The Black Douglas, Samuel Rutherford Crockett [best books under 200 pages .TXT] 📗

his brother David to bring him word of their quality.
Presently, however, and before David Douglas' return, shouts of "Avondale, Avondale!" from the men of Lanarkshire informed the young Earl of the name of one at least of those who had arrived. A frown so quick and angry darkened his brow that it showed the consideration in which the Douglas held his granduncle James the Gross, Earl of Avondale.
"I hope, at least," he said in a low voice to Malise, who stood half a step behind him, "that my cousins Will and James have come with him. They are good metal for a tourney, and worth breaking a lance with."
By this time the banners of the visitors were discernible crossing the fords of Lochar, while high advanced above all private pennons two standards could be seen, the banner royal of Scotland, and close beside the rampant lion the white lilies of France.
"Saint Bride!" cried the Earl, "have they brought the King of Scots to visit me? His Majesty had been better at his horn-book, or playing ball in the tennis court of Stirling."
Then came David back, riding swiftly on his fine dark chestnut, which, being free from the mantle wherein the horses of knights were swathed, and having its mane and tail left long, made a gallant show as the lad threw it almost on its haunches in his boyish pride of horsemanship.
"William," said David Douglas, "a word in your ear, brother. The whole tribe are here,--fat Jamie and all his clan."
The brothers conferred a little apart, for in those troubled times men learned caution early, and though the Douglas was the greatest lord in Scotland, yet, surrounded by meaner men as he was, it behoved him to be jealous and careful of his life and honour.
Earl Douglas came out of the sparred enclosure of the tilt-ring in order to receive his guests.
First, as an escort to the ambassador royal of France and Scotland who came behind, rode the Earl of Avondale and his five sons, noble young men, and most unlikely to have sprung from such a stock. James the Gross rode a broad Clydesdale mare, a short, soft unwieldy man, sitting squat on the saddle like a toad astride a roof, and glancing slily sideways out of the pursy recesses of his eyes.
Behind him came his eldest son William, a man of a true Douglas countenance, quick, high, and stern. Then followed James, whose lithe body and wonderful dexterity in arms were already winning him repute as one of the bravest knights in all Christendom in every military and manly exercise.
Behind the Avondale Douglases rode two men abreast, with a lady on a palfrey between them.
The first to take the eye, both by his stature and his remarkable appearance, rode upon a charger covered from head to tail in the gorgeous red-and-gold diamonded trappings pertaining to a marshal of France. He was in complete armour, and wore his visor down. A long blue feather floated from his helmet, falling almost upon the flank of his horse; a truncheon of gold and black was at his side. A pace behind him the lilies of France were displayed, floating out languidly from a black and white banner staff held in the hands of a young squire.
The knight behind whom the banner royal of Scotland fluttered was a man of different mould. His spare frame seemed buried in the suit of armour that he wore somewhat awkwardly. His pale ascetic countenance looked more in place in a monkish cloister than on a knightly tilting ground, and he glanced this way and that with the swift and furtive suspicion of one who, while setting one trap, fears to be taken in another.
But the lady who rode on a white palfrey between these two took all men's regard, even in the presence of a marshal of France and a herald extraordinary of the King of Scots.
The Earl Douglas, having let his eyes once rest upon her, could not again remove them, being, as it were, fixed by the very greatness of the wonder which he saw.
It was the lady of the pavilion underneath the pines, the lady of the evening light and of the midnight storm.
She was no longer clothed in simple white, but arrayed like a king's daughter. On her head was a high-peaked coiffure, from which there flowed down a graceful cloud of finest lace. This, even as the Earl looked at her, she caught at with a bewitching gesture, and brought down over her shoulder with her gloved hand. A close-fitting robe of palest blue outlined the perfections of her body. A single fleur-de-lys in gold was embroidered on the breast of her white bodice, and the same device appeared again and again on the white housing of her palfrey.
She sat in the saddle, gently smiling, and looking down with a sweetness which was either the perfection of finished coquetry or the expression of the finest natural modesty.
Strangely enough, the first thought which came to the Earl Douglas after his surprise was one in which triumph was blended with mirth.
"What will the Abbot and Malise think of this?" he said, half aloud. And he turned him about in order to look upon the face of his master armourer.
He found Malise MacKim ashen-pale and drawn of countenance, his mouth open and squared with wonder. His jaw was fallen slack, and his hands gripped one upon the other like those of a suppliant praying to the saints.
The Earl smiled, and bidding Malise unlace his helmet in compliment to his guests, he stood presently bareheaded before them, his head appearing above the blackness of his armour, bright as a flower with youth and instinct with all the fiery beauty of his race.
It was James the Gross who came forward to act as herald. "My well-beloved nephew," he began in somewhat whining tones, "I bring you two royal embassies, one from the King of France and the other from the King of Scotland. I have the honour to present to you the Marshal Gilles de Retz, ambassador of the most Christian King, Charles the Seventh, who will presently deliver his master's message to you."
The marshal, who till now had kept his visor down, slowly raised it, and revealed a face which, being once seen, could never afterwards be banished from the memory.
It was a large grey-white countenance, with high cheek-bones and colourless lips, which were continually working one upon the other. Black eyes were set close together under heavy brows, and a long thin nose curved between them like the beak of an unclean bird.
"Earl William," said the marshal, "I give you greeting in the name of our common liege lord, Charles, King of France, and also in that of his son, the Dauphin Louis. I bring you also a further token of their good-will, in that I hail you heir to the great estates and dignities of your father and grandfather, sometime Dukes of Touraine and vassals premier of the King of France."
The young man bowed, but in spite of the interest of his message, the marshal caught his eyes resting upon the face of the lady who rode beside him.
"To this I add that which, save for the message of the King, my master, ought fitly to have come first. I present you to this fair lady, my sister-in-law, the Damosel Sybilla de Thouars, maid of honour to your high princess Margaret of Scotland, who of late hath expanded into a yet fairer flower under the sun of our land of France."
The Earl dismounted and threw the reins of his horse to Malise, whose face wore an expression of bitterest disappointment and instinctive hatred. Then he went to the side of the Lady Sybilla, and taking her hand he bowed his head over it, touching the glove to his lips with every token of respect. Still bareheaded, he took the reins of her palfrey and led her to the stand reserved for the Queen of Beauty.
Here the Earl invited her to dismount and occupy the central seat.
"Till your arrival it lacked an occupant, saving my little sister; but to-day the gods have been good to the house of Douglas, and for the first time since the death of my father I see it filled."
Smilingly the lady consented, and with a wave of his hand the Earl William invited the Marshal de Retz to take the place on the other side of the Lady Sybilla.
Then turning haughtily to the herald of the King of Scots, who had been standing alone, he said:--
"And now, sir, what would you with the Earl Douglas?"
The ascetic, monkish man found his words with little loss of time, showing, however, no resentment for Earl William's neglect of any reverence to the banner under whose protection he came.
"I am Sir James Irving of Drum," he said, "and I stand here on behalf of Sir Alexander Livingston, tutor and guardian of the King of Scots, to invite your friendship and aid. The Lord Crichton, sometime Chancellor of this realm, hath rebelled against the royal authority and fortified him in Edinburgh Castle. So both Sir Alexander Livingston and the most noble lady, the Queen Mother, desire the assistance of the great power of the Earl of Douglas to suppress this revolt."
Scarcely had these words been uttered when another knight stepped forward out of the train which had followed the Earl of Avondale.
"I am here on behalf of the Chancellor of Scotland, who is no rebel against any right authority, but who wishes only to bring this distracted realm back into some assured peace, and to deliver the young King out of the hands of flatterers and lechers. I have the honour, therefore, of requesting on behalf of the Chancellor of Scotland, Sir William Crichton, the true representative of royal authority, the aid and alliance of my Lord of Douglas."
A smile of haughty contempt passed over the face of the Earl, and he dismissed both heralds, uttering in the hearing of all those words which afterwards became so famous over Scotland:
"Let dog eat dog! Wherefore should the lion care?"


CHAPTER XII
MISTRESS MAUD LINDESAY
The sports of the first day of the great wappenshaw were over. The Lord James Douglas, second son of the Gross One, had won the single tourneying by unhorsing all his opponents without even breaking a lance. For the second time Sholto MacKim wore on his cap the golden buckle of archery, and took his way happily homeward, much uplifted that the somewhat fraudulent eyes of Mistress Maud Lindesay had smiled upon him whilst the French lady was fastening it there.
The knightly part of the great muster had already gone back to their tents and lodgings. The commonalty were mostly stringing away through the vales and hill passes to their homes, no longer in ordered companies, but in bands of two or three. Disputes and misunderstandings arose here and there between men of different provinces. The Galloway men called "Annandale thieves" at those border lads who came at the summons of the hereditary Warden of the Marches. The borderers replied by loud bleatings, which signified that they held the Galwegians of no better understanding than their native sheep.
It was a strange and varied company which rode home to Thrieve to receive the hospitality of the young Earl of Douglas and Duke of Touraine. The castle itself, being no more than a military fortress, containing in addition to the soldiers' quarters only the apartments designed for the family (and scant enough even of those) could not, of course, accommodate so great a company.
But as was the custom at all great houses, though more in England and France than in poverty-stricken Scotland, the Earl of Douglas had