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

in store an abundant supply of tents, some of them woven of arras and ornamented with cloth of gold, others of humbler but equally serviceable material.
His mother, the Countess of Douglas, who knew nothing of the occurrences of the night of the great storm, nor guessed at the suspicions of witchcraft and diablerie which made a hell of the breast of Malise, the master armourer, received her son's guests with distinguished courtesy. Malise himself had gone to find the Abbot, so soon as ever he set eyes on the companion of the Marshal de Retz, that they might consult together--only, however, to discover that the gentle churchman had quitted the field immediately after he had obtained the consent of his nephew to the possession of the new chorister, to whom he had taken so sudden and violent a fancy.
The hoofs of the whole cavalcade were erelong sounding hollow and dull upon the wooden bridge, which the Earl's father had erected from the left bank to the southernmost corner of the Isle of Thrieve, a bridge which a single charge of powder, or even a few strokes of a wood-man's axe, had been sufficient to remove and disable, but which nevertheless enabled the castle-dwellers to avoid the extreme inconvenience of passing through the ford at all states of the river.
Sholto MacKim, throwing all the consciousness of a shining success into the stiffness of the neck which upheld the slight additional weight of the Earl's gold buckle in his cap, found himself, not wholly by accident, in the neighbourhood of his heart's beloved, Maud Lindesay. For, like a valiant seneschal, she had kept her place all day close beside the Fair Maid of Galloway.
And now the little girl was more than ever eager to keep near to her friend, for the ambassador of the King of France had bent one look upon her, so strange and searching that Margaret, though not naturally timid, had cried aloud involuntarily and clasped her friend's hand with a grasp which she refused to loosen, till Sholto had promised to walk by the side of her pony and allow her to net her trembling fingers into the thick of his clustering curls.
For the armourer's son was, in those simple days, an ancient ally and playmate of the little noble damsel, and he dreamed, and not without some excuse, that in an age when every man's strong arm and brave heart constituted his fortune, the time might come when he might even himself to Maud Lindesay, baron's daughter though she were. For both his father and himself were already high in favour with their master the Earl, who could create knighthoods and dispose lordships as easily as (and much more effectually and finally than) the King himself.
The emissaries of the Chancellor and Sir Alexander Livingston did not accompany the others back to the castle after the short and haughty answer which they had received, but with their followers returned the way they had come to their several headquarters, giving, as was natural between foes so bitter, a wide berth to each other on their northward journeys to Edinburgh and Stirling.
"What think you of this day's doings, Mistress Lindesay?" asked Sholto as he swung along beside the train with little Margaret Douglas's hand still clutching the thick curls at the back of his neck.
The maid of honour tossed her shapely head, and, with a little pretty upward curl of the lip, exclaimed: "'Twas as stupid a tourney as ever I saw. There was not a single handsome knight nor yet one beautiful lady on the field this day."
"What of James of Avondale when knights are being judged?" said Sholto, with a kind of gloomy satisfaction, boyish and characteristic; "he at least looked often enough in your direction to prove that he did not agree with you about the lack of the beautiful lady."
At this Maud Lindesay elevated her pretty nostrils yet further into the air. "James of Avondale, indeed--" she said, "he is not to be compared either for dignity or strength with the Earl himself, nor yet with many others whom I know of lesser estate."
"Sholto MacKim," cried the clear piping voice of the little Margaret, "how in the world am I to keep hold of your hair if you shake and jerk your head about like that? If you do not keep still I will send for that pretty boy over there in the scarlet vest, or ask my cousin James to ride with me. And he will, too, I know--for he likes bravely to be beside my dear, sweet Maud Lindesay."
After this Sholto held his head erect and forth-looking, as if he had been under the inspection of the Earl and were doubtful of his weapons passing muster.
There came a subtle and roguish smile into the eyes of Mistress Maud Lindesay as she observed the stiffening of Sholto's bearing.
"Who were those others of humbler estate?" he queried, sending his words straight out of his lips like pellets from a pop-gun, being in fear lest he should unsettle the hand of the small tyrant upon his hair.
"Your brother Laurence for one," replied the minx, for no other purpose than to see the flush of disappointment tinge his brow with sudden red.
"I wish my brother Laurence were in--" he began. But the girl interrupted him.
"Hush," she said, holding up her finger, "do not swear, especially at a son of the holy church. Ha, ha! A fit clerk and a reverend will they make of Laurence MacKim! I have heard of your ploys and ongoings, both of you. Think not I am to be taken in by your meekness and pretence of dutiful service. You go athwart the country making love to poor maidens, and then, when you have won their hearts, you leave them lamenting."
And she affected to heave a deep sigh.
"Ah, Maudie," said the little girl, reproachfully, "now you are being bad. I know it by your voice. Do not be unkind to my Sholto, for his hair is so pleasant to touch. I wish you could feel it. And, besides, when you are wicked to him, you make him jerk, and if he does it often I shall have to send him away."
The Maid of Galloway was indeed entirely correct. For Maud Lindesay, accustomed all her life to the homage of many men, and having been brought up in a great castle in an age when chivalrous respect to women had not yet given place to the licence of the Revival of Letters, practised irritation like a fine art. She was brimful of the superfluity of naughtiness, yet withal as innocent and playful as a kitten.
But Sholto, both from a feeling that he belonged to an inferior rank, and also being exceedingly conscious of his youth, chose to be bitterly offended.
"You mistake me greatly, Mistress Lindesay," he said in an uneven schoolboy's voice, to which he tried in vain to add a touch of worldly coldness; "I do not make love to every girl I meet, nor yet do I love them and leave them as you say. You have been most gravely misinformed."
"Nay," tripped the maid of honour, with arch quickness of reply, "I said not that you were naturally equipped for such amorous quests. I meant to designate your brother Laurence. 'Tis pity he is to be a clerk. Though one day doubtless he will make a very proper and consolatory father confessor--"
Sholto walked on in silence, his eyes fixed before him, and in such high dudgeon that he pretended to be unconscious of what the girl had been saying. Then the little Margaret began to prattle in her pretty way, and the youth answered "yes" and "no" sulkily and at random, his thoughts being alternately on the doing of some great deed to make his mistress repent her cruelty, and on a leap into the castle pool, in whose unsunned deeps he might find oblivion from all the flouts of hard-hearted beauty.
Maud kept her eyes upon him, a smile of satisfaction on her lips so long as he was not looking at her. She liked to play her fish as satisfactorily as she could before grassing it at her feet.
"Besides, it will do him good," she said to herself. "He hath lately won the gold badge of archery, and, like all men, is apt to think overmuch of himself at such times. Moreover, I can always make it up to him after--if I like, that is."
But as often as Sholto dropped a little behind, keeping pace with Maid Margaret's slower palfrey so that Maud was sure he looked at her, the pretty coquette cast down her eyes in affected humility and sorrow. Whereupon immediately Sholto felt his resentment begin to melt like snow off a dike top when the sun of April is shining.
But neither of them uttered another word till they reached the drawbridge which crossed the nether moat and conducted to the noble gateway of Thrieve. Then, at the foot of the stairway to the hall, Sholto, having swung the little maid from her pony, after a moment of sullen hesitation went across to assist Mistress Maud Lindesay out of her saddle.
As he lifted the girl down his heart thundered tumultuously in his breast, for he had never so touched her before. Her lashes rested modestly on her cheek--long, black, and upcurled a little at the ends. As her foot touched the ground, she raised them a moment, and looked at him with one swift flash of violet eyes made darker by the seclusion from which she had released them. Then in another moment she had dropped them again, detaching them from his with a mighty affectation of confusion.
"Please, Sholto, I am sorry. I did not mean it." She spoke like a child that is sorry for a fault and is fearful of being chidden.
And even though knowing full well by bitter experience all her naughtiness and hypocrisy, Sholto, gulping his heart well down into his throat, could not do otherwise than forgive a thing so pretty and so full of the innocent artifices which make mown hay of the hearts of men.
With a touch of his lips upon the hand of Margaret the Maid in token of fealty, Sholto MacKim turned on his heel and went away towards the fords of Thrieve, muttering to himself, "No, she does not mean it, I do believe. But I have ever heard that of all women she who never means it is the most dangerous."
And this is a dict which no wise man can gainsay.


CHAPTER XIII
A DAUNTING SUMMONS
Not far before them had ridden the Earl and the Lady Sybilla. Behind these two came the Marshal de Retz and the fat Lord of Avondale. They were telling each other tales of the wars of La Pucelle, the latter laughing and shaking shoulders, but at the end of every side-splitting legend the Frenchman would glance over his shoulder at Maud Lindesay and the little maiden Margaret.
As Sholto passed them on his return he stood aside, poised at the salute, looking meanwhile with awe on the great and notable French soldier. Yet at the first glimpse of his unvisored face there fell upon the young man a dislike so fierce and instinctive that he grasped his bow and fumbled in his quiver for an arrow, in order to send it through the unlaced joints of the Marshal's gorget, which for ease's sake his squire had undone when they left the field.
Sholto MacKim was at the fords waiting the chance of crossing and the pleasure of the surly keeper of the bridge, Elson A'Cormack, who sat in his wheelhouse, grunting curses on all who passed that way.
"Foul feet, slow bellies, fushionless and slack ye are to