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

with snorts of disdain and much jangling of steel keys, drew half a tankard from a keg of spirit in the cellar on the dungeon floor and handed it grudgingly to the captain of the guard.
"The Frenchman wants it, does he?" he growled. "Had the messenger been old Landless Jock, I had known down whose Scottish throat it had gone, but this one is surely too young for such tricks. See that you spill it not by the way, Master Sholto," he called out after him, as that youth betook himself up to the chamber of the ambassador of France.
At the shut portal he paused and knocked. His hand was on the pin to enter with the tankard as was the custom. But the door opened no more than an inch or two, and the dark face of the cropped servitor appeared in the crevice.
"In a moment, sir," he said, and again vanished within, while a strong animal odour disengaged itself almost like something tangible from the chinks of the doorway.
Sholto stood in astonishment with the _eau de vie_ in his hand, till presently the door was opened again very quickly. The form of the servitor was seen, and with a swift edging motion he came out, drawing the door behind him as before. He held a bar of iron in his hand like the fastening of a window, and a little breath of heat told the smith's son that though black it was still warm from the fire.
"Take this iron," he said abruptly, "and bring it to me fully heated. I am finishing a little device which his Excellency needs for the combat of the morrow."
The captain of the guard was nettled at the man's tone. Also he desired much to know what his master was doing on the floor above.
"Heat it at your own nose, fellow," he said rudely; "I am captain of the castle-guard, and must attend to my own business. Take the spirit out of my hand if you do not want it thrown in your face."
The swarthy, bullet-headed man glared at him with eyes like burning coals, but Sholto cared no jot for his anger. Forthwith he turned his back upon him, glad at heart to have found some one to quarrel with, and hoping that the ambassador's squire might prove courageous and challenge him to fight on the morrow.
But the man only replied: "I am Henriet, servant of the marshal. I bid you remember that I shall make you live to regret these words."


CHAPTER XVII
THE LAMP IS BLOWN OUT
The door of Margaret Douglas's chamber still stood open, and Sholto found Earl William seated upon the foot of the bed, endeavouring by every means in his power to distract his sister's attention from her fears. Maud Lindesay, now more completely dressed than when he had first seen her, sat on the other side of the little lady's couch. She was laughing as he entered at some merry jest of the Earl's. And at the sound of her tinkling mirth Sholto's heart sank within him. So soon as she caught sight of the new captain of the guard the gladness left her face, and she became grave and sober, like a gossip long unconfessed when the holy father comes knocking at the door.
At sight of her emotion Sholto resolved that if his fears should prove to be well founded, he would resign his honourable office. For to abide continually in the castle, and hourly observe Maud Lindesay's love for another, was more than his philosophy could stand.
In the meantime there was only his duty to be done. So he saluted the Earl, and in a few words told him that which he had seen. But the soul of William Douglas was utterly devoid of suspicion, both because he held himself so great that none could touch him, and also because, being high of spirit and open as the sky, he read into the acts of others his own straightforwardness and unsuspicion.
The Earl rose smilingly, declaring to Margaret that to-morrow he would hang every dog and puppy in Galloway on the dule tree of Thrieve, whereupon the child began to plead for the life of this cur and that other of her personal acquaintances with a tearful earnestness which told of a sorely jangled mind.
"Well, at least," cried Earl Douglas, "I will not have such brutes prowling about my castle of Thrieve even in my sister's dreams. Captain Sholto, do you station a man of your guard in the angle of the staircase where it looks along each corridor. Pick out your prettiest cross-bowmen, for it were not seemly that my guests should be disturbed by the rude shots and villanous reek of the fusil."
Sholto bowed stiffly and waited the further pleasure of his master. Then the two young men went out without Maud Lindesay having uttered a word, or manifested the least surprise at the advancement which had befallen the heir of the master armourer of Carlinwark.
As soon as the door had closed upon the two maidens, the Earl turned a face suddenly grave and earnest on his young captain of the guard.
"What think you," he said, "was this appearance real?"
"Real enough to leave these upon the floor," answered Sholto, pointing to sundry gouts and drops of blood upon the turret stairs.
The Earl took the lamp from his hand and earnestly scrutinised each step in a downward direction. The spots ran irregularly as if the wounded beast had shaken his head from side to side as he ran. They turned along towards the corridor where at the first alarm Sholto had found the Earl, and in the very midst of it abruptly stopped. While Sholto and William Douglas were examining the floor, they both looked over their shoulders, uneasily conscious of a regard upon them, as if some one, unseen himself, had been looking down from behind.
"Do you place your men as I told you," said the Earl, abruptly, "and bring me a truckle bed out of the guardroom. I shall remain in this closet till morning. But do you keep a special lookout on the floor above, that the repose of my sister and her friend be not again disturbed."
Sholto bowed without speech, and hastening down to the guardroom he commanded two of his best bowmen to follow him with their apparatus, while he himself snatched up the low truckle couch which custom assigned to the captain of the guard should he desire to rest himself during the night, and on which Landless Jock had always passed the majority of his hours of duty. This he carried to the Earl, and placing it in the angle he saw his youthful master stretch himself upon it, wrapped in his cloak and with a naked sword ready to his hand.
"A good and undisturbed slumber to you, my lord," said Sholto, curtly, as he went out.
He saw that his two men were duly posted upon the lower landing of the stair, and then betook himself to the upper floor where slept the little Maid of Galloway.
He walked slowly to the end of the passage scrutinising every recess and closet door, every garde-robe and wall press from which it was possible that the beast he had seen might have emerged. He was wholly unsuccessful in discovering anything suspicious, and had almost resolved to station himself at the turn of the staircase which led down from the roof, when, looking back, at the sharp click of a latch, he saw Maud Lindesay coming out of the chamber of the little Maid of Galloway.
Softly closing the door behind her, she paused a moment as if undecided, and then more with her chin than with her finger she beckoned him to approach.
"She sleeps," said the girl, softly, "but so uncertainly and with so many startings of terror, that I will not leave her alone. Will you aid me to remove the mattress of my couch and lay it on the floor beside her?"
Sholto signified his willingness. His mind was more than ever oppressed by the thought that the Earl of Douglas loved this girl, whom he had found listening to his jests with such frank joyousness.
Maud stayed him with one of the long looks out from under her eyelashes. The dark violet orbs rested upon him a moment reproachfully with a hurt expression in their depths, and were then dropped with a sigh.
"You are still angry with me," she said, a little wistfully, "and I wanted to tell you how happy it made me--made us, I mean--when we heard that you were to be captain of the castle-guard instead of that grumbling old curmudgeon, Jock of Abernethy."
The heart of Sholto was instantly melted, more by her looks than by her words, though deep within him he had still an angry feeling that he was being played with. All the same, and in spite of his resolves, the eyeshot from under those dark and sweeping lashes did its usual and deadly work.
"I did not know that aught which might befall me could be anything to Mistress Maud Lindesay," said Sholto, with the last shreds of dignity in his voice.
"I said not to me, but to _us_," she corrected, smiling; "but tell me what think you of this appearance which has so startled our Margaret. Was it ghost or goblin or dream of the night? We have never had either witch or warlock about the house of Thrieve since the old Abbot Gawain laid the ghost of Archibald the Grim with four-and-forty masses, said without ever breaking his fast, down there in the castle chapel."
"Nay, ask me not," answered Sholto, "I am little skilled in matters spiritual. I should try sword point and arrowhead on such gentry, and if these do them no harm, why then I think they will not distress me much."
But all the same he said nothing to the girl about the red blood on his sword or the splashed gouts on the steps of the staircase.
He followed Maud Lindesay into her chamber, and being arrived there, lifted couch and all in his arms, with an ease born of long apprenticeship to the forehammer. The girl regarded him with admiration which she was careful not to dissemble.
"You are very strong," she said. Then, after a pause, she added, "Margaret and I like strong men."
The heart of the youth was glad within him, thus to be called a man, even though he kept saying over and over to himself: "She means it not! She means it not! She loves the Earl! I know well she loves the Earl!"
Maud Lindesay paused a moment before the chamber door of her little charge, finger on lip, listening.
"She sleeps--go quietly," she whispered, holding the door open for him. He set down the bed where she showed him--by the side of the small slumbering figure of the Maid of Galloway.
Then he went softly to the door. The girl followed him. "You will not be far away," she said doubtfully and with a perilous sort of humility, "if this dreadful thing should come back again? I--that is we, would feel safer if we knew that you--that any one strong and brave was near at hand."
Then the heart of Sholto broke out in quick anger.
"Deceive me not," he cried, "I know well that the Earl loves you, and that you love him in return."
"Well, indeed, were it for my lord Earl if he loved as honest a woman," said Maud Lindesay, pouting disdainfully. "But what is such a matter, yea or nay, to you?"
"It is all life and happiness to me," said Sholto, earnestly. "Ah, do not go--stay a moment. I shall never sleep this night if you go without giving