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

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 cumbered 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, snatching the red and white staff out of his hand, dealt him so sturdy 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 passed 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 grass, 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.
"We have never been taught," answered downright Sholto. But his brother, feeling that he was losing chances, broke in:
"I can sing, if it please your holiness."
"And what can you sing, sweet lad?" asked the Abbot, smiling with expectation and setting his hand to his best ear to assist his increasing deafness.
"Shut your fool's mouth!" said Sholto under his breath to his brother.
"Shut your own! 'Tis ugly as a rat-trap at any rate!" responded Laurence in the same key. Then aloud to the Abbot he said, "An it please you, sir, I can sing 'O Mary Quean!'"
The Abbot smiled, well pleased.
"Ah, exceeding proper, a song to the honour of the Queen of Heaven (he devoutly crossed himself at the name),--I knew that I could not be mistaken in you."
"Your pardon, most reverend," interjected Sholto, anxiously, "please you to excuse my brother; his voice hath just broken and he cannot sing at present." Then, under his breath, he added, "Laurie MacKim, you God-forgotten fool, if you sing that song you will get us both stripped in a thrice and whipped on the bare back for insolence to the Earl's uncle!"
"Go to," said his brother, "I _will_ sing. The old cook is monstrous deaf at any rate."
"Sing," said the Abbot, "I would hear you gladly. So fair a face must be accompanied by the pipe of a nightingale. Besides, we sorely need a tenor for the choir at Sweetheart."
So, encouraged in this fashion, the daring Laurence began:
_"Nae priests aboot me shall be seen
To mumble prayers baith morn and e'en,
I'll swap them a' for Mary Quean!
I'll bid nae mess for me be sung,
Dies ille, dies irae,
Nor clanking bells for me be rung,
Sic semper solet fieri!
I'll gang my ways to Mary Quean."_
"Ah, very good, very good, truly," said the Abbot, thrusting his hand into his pouch beneath his gown, "here are two gold nobles for thee, sweet lad, and another for your brother, whose countenance methinks is somewhat less sweet. You have sung well to the praise of our Lady! What did you say your name was? Of a surety, we must have you at Sweetheart. And you have the Latin, too, as I heard in the hymn. It is a thing most marvellous. Verily, the very unction of grace must have visited you in your cradle!"
Laurence held down his head with all his native modesty, but the more open Sholto grew red in the face, hearing behind him the tittering and shoulder-shaking of the priests and lay servants in the Abbot's train, and being sure that they would inform their master as soon as he passed on concerning the true import of Master Laurence's song. He was muttering in a rapid recitative, "Oh, wait--wait, Laurie MacKim, till I get you on the Carlinwark shore. A sore back and a stiff skinful of bones shalt thou have, and not an inch of hide on thee that is not black and blue. Amen!" he added, stopping his maledictions quickly, for at that moment the Abbot came somewhat abruptly to the end of his speech.
The great churchman rode away on his fair white mule, with a smile and a backward wave of his hand.
"I will speak to my nephew concerning you this very day, my child," he cried.
And the countenance of that most gentle youth kept its sweet innocence and angelic grace to the last, but that of Sholto was more dark and frowning than ever.


CHAPTER X
THE BRAES OF BALMAGHIE
By ten of the clock the braes of Balmaghie were a sight most glorious to look upon. Well nigh twelve thousand men were gathered there, of whom five thousand were well-mounted knights and fully equipped men-at-arms, every man of them ready and willing to couch a lance or ride a charge.
The line of the tents which had been set up extended from opposite the Castle island of Thrieve to the kirk hill of Balmaghie. Every knight's following was strictly kept within its own pale, or fence of green wands set basket-wise, pointed and thrust into the earth like the spring traps of those who catch mowdiewarts. Many also were the quarrels and bickerings of the squires who had been sent forward to choose and arrange the several encampments. Nor were rough and tumble fights such as we have seen the MacKims indulging in, thought derogatory to the dignity of any, save belted knights only.
Each camp displayed the device of its own lord, but higher than all, from the top of every mound and broomy hillock floated the banner of the overlord. This was the lion of Galloway, white on a ground of blue, and beneath it, but on the same staff, a pennon whereon was the bleeding heart of the Douglas family.
The lists were set up on the level meadow that is called the Boat Croft. At either end a pavilion had been erected, and the jousting green was strongly fenced in, with a rising tier of seats for the ladies along one side, and a throne in the midst for the Douglas himself, as high and as nobly upholstered as if the King of Scots had been presiding in person.
At ten by the great sun-dial of Thrieve, the Earl, armed in complete armour of rare work, damascened with gold, and bearing in his hand the truncheon of commander, rode first through the fords of Lochar, and immediately after him came his brother David, a tall handsome boy of fourteen, whose olive skin and highbred beauty attested his Douglas birth.
Next rode the Earl of Angus, a red, foxy-featured man, with mean and shifty eyes. He sat his horse awkwardly, perpetually hunching his shoulders forward as if he feared to fall over his beast's head. And saving among his own company, no man did him any honour, which