The Black Douglas Part 47

At the sound the old man staggered, reeled, and would have swayed into the fire had not Sholto seized him and dragged him out upon the floor.

All rose to their feet.

In the doorway of the cottage stood an old woman, small, smiling, delicate of feature. She looked benignly upon them and continued to smile. Her hair and her eyes were her most noticeable features. The former was abundant and hung loosely about the woman's brow and over her shoulders in wisps of a curious greenish white, the colour almost of mouldy cheese, while, under s.h.a.ggy white eyebrows, her large eyes shone piercing and green as emerald stones on the hand of some dusky monarch of the Orient.

The old woman it was who spoke first, before any of the men could recover from their surprise.

"My husband," she said, still calmly smiling upon them, "my poor husband has doubtless been telling you his foolish tales. The saints have permitted him to become demented. It is a great trial to a poor woman like me, but the will of heaven be done!"

The three Scots stood silent and transfixed, for it was an age of belief. But the cripple lay back on the settle where Sholto had placed him, his lips white and gluey. And as he lay he muttered audibly, "La Meffraye! La Meffraye! Oh, what will become of poor Caesar Martin this night!"

CHAPTER XLVIII

THE MERCY OF LA MEFFRAYE

It was a strange night that which the three Scots spent in the little house standing back from the street of Saint Philbert on the gloomy edges of the forest of Machecoul. The hostess, indeed, was unweariedly kind and brought forth from her store many dainties for their delectation. She talked with touching affection of her poor husband, afflicted with these strange fits of wolfish mania, in the paroxysms of which he was wont to tear himself and grovel in the dust like a beast.

This she told them over and over as she moved about setting before them provend from secret stores of her own, obviously unknown or perhaps forbidden to Caesar Martin.

Wild bee honey from the woods she placed before them and white wheaten bread, such as could not be got nearer than Paris, with wine of some rarer vintage than that out of the cripple's resinous pigskin. These and much else La Meffraye pressed upon them till she had completely won over the Lord James, and even Malise, easy natured like most very strong men, was taken by the sympathetic conversation and gracious kindliness of the wife of poor afflicted Caesar Martin of Saint Philbert. Only Sholto kept his suspicion edged and pointed, and resolved that he would not sleep that night, but watch till the dawn the things which might befall in the house on the forest's border.

Yet it was conspicuously to Sholto that La Meffraye directed most of her blandishments.

Her ruddy face, so bright that it seemed almost as if wholly covered with a birthmark, gleamed with absolute good nature as she looked at him. She threw off the black veil which half concealed her strange coiffure of green toadstool-coloured hair. She placed her choicest morsels before the young captain of the Douglas guard.

"'Tis hard," she said, touching him confidentially on the shoulder, "hard to dwell here in this country wherein so many deeds of blood are wrought, alone with a poor imbecile like my husband. None cares to help me with aught, all being too busy with their own affairs. It falls on me to till the fields, which, scanty as they are, are more than my feeble strength can compa.s.s unaided. Alone I must prune and water the vines, bring in the firewood, and go out and in by night and day to earn a scanty living for this afflicted one and myself. You will hear, perchance, mischief laid to my charge in this village of evil speakers and lazy folk. They hate me because I am no gadabout to spend time abusing my neighbours at the village well. But the children love me, and that is no ill sign. Their young hearts are open to love a poor lone old woman. What cares La Meffraye for the sneers of the ignorant and prejudiced so long as the children run to her gladly and search her pockets for the good things she never forgets to bring them from her kitchen?"

So the old woman, talking all the time, bustled here and there, setting sweet cakes baked with honey, confitures and bairns' goodies, figs, almonds, and cheese before her guests. But through all her blandishments Sholto watched her and had his eyes warily upon what should befall her husband, who could be seen lying apparently either asleep or unconscious upon the bed in an inner room.

"You do not speak like the folk of the south," she said to the Lord James. "Neither are you Northmen nor of the Midi. From what country may you come?" The question dropped casually as to fill up the time.

"We are poor Scots who have lived under the protection of your good King Charles, the seventh of that name, and having been restored to our possessions after the turning out of the English, we are making a pilgrimage in order to visit our friends and also to lay our thanks upon the altar of the blessed Saint Andrew in his own town in Scotland."

The old woman listened, approvingly nodding her head as the Lord James reeled off this new and original narrative. But at the mention of the land of the Scots La Meffraye p.r.i.c.ked her ears.

"Scots," she said meditatively; "that will surely interest my lord, who hath but recently returned from that country, whither they say he hath been upon a very confidential emba.s.sy from the King."

It was the Lord James who asked the next question.

"Have you heard whether any of our nation returned with him from our country? We would gladly meet with any such, that we might hear again the tongue of our nativity, which is ever sweet in a strange land--and also, if it might be, take back tidings of them to their folk in Scotland."

"Nay," answered La Meffraye, standing before them with her eyes shrewdly fixed upon the face of the speaker, "I have heard of none such. Yet it may well be, for the marshal is very fond of the society of the young, even as I am myself. He has many boy singers in his choir, maidens also for his religious processions. Indeed, never do I visit Machecoul without finding a pretty boy or a stripling girl pa.s.sing so innocently in and out of his study, that it is a pleasure to behold."

"Is his lordship even now at Machecoul?" asked James Douglas, bluntly.

The Lord James prided himself upon his tact, but when he set out to manifest it, Sholto groaned inwardly. He was never certain from one moment to another what the reckless young Lord might do or say next.

"I do not even know whether the marshal is now at Machecoul. The rich and great, they come and go, and we poor folk understand it no more than the pa.s.sing of the wind or the flight of the birds. But let us get to our couches. The morn will soon be here, and it must not find our bodies unrested or our eyes unrefreshed."

La Meffraye showed her guests where to make their beds in the outer room of the cottage, which they did by moving the bench back and stretching themselves with their heads to the wall and their feet to the fire. Sholto lay on the side furthest from the entrance of the room to which La Meffraye had retired with her husband. Malise was on the other side, and Lord James lay in the midst, as befitted his rank.

These last were instantly asleep, being tired with their journey and heavy with the meal of which they had partaken. But every sense in Sholto's body was keenly awake. A vague inexpressible fear possessed him. He lay watching the red unequal glow thrown upwards from the embers, and through the wide opening in the roof he could discern the twinkling of a star.

Within the chamber of La Meffraye there was silence. Sholto could not even hear the heavy breathing of Caesar Martin. The silence was complete.

Suddenly, from far away, there came up the howling of a wolf. It was not an uncommon sound in the forests of France, or even in those of his own country, yet somehow Sholto listened with a growing dread.

Nearer and nearer it came, till it seemed to reverberate immediately beneath the eaves of the dwelling of Caesar the cripple.

The flicker of the embers died slowly out. Malise lay without a sound, his head couched on his hand. Lord James began to groan and move uneasily, like one in the grip of nightmare. Sholto listened yet more acutely. Outside the house he could hear the soft pad-pad of wild animals. Their pelts seemed almost to brush against the wooden walls behind his head with a rustle like that of corded silk. Sholto felt nervously for his sword and cleared it instinctively of the coverture in which he was wrapped. Expectation tingled in his cheeks and palms.

The silence grew more and more oppressive. He could hear nothing but that soft brushing and the galloping pads outside, as of something that went round and round the house, weaving a coil of terror and death about the doomed inmates.

Suddenly from the adjoining chamber a cry burst forth, so shrill and terrible that not only Sholto but Malise also leaped to his feet.

"Mercy--mercy! Have mercy, La Meffraye!" it wailed.

Sholto rushed across the floor, striding the body of James Douglas in his haste. He dashed the door of the inner chamber open and was just in time to see something dark and lithe dart through the window and disappear into the indigo gloom without. From the bed there came a series of gasping moans, as from a man at the point of death.

"For G.o.d's sake bring a light!" cried Sholto, "there is black murder done here."

His father ran to the hearth, and, seizing a birchen brand, the end of which was still red, he blew upon it with care and success so that it burst into a white brilliant flame that lighted all the house. Then he, too, entered the room where Sholto, with his sword ready in his hand, was standing over the gasping, dying thing on the bed.

When Malise thrust forward his torch, lo! there, extended on the couch to which they had carried him two hours before, lay the yet twitching body of Caesar the cripple with his throat well nigh bitten away.

But La Meffraye was nowhere to be seen.

CHAPTER XLIX

THE BATTLE WITH THE WERE-WOLVES

"Let us get out of this h.e.l.lish place," cried James Douglas so soon as he had seen with his eyes that which lay within the bedchamber of the witch woman, and made certain that it was all over with Caesar Martin.

So the three men issued out into the gloom of the night, and made their way to the stable wherein they had disposed their horses so carefully the night before.

The door lay on the ground smashed and broken. It had been driven to kindling wood from within. Its inner surface was dinted and riven by the iron shoes of the frightened steeds, but the horses themselves were nowhere to be found. They had broken their halters and vanished.

The three Scots were left in the heart of the enemy's country without means of escape save upon their own feet.

But the horror which lay behind them in the house of La Meffraye drove them on.

Almost without knowing whither they went, they turned their faces towards the west, in the direction in which lay Machecoul, the castle of the dread Lord of all the Pays de Retz. Malise, as was his custom, walked in front, Sholto and the Lord James Douglas a step behind.

A chill wind from the sea blew through the forest. The pines bent soughing towards the adventurers. The night grew denser and blacker about them, as with the wan waters of the marismas on one side and the sombre arches of the forest on the other, they advanced sword in hand, praying that that which should happen might happen quickly.

But as they went the woods about them grew clamorous with horrid noises. All the evil beasts of the world seemed abroad that night in the forests of Machecoul. Presently they issued forth into a more open s.p.a.ce. The greyish dark of the turf beneath their feet spread further off. The black blank wall of the pines retreated and they found themselves suddenly with the stars twinkling infinitely chill and remote above them.