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

He drew his sword and set in his lips the silver call which depended from the chain of office the Earl had thrown about his neck when he made him captain of his guard.
His feet hardly touched the stone stairs as he flew downwards, and wings were added to his haste by the sounds of fear which continued to increase. In another moment he was upon the last step of the turnpike and at the entrance of the corridor which led to the rooms of the little Lady Margaret and Maud Lindesay.
As Sholto came rushing down the steep descent from the roof he caught sight of a dark and shaggy beast running on all fours just turning out of the corridor, and taking the first step of the descent towards the floor beneath. Without pausing to consider, Sholto lunged forward with all his might, and his sword struck the fugitive quadruped behind the shoulder. He had time to see in the pale bluish flicker of the _cruisie_ lamp that the beast he had wounded was of a dark colour, and that its head seemed immensely too large for its body.
Nevertheless, the thing did not fall, but ran on and vanished out of Sholto's sight. The young man again set the silver call to his lips and blew. The next moment he could hear the soldiers of the guard clattering upward from their hall, and he himself ran along the corridor towards the place whence the screams of terror seemed to proceed.


CHAPTER XVI
SHOLTO CAPTURES A PRISONER OF DISTINCTION
He found that the noise came from the chamber occupied by the little Lady Margaret. When he arrived at the door it stood open to the wall. The child was sitting up on her bed, clothed in the white garmentry of the night. Bending over her, with her arms round the heaving shoulders of the little girl, Sholto saw Maud Lindesay, clad in a dark, hooded mantle thrown with the appearance of haste about her. The door of the next chamber also stood wide, and from the coverlets cast on the floor it was obvious that its occupant had left it hastily in order to fly to her friend's assistance.
At the sound of hasty footsteps Maud Lindesay turned about, and was instantly stricken pale and astonished by the sight of the young man with his sword bare. She cried aloud with a stern and defiant countenance, "Sholto MacKim, what do you here?"
And before he had time to answer, the little girl looked at him out of her friend's arms and called out: "O Sholto, Sholto, I am so glad you are come. I woke to find such a terrible thing looking at me out of the night. It was shaped like a great wolf, but it was rough of hide, and had upon it a head like a man's. I was so terrified that at first I could not cry out. But when it came nearer, and gazed at me, then I cried. Do not go away, Sholto. I am so glad, so glad that you are here."
Maud Lindesay had again turned towards Margaret.
"Hush," she said soothingly, "it was a dream. You were frighted by a vision, by a nightmare, by a succubus of the night. There is no beast within the castle."
"But I saw it plainly," the maid cried. "It opened the door as if it had hands--I saw it stand there by the bed and look at me--oh, so terribly! I saw its teeth glisten and heard them snap together!"
"Little one, be still, it was but a dream," said Sholto, untruthfully; "nevertheless I will go and search the rest of the castle."
And with these words he went along the corridor, finding the men whom he had summoned by means of his captain's silver call clustered upon the landing of the turret stair which communicated with the third floor. As he glanced along the oak-panelled corridor, it seemed to Sholto that he discerned a figure vanishing at the further end. Instantly he resolved on searching, and summoning his men to follow, he led the way down the passage, sword in hand. As he went he snatched the lamp from its pin on the wall, and held it in his left high above his head.
At the further end of the corridor was the door of a little chamber, and it seemed to Sholto that the shape he had seen must have disappeared at this point.
He knocked loudly on the door with the hilt of his sword, and cried, "If any be within, open--in the name of the Earl!"
No voice replied, and Sholto boldly set his foot against the lower panelling, and drove the door back to the wall with a clang.
Then at sight of a something dark, wrapped in a cloak, standing motionless against the window, the young captain of the guard elevated his lamp, and let the flicker of the light fall on the erect figure and haughty face of a young man, who, with his hand on his hip, stood considering the rude advance of his pursuers with a calm and questioning gaze.
It was the Earl of Douglas himself.
Sholto stood petrified at sight of him, and for a long minute could in no wise recover his self-control nor regain any use of his tongue.
"Well," said the Earl, haughtily, "whence this unseemly uproar? What do you here, Sholto?"
Then the spirit of his father came upon the young captain of the guard. He knew that he had only done his duty in its strictness, and he boldly answered the Earl: "Nay, my lord, were it not for courtesy, I have more right to ask you that question. Your sister hath been frighted, and at sound of her terror all we who were dispersed throughout the castle rushed to the spot. As I came down the stairs from the roof at speed, I saw something like to a great wolf about to descend the turret before me. With my sword I struck at it, and to all appearance wounded it. It vanished, and after searching the castle I can find neither wolf nor dog. But I saw, as it seemed, a figure enter this room, and upon opening it I find--the Earl of Douglas. That is all I know, and I leave the matter in my lord's own hands."
The haughty look gradually disappeared from the face of the Earl as Sholto spoke.
Smilingly he dismissed the guard with a word, saying that he would inquire into the cause of the disturbance in person, and then turned to Sholto.
"You are right," he said, "you have entirely done your duty and justified my appointment."
He paused, looked this way and that along the corridor, and continued:
"It chanced that in the tower without I could not sleep, and feeling uneasy concerning my guests, I entered the castle by the private door and staircase which leads into the apartment corresponding to this on the floor beneath. I was assuring myself that you were doing your duty when, being disturbed by the sudden hubbub, and judging it needless that the men-at-arms should know of my presence in the castle, I came in hither till the matter should have blown over. And so, but for your good conscience and the keenness of your vision, the matter would have ended."
Sholto bowed coldly.
"But, my lord," he said, ignoring the Earl's explanation, "the matter grows more mysterious than ever. Your sister, the little Lady Margaret, hath been grievously frighted by an appearance like a great beast which (so she affirms) opened the door of her chamber and looked within."
"She but dreamed," said the Earl, carelessly; "such visions come from supping late."
"But, with all respect, your lordship," continued Sholto, "I also saw the appearance even as I ran down the stairs from the roof at the noise of her crying."
"You were startled--excited, and but thought you saw."
Sholto reversed his sword, which he had held with the point towards the ground while he was speaking with his lord the Earl.
Holding the blade midway with much deference, he presented the hilt to William Douglas.
"Will you examine the point of this sword?" he said.
The Earl came a step nearer to him and Sholto advanced the steel till it was immediately beneath the lamp. There was blood upon the last inch or so of the blade. The Earl suddenly became violently agitated.
"This is indeed passing strange. There is no hound within the castle nor has there been for years. Even the presence of a lap-dog will fret my mother, so in my father's time they were every one removed to the kennels at the further end of the isle of Thrieve, whence even their howling cannot be heard. But let us proceed to the Lady Margaret, and on our way examine the place where you saw the apparition."
Sholto stood aside for the Earl to pass, but with a wave of his hand the latter said courteously, "Nay, but do you lead the way, captain of the guard."
They passed the door of the chamber where lay the Lady Sybilla. The niece of the ambassador must have been a heavy sleeper, for there was no sound within. Opposite was the chamber of the Earl's mother. She also appeared to be undisturbed, but the increasing deafness of the Countess offered a complete explanation of her tranquillity.
Next the two young men came to the door of the marshal's chamber. As they were about to pass, it opened silently, and a man-servant with a closely cropped obsequious head appeared within. He unclosed the door no further than would permit of his exit, and then he shut it again behind him, and stood holding the latch in his hand.
"His Excellency, being overfatigued, hath need of a little strong spirit," he said, with a curious gobbling movement of his throat as if he himself had been either thirsty or in deadly and overmastering fear.
The Earl ordered Sholto to wake the cellarer and bid him bring the ambassador of France that which he required. He himself would go onward to his sister's chamber. Sholto somewhat sullenly obeyed, for his heart was hot and angry within him. He thought that he began to see clearly the motive of the Earl's presence in the castle. The youth was himself so deeply and hopelessly in love with Mistress Maud Lindesay that he could not understand any other of his sex being insensible to the charm of her beauty and myriad winsome graces.
As he went down the stairs he recalled a thousand circumstances to mind which now seemed capable of but one explanation. It was evident that the Earl William came to visit some one by means of the private staircase under cloud of night. Nay, more, Maud Lindesay and he might be already privately married, and the matter kept secret on account of the pride of his family, who devised another match for him. For though the daughter of a knight, Maud Lindesay was assuredly no fit mate for the head of the more than regal house of Douglas. He remembered how on Sundays and saints' days Earl William always rode to and from the kirk with his sister on one side and Maud Lindesay on the other. That the young Earl was by no means insensible to beauty, Sholto knew well, and he remembered his words to his own father, when he had asked to be allowed to accompany him on his Flanders mare, that such attendance was not seemly when a man was going a-courting.
As is always the case, he grew more and more confirmed in his ill humour, so soon as the eye of jealousy began to view everything in the light of prepossession.
Sholto awaked the cellarer out of his crib, who, presently,