The Black Douglas Part 7

Sholto, though, as we shall soon see, despised not love, had eyes more for the knights and men-at-arms, and considered that his heaven would be fully attained as soon as he should ride one of those great prancing horses, and carry a lance with the pennon of the Douglas upon it.

Meanwhile he wore the steel cap of the home guard, the ringed neck mail, the close-fitting doublet of blue dotted over with red Douglas hearts and having the white cross of St. Andrew transversely upon it.

About his waist was a peaked brace of shining plate armour, damascened in gold by Malise himself, and filling out his almost girlish waist to manlier proportions. From this depended a row of tags of soft leather.

Close chain-mail covered his legs, to which at the knees were added caps of triple plate. A sheaf of arrows in a blue and gold quiver on his right side, a sword of metal on his left, and a short Scottish bow in his hand completed the attire of a fully equipped and efficient archer of the Earl's guard.

The lads were soon at the fords of Lochar, where in the dry summers the stones show all the way across--one in the midst being named the Black Douglas, noted as the place where, as tradition affirms, Archibald the Grim used to pause in crossing the ford to look at his new fortress of Thrieve, rising on its impregnable island above the rich water meadows.

Now neither Sholto nor Laurence wished to wet their leg array before the work and pageant of the day began. This was the desire of Laurence, because of the maids who would a.s.semble on the Boreland Braes, and of Sholto inasmuch as he hoped to win the prize for the best accoutrement and the most point-device attiring among all the archers of the Earl's guard. The young men had asked crusty Simon Conchie, the boatman at the Ferry Croft, to set them over, offering him a groat for his pains. But he was far too busy to pay any attention to mere silver coin on such an occasion, only pausing long enough to cry to them that they must e'en cross at the fords, as many of their betters would do that day.

There was nothing for it, therefore, but either to strip to the waist or to wait the chances of the traffic. Both Sholto and Laurence were exceedingly loath to take the former course. They had not, however, long to hesitate, for a train of sumpter mules, belonging to the Lord Herries of Terregles, whose father had been with Archibald the Tineman in France, came up laden with the choicest products of the border country which he designed to offer as part of the "Service-Kane" to his overlord, the Earl of Douglas.

Now mules are all of them snorting, ill-conditioned brutes, and are ever ready to run away upon the least excuse, or even without any. So as soon as those of Lord Herries' train caught the glint of Sholto's blue baldric and shining steel girdle-brace appearing suddenly from behind a knoll, they incontinently bolted every way with noses to the ground, scattering packs and brandishing heels like young colts turned out to gra.s.s. It chanced that one of the largest mules made directly towards the fords of Lochar, and the youths, catching the flying bridle at either side, applied a sort of brake which sufficiently slowed the beast's movements to enable such agile skipjacks as Sholto and Laurence to mount. But as they were concerned more with their leaping from the ground than with what was already upon the animal's back, their heads met with a crash in the midst, in which collision the superior weight of the younger had very naturally the better of the encounter.

Sholto dropped instantly back to the ground. He was somewhat stunned by the blow, but the sight of his brother triumphantly splashing through the shallows aroused him. He arose, and seizing the first stone that came to hand hurled it after Laurence, swearing fraternally that he would smite him in the brisket with a dirk as soon as he caught him for that dastard blow. The first stone flew wide, though the splash caused the mule to shy into deeper water, to the damping of his rider's legs. But the second, being better aimed, took the animal fairly on the rump, and, fetching up on a fly-galled spot, frightened it with b.u.mping bags and loud squeals into the woods of Glen Lochar, which come down close to the fords on every side. Here presently Laurence found himself, like Absalom, caught in the branches of a beech, and left hanging between heaven and earth. A rider in complete plate of black mail caught him down, still holding on to his bow, and, placing him across the saddle, brought down the flat of his gauntleted hand upon a spot of the lad's person which, being uncovered by mail, responded with a resounding smack. Then, amid the boisterous laughter of the men-at-arms, he let Laurence slip to the ground.

But the younger son of Brawny Kim, master armourer of Carlinwark, was not the lad to take such an insult meekly, even from a man-at-arms riding on horseback. He threw his bow into the nearest thicket, and seizing the most convenient ammunition, which chanced to be in great plenty that day upon the braes of Balmaghie, pursued his insulter along the glade with such excellent aim and good effect that the black unadorned armour of the horseman showed disks of defilement all over, like a tree trunk covered with toadstool growths.

"Shoot down the intolerable young rascal! Shall he thus beard my Lord Maxwell?" cried a voice from the troop which witnessed the chase. And more than one bow was bent, and several hand-fusils levelled from the company which followed behind.

But the injured knight threw up his visor.

"Hold, there!" he cried, "the boy is right. It was I who insulted him, and he did right to be revenged, though the rogue's aim is more to be admired than his choice of weapons. Come hither, lad. Tell me who thou art, and what is thy father's quality?"

"I am Laurence MacKim, an archer of my lord's guard, and the younger son of Malise MacKim, master armourer to the Douglas."

Laurence, being still angry, rang out his t.i.tles as if they had been inscribed in the book of the Lion-King-at-Arms.

"Saints save us," cried the knight in swart armour, "all that!"

Then, seeing the boy ready to answer back still more fiercely, he continued with a courteous wave of the hand.

"I humbly ask your pardon, Master Laurence. I am glad the son of Brawny Kim hath no small part of his father's spirit. Will you take service and be my esquire, as becomes well a lad of parts who desires to win his way to a knighthood?"

The heart of Laurence MacKim beat quickly--a horse to ride--an esquire--perhaps if he had luck and much fighting, a knighthood.

Nevertheless, he answered with a bold straight look out of his black eyes.

"I am an archer of my lord Douglas' outer guard. I can have no promotion save from him or those of his house--not even from the King himself."

"Well said!" cried the knight; "small wonder that the Douglas is the greatest man in Scotland. I will speak to the Earl William this day concerning you."

Lord Maxwell rode on at the head of his company with a courteous salutation, which not a few behind him who had heard the colloquy imitated. Laurence stood there with his heart working like yeast within him, and his colour coming and going to think what he had been offered and what he had refused.

"G.o.d's truth," he said to himself, "I might have been a great man if I had chosen, while Sholto, that old sober sides, was left lagging behind."

Then he looked about for his bow and went swaggering along as if he were already Sir Laurence and the leader of an army.

But Nemesis was upon him, and that in the fashion which his pride would feel the most.

"Take that, beast of a Laurence!" cried a voice behind him.

And the lad received a jolt from behind which loosened his teeth in their sockets and discomposed the dignified stride with which in imagination he was commanding the armies of the Douglas.

CHAPTER IX

LAURENCE SINGS A HYMN

Laurence turned and beheld his brother. In another instant the two young men had clinched and were rolling on the ground, wrestling and striking according to their ability. Sholto might easily have had the best of the fray, but for the temper aroused by Laurence's recent degradation, for the elder brother was taller by an inch, and of a frame of body more lithe and supple. Moreover, the accuracy of Sholto MacKim's shape and the severe training of the smithy had not left a superfluous ounce of flesh on him anywhere.

In a minute the brothers had become the centre of a riotous, laughing throng of varlets--archers seeking their corps, and young squires sent by their lords to find out the exact positions allotted to each contingent by the provost of the camp. For as the wappenshaw was to be of three days' duration in all its n.o.bler parts, a wilderness of tents had already begun to arise under the scattered white thorns of the great Boreland Croft which stretched up from the river.

These laughed and jested after their kind, encouraging the youths to fight it out, and naming Laurence the brock or badger from his stoutness, and the slim Sholto the whitterick or, as one might say, weasel.

"At him, Whitterick--grip him! Grip him! Now you have him at the pinch! Well pulled, Brock! 'Tis a certainty for Brock--good Brock!

Well done--well done! Ah, would you? Hands off that dagger! Let fisticuffs settle it! The Whitterick hath it--the Whitterick!"

And thus ran the comment. Sholto being c.u.mbered with his armour, Laurence might in time have gotten the upper grip. But at this moment a diversion occurred which completely altered the character of the conflict. A stout, reddish young man came up, holding in his hand a staff painted with twining stripes of white and red, which showed him to be the marshal of that part of the camp which pertained to the Earl of Angus. He looked on for a moment from the skirts of the crowd, and then elbowed his way self-importantly into the centre, till he stood immediately above Laurence and Sholto.

"What means this hubbub, I say? Quit your hold there and come with me; my Lord of Angus will settle this dispute."

He had come up just when the young men were in the final grips, when Sholto had at last gotten his will of his brother's head, and was, as the saying is, giving him "Dutch spice" in no very knightly fashion.

The Angus marshal, seeing this, seized Sholto by the collar of his mailed shirt, and drawing him suddenly back, caused him to lose hold of his brother, who as quickly rose to his feet. The red man began to beat Sholto about the headpiece right heartily with his staff, which exercise made a great ringing noise, though naturally, the skull cap being the work of Malise MacKim, little harm ensued to the head enclosed therein.

But Master Laurence was instantly on fire.

"Here, Foxy-face," he cried, "let my brother a-be! What business is it of yours if two gentlemen have a difference? Go back to your Angus kernes and ragged craw-bogle Highland folk!"

Meanwhile Sholto had recovered from his surprise, and the crowd of varlets was melting apace, thinking the Angus marshal some one of consequence. But the brothers MacKim were not the lads to take beating with a stick meekly, and the provost, who indeed had nothing to do with the Galloway part of the encampment, had far better have confined his officiousness to his own quarters.

"Take him on the right, Sholto," cried Laurence, "and I will have at him from this side." The Red Angus drew his sword and threatened forthwith to slay the lads if they came near him. But with a spring like that of a grey Grimalkin of the woods, Sholto leapt within his guard ere he had time to draw back his arm for thrust or parry, and at the same moment Laurence, s.n.a.t.c.hing the red and white staff out of his hand, dealt him so st.u.r.dy a clout between the shoulders that, though he was of weight equal to both of his opponents taken together, he was knocked breathless at the first blow and went down beneath the impetus of Sholto's attack.

Laurence coolly disengaged his brother, and began to thrash the Angus man with his own staff upon all exposed parts, till the dry wood broke. Then he threw the pieces at his head, and the two brothers went off arm in arm to find a woody covert in which to repair damages against the weapon-showing, and the inspection of their lord and his keen-eyed master armourer.

As soon as they had discovered such a sequestered holt, Laurence, who had frequent experience of such rough-and-tumble encounters, stripped off his doublet of purple velvet, and, turning the sleeve inside out, he showed his brother that it was lined with a rough-surfaced felt cloth almost of the nature of teasle. This being rubbed briskly upon any dusty garment or fouled armour proved most excellent for restoring its pristine gloss and beauty. The young men, being as it were born to the trade and knowing that their armament must meet their father's inexorable eye, as he pa.s.sed along their lines with the Earl, rubbed and polished their best, and when after half an hour's sharp work each examined the other, not a speck or stain was left to tell of the various casual incidents of the morning. Two bright, fresh-coloured youths emerged from their thicket, immaculately clad, and with countenances of such cherubic innocence, that my lord the Abbot William of the great Cistercian Abbey of Dulce Cor, looking upon them as with bare bowed heads they knelt reverently on one knee to ask his blessing, said to his train, "They look for all the world like young angels! It is a shame and a sin that two such fair innocents should be compelled to join in aught ruder than the chanting of psalms in holy service."

Whereat one of his company, who had been witness to their treatment of the Angus provost and also of Laurence's encounter with the knight of the black armour, was seized incontinently with a fit of coughing which almost choked him.

"Bless you, my sons," said the Abbot, "I will speak to my nephew, the Earl, concerning you. Your faces plead for you. Evil cannot dwell in such fair bodies. What are your names?"

The younger knelt with his fingers joined and his eyes meekly on the gra.s.s, while Sholto, who had risen, stood quietly by with his steel cap in his hand.

"Laurence MacKim," answered the younger, modestly, without venturing to raise his eyes from the ground, "and this is my brother Sholto."

"Can you sing, pretty boy?" said the Abbot to Laurence.