The Black Douglas Page 11

  CHAPTER X

  THE BRAES OF BALMAGHIE

  By ten of the clock the braes of Balmaghie were a sight most gloriousto look upon. Well nigh twelve thousand men were gathered there, ofwhom five thousand were well-mounted knights and fully equippedmen-at-arms, every man of them ready and willing to couch a lance orride a charge.

  The line of the tents which had been set up extended from opposite theCastle island of Thrieve to the kirk hill of Balmaghie. Every knight'sfollowing was strictly kept within its own pale, or fence of greenwands set basket-wise, pointed and thrust into the earth like thespring traps of those who catch mowdiewarts. Many also were thequarrels and bickerings of the squires who had been sent forward tochoose and arrange the several encampments. Nor were rough and tumblefights such as we have seen the MacKims indulging in, thoughtderogatory 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 ofthe overlord. This was the lion of Galloway, white on a ground ofblue, and beneath it, but on the same staff, a pennon whereon was thebleeding heart of the Douglas family.

  The lists were set up on the level meadow that is called the BoatCroft. At either end a pavilion had been erected, and the joustinggreen was strongly fenced in, with a rising tier of seats for theladies along one side, and a throne in the midst for the Douglashimself, as high and as nobly upholstered as if the King of Scots hadbeen presiding in person.

  At ten by the great sun-dial of Thrieve, the Earl, armed in completearmour of rare work, damascened with gold, and bearing in his hand thetruncheon of commander, rode first through the fords of Lochar, andimmediately after him came his brother David, a tall handsome boy offourteen, whose olive skin and highbred beauty attested his Douglasbirth.

  Next rode the Earl of Angus, a red, foxy-featured man, with mean andshifty eyes. He sat his horse awkwardly, perpetually hunching hisshoulders forward as if he feared to fall over his beast's head. Andsaving among his own company, no man did him any honour, which causedhim to grin with wicked sidelong smiles of hate and envy.

  Then amid the shouting of the people there appeared, on a milk-whitepalfrey, Margaret, the Earl's only sister, already famous over allScotland as "The Fair Maid of Galloway." With her rode one who, in theesteem of most who saw the pair that day, was a yet rarer flower, evenMaud Lindesay, who had come out of the bleak North to keep the lonelylittle maid company. For Margaret of Douglas was yet no more than achild, but Maud Lindesay was nineteen years of age and in the firstperfect bloom of her beauty.

  Behind these two came the whole array of the knights and barons whoowned allegiance to the Douglas,--Herons and Maxwells, ArdwellMacullochs, Gordons from the Glen of Kells, with Agnews and MacDowallsfrom the Shireside. But above all, and outnumbering all, there werethe lesser chiefs of the mighty name--Douglases of the North, thefuture Moray and Ormond among them, the noble young sons of James theGross of Avondale, who rode nearest their cousin, the head of theclan. Then came Douglases of the Border, Douglases of the Hermitage,of Renfrew, of Douglasdale. Every third man in that great companywhich splashed and caracoled through the fords of Lochar, was aWilliam, a James, or an Archibald Douglas. The King himself could nothave raised in all Scotland such a following, and it is small wonderif the heart of the young man expanded within him.

  Presently, soon after the arrival of the cavalcade, the greatwappenshaw was set in array, and forming up company by company thelong double line extended as far as the eye could reach from north tosouth along the side of the broad and sluggish-moving river.

  Sholto, who in virtue of his courage and good marksmanship had beenplaced over the archer company which waited on the right of the ford,fell in immediately behind the _cortege_ of the Earl. He was first manof all to have his equipment examined, and his weapons obtained, asthey deserved, the commendation of his liege lord, and the grimunwilling approval of Malise, the master armourer, whose unerring eyecould not detect so much as a speck on the shirt of mail, or a grainof rust on the waist brace of shining steel.

  Then the Earl rode down the lines, and Sholto, remembering theencounter amidst the dust of the roadway, breathed more freely when hesaw his father's back.

  And surely that day the heart of the Douglas must have beat proud andhigh within him, for there they stood, company behind ordered company,the men on whom he could count to the death. And truly the lad ofeighteen, who in Scotland was greater than the King, looked upon theirsteadfast thousands with a swelling heart.

  The Abbot had made particular inquiries where Laurence was stationed,which was in the archer company of the Laird of Kelton. Most of themonkish band had been made too happy by the deception practised ontheir Abbot concerning "Mary Quean," and were too desirous to havesuch a rogue to play his pranks in the dull abbey, to tell any taleson Laurence MacKim. But one, Berguet, a Belgian priest who had beggedhis way to Scotland, and whose nature was that of the spy andsycophant, approached and volunteered the information to the Abbotthat this lad to whom he was desirous of showing favour, was a ribaldand hypocritical youth.

  "Eh, what?" said the Abbot, "a bodle for thy ill-set tongue, falseloon, dost think I did not hear him sing his fair and seemly orisons?I tell thee, rude out-land jabberer, that I am a Douglas, and have earsbetter than those of any Frenchman that ever breathed. For this thoushalt kneel six nights on the cold stone of the holy chapel house, andsay of paternosters ten thousand and of misereres thou shall singthree hundred. And this shall chance to teach thee to be scanter withthy foul breath when thou speakest to the Abbot of the Foundation ofDevorgill concerning better men than thyself."

  The Belgian priest gasped and fell back, and none other was found tosay aught against Master Laurence, which, considering the ten thousandpaternosters and the three hundred misereres, was not unnatural.

  As the Earl passed along the line he was annoyed by the iteratedrequests of his uncle to be informed when they should come to thecompany of the Laird of Kelton. And the good Abbot, being like alldeaf men apt to speak a little loud, did not improve matters byconstantly making remarks behind his hand, upon the appearance orcharacter (as known to him) of the various dependents of the DouglasHouse who had come out to show their loyalty and exhibit theirpreparedness for battle.

  As thus it was. The young Earl would come in his inspection to acompany of Solway-side men--stiff-jointed fishers of salmon nets outof the parishes of Rerrick or Borgue--or, as it might be, rough coltsfrom the rock scarps of Colvend, scramblers after wild birds' nests onperilous heuchs, and poachers on the deer preserves of Cloak Moss, asoften as they had a chance. Then the Earl, having zealously commendedthe particular Barnbacle or Munches who led them, all would be peaceand concord, till out of the crowd behind would issue the growlingcomment of his uncle, the Abbot of Dulce Cor.

  "A close-fisted old thief! The saints pity him not! He will surely fryin Hell! Last Shrovetide did he not drive off five of our best milchcows, and hath steadfastly refused to restore them? _Anathemamaranatha_ to his vile body and condemned be his huckstering soul!"

  Needless to add, every word of this comment and addition was heard bythe person most concerned.

  Or it might be, "Henry A'milligan--his mother's son, God wot. And hisfather's, too, doubtless--if only one could know who his father was.The devil dwell in his fat belly! _Exorciso te_--"

  So it went on till the temper of the young lord of Galloway wasstrained almost to the breaking point, for he wished not to cause adisturbance among so great a company and on a day of such renown.

  At last they came to the muster of the clean-run limber lads ofKelton, artificers mostly, and stated retainers of the castle and itsvarious adjacent bourgs of Carlinwark, Rhonehouse, Gelston, and Mainsof Thrieve.

  Some one at this point took the Abbot by the elbow and shouted in hisear that this was the company he desired to see. Then he rode forwardto the left hand of his nephew, as Malise and he passed slowly downthe line examining the we
apons.

  "Laurence MacKim, I would see Laurence MacKim!" cried the Abbot,holding up his hand as if in the chapel of his monastery. The Earlstopped, and Malise turned right about on his heel in greatastonishment.

  "What wants old marrowbones with our Laurie?" he muttered; "surely hecannot have gotten into mischief with the lasses already. But Ikenna--I kenna. When I was sixteen I can mind--I can mind. And theloon may well be his father's own son."

  And Malise, the man of brawn, watched out of his quiet grey eyes theface of the Abbot William, wondering what was to come next.

  Laurence stood forth at a word of command from the Earl. He saluted,and then dropped the point of his sword meekly upon the ground. Hiswhite-and-rose cherub's face expressed the utmost goodness andinnocence.

  "Dear kinsman," said the Abbot to his nephew, "I have a request toprefer which I hope you will grant, though it deprive you of oneretainer. This sweet youth is not fit company for rude soldiers andill-bred rufflers of the camp. His mind is already on higher things.He hath good clerkly Latin also, being skilled in the humanities, as Ihave heard proven with mine own ears. His grace of language anddeportment is manifest, and he can sing the sweetest and mostspiritual songs in praise of Mary and the saints. I would have him inour choir at Sweetheart Abbey, where we have much need both of a voicesuch as his, and also of a youth whose sanctity and innocence cannotfail to leaven with the grace of the spirit the neophytes of ourcollege, and the consideration of whom may even bring repentance intoolder and more hardened hearts."

  Malise MacKim could not believe his ears as he listened to the Abbot'srounded periods. But all the same his grey eyes twinkled, his mouthslowly drew itself together into the shape of an O, from which issueda long low whistle, perfectly audible to all about him except theAbbot. "Lord have mercy on the innocence and cloistered quiet of theneophytes if they get our Laurie for an example!" muttered Malise tohimself as he turned away.

  Even the young Earl smiled, perhaps remembering the last time he hadseen the youth beside him, clutching and tearing like a wild cat athis brother's throat in the smithy of Carlinwark.

  "You desire the life of a clerk?" said Lord William pleasantly toLaurence. He would gladly have purchased his uncle's silence at evengreater price.

  "If your lordship pleases," said Laurence, meekly, adding to himself,"it cannot be such hard work as hammering at the forge, and if I likeit not, why then I can always run away."

  "You think you have a call to become a holy clerk?"

  "I feel it here," quoth Master Laurence, hypocritically, indicatingcorrectly, however, the organ whose wants have made clerks of somany--that is, the stomach.

  Earl William smiled yet more broadly, but anxious to be gone he said:"Mine Uncle, here is the lad's father, Malise MacKim, my masterarmourer and right good servant. Ask him concerning his son."

  "'Tis all up a rotten tree now," muttered Laurence to himself; "myfather will reveal all."

  Malise MacKim smiled grimly, but with a salutation to the dignitary ofthe church and near relative of his chief, he said: "Truly, I hadnever thought of this my son as worthy to be a holy clerk. But I willnot stand in the way of his advancement nor thwart your favour. Takehim for a year on trial, and if you can make a monk of him, do so andwelcome. I recommend a leathern strap, well hardened in the fire, forthe purpose of encouraging him to make a beginning in the holy life."

  "He shall indeed have penance if he need it. For the good of the soulmust the body suffer!" said Abbot William, sententiously.

  "Saints' bones and cracklings," muttered Laurence, "this is none socheerful! But I can always run away if the strap grows overlimber, andthen let them catch me if they can. Sholto will help me."

  "Fall out!" commanded the Earl, sharply, "and join yourself to thecompany of the Abbot William. Come, Malise, we lose our time."

  Thus was one of our heroes brought into the way of becoming a learnedand holy clerk. But all those who knew him best agreed that he had afar road to travel.