever the c.o.c.k craw on another Sabbath morn!"

And without waiting for a reply Sholto laid the reins upon the neck of Black Darnaway and rode on southward up Douglas Water to the home nest of the lordly race.

And behind him, with a wail in it, blared through the narrow streets the stormy voice of Grice Elshioner, watchman of Lanark, "Wauken ye, wauken ye, burgesses a'! The Douglas hath sent to bid ye mount and ride."

The _birr_ of the war drum saluted Sholto's ears ere he had turned the corner of the town parks. Then came the answering shouts of the burghers who thrust inquiring and indignant heads out of gable windows and turret speering-holes.

"_Birr!_" continued the undaunted and insistent town drum.

"Harness your backs! Fill your bellies, and stand ready! The Douglas has need o' ye, lieges a'!" cried the sonorous voice of the watch.

Sholto smiled as he listened.

"I have at least set them on the alert. They will join the Douglasdale men as they pa.s.s by, or we will show them reason why. But they of Lanark are ill-set town-ward men, and of no true leal heart, save an it be to their own coffers. Yet will they march with us for fear of the harrying hand and the burning roof tree."

The sun rose fair on the battlements of Douglas Castle as Sholto rode up to the level mead, whereon a little company of men was exercising.

He could hear the words of command cried gruffly in the broad Galloway speech. Landless Jock was drilling his spearmen, and as the shining triple line of points dropped to the "ready to receive," the old knight and former captain of the Earl's guard came forward a little way to welcome his successor with what grace was at his command.

"Eh, siree, and what has brocht sic a braw young knight and grand frequenter o' courts sae far as Douglas Castle? Could ye no even let puir Landless Jock hae the tilt-yaird here to exercise his handfu' in, and keep his auld banes a wee while frae the rust and the green mould?"

But even as the crusty old soldier spoke these words, the white anxiety in Sholto's face struck through his half-humorous complaint, and the words died on his lips in a perturbed "What is't--what is't ava, laddie?"

Sholto told him in the fewest words.