The Black Douglas Page 7

  CHAPTER VI

  THE PRISONING OF MALISE THE SMITH

  [Now these things, material to the life and history of William, sixthEarl of Douglas, are not written from hearsay, but were chronicledwithin his lifetime by one who saw them and had part therein, thoughthe part was but a boy's one. His manuscript has come down to us andlies before the transcriber. Sholto MacKim, the son of Malise theSmith, testifies to these things in his own clerkly script. He addsparticularly that his brother Laurence, being at the time but a boy,had little knowledge of many of the actual facts, and is not to bebelieved if at any time he should controvert anything which he(Sholto) has written. So far, however, as the present collector andeditor can find out, Laurence MacKim appears to have been entirelysilent on the subject, at least with his pen, so that his brother'scaveat was superfluous.]

  * * * * *

  The instant Lord William entered his own castle of Thrieve over thedrawbridge, and without even returning the salutations of his guard,he turned about to the two men who had so masterfully compelled hisreturn.

  "Ho, guard, there!" he cried, "seize me this instant the Abbot of theNew Abbey and Malise MacKim."

  And so much surprised but wholly obedient, twenty archers of theEarl's guard, commanded by old John of Abernethy, called LandlessJock, fell in at back and front.

  Malise, the master armourer, stood silent, taking the matter with hisusual phlegm, but the Abbot was voluble.

  "William," he said, holding out his hands with an appealing gesture,"I have laboured with you, striven with, prayed for you. To-night Icame forth through the storm, though an old man, to deliver you fromthe manifest snares of the devil--"

  But the Earl interrupted his recital without compunction.

  "Set Malise MacKim in the inner dungeon," he cried. "Thrust his feetinto the great stocks, and let my lord Abbot be warded safely in thecastle chapel. He is little likely to be disturbed there at hisdevotions."

  "Aye, my lord, it shall be done!" said Landless Jock, shaking hishead, however, with gloomy foreboding, as the haughty young Earl inhis wet and torn disarray flashed past him without further notice ofthe two men whom the might of his bare word had committed to prison.The Earl sprang up the narrow turret stairs, passing as he did sothrough the vaulted hall of the men-at-arms, where more than a hundredstout archers and spearmen sat carousing and singing, even at thatadvanced hour of the night, while as many more lay about the corridorsor on the wooden shelves which they used for sleeping upon, and whichfolded back against the wall during the day. At the first glimpse oftheir young master, every man left awake among them struggled to hisfeet, and stood stiffly propped, drunk or sober according to hiscondition, with his eyes turned towards the door which gave upon theturnpike stair. But with a slight wave of his hand the Earl passed onto his own apartment.

  Here he found his faithful body-servant, Rene le Blesois, stretchedacross the threshold. The staunch Frenchman rose mechanically at thenoise of his master's footsteps, and, though still soundly asleep,stood with the latch of the door in his hand, and the other heldstiffly to his brow in salutation.

  Left to his own devices, Lord William Douglas would doubtless havecast himself, wet as he was, upon his bed had not Le Blesois,observing his lord's plight even in his own sleep-dulled condition,entered the chamber after his master and, without question or speech,silently begun to relieve him of his wet hunting dress. A loosechamber gown of rich red cloth, lined with silk and furred with"cristy" grey, hung over the back of an oaken chair, and into this theyoung Earl flung himself in black and sullen anger.

  Le Blesois, still without a word spoken, left the room with the wetclothes over his arm. As he did so a small object rolled from somefold or crevice of the doublet, where it had been safely lodged tilldisplaced by the loosening of the belt, or the removing of thebanderole of his master's hunting horn.

  Le Blesois turned at the tinkling sound, and would have stopped tolift it up after the manner of a careful servitor. But the eye of hislord was upon the fallen object, and with an abrupt wave of his handtowards the door, and the single word "Go!" the Earl dismissed hisbody-servant from the room.

  Then rising hastily from his chair, he took the trinket in his handand carried it to the well-trimmed lamp which stood in a niche thatheld a golden crucifix.

  The Lord Douglas saw lying in his palm a ring of singular design. Themain portion was formed of the twisting bodies of a pair of snakes,the jewel work being very cunningly interlaced and perfectly finished.Their eyes were set with rubies, and between their open mouths theycarried an opal, shaped like a heart. The stone was translucent andfaintly luminous like a moonstone, but held in its heart one fleck ofruby red, in appearance like a drop of blood. By some curious trick oflight, in whatever position the ring was held, this drop stillappeared to be on the point of detaching itself and falling to theground.

  Earl William examined it in the flicker of the lamp. He turned itevery way, narrowly searching inside the golden band for a posy, butnot a word of any language could he find engraved upon it.

  "I saw the ring upon her hand--I am certain I saw it on her hand!" Hesaid these words over and over to himself. "It is then no dream that Ihave dreamed."

  There came a low knocking at the door, a rustling and a whisperingwithout. Instantly the Earl thrust the ring upon his own finger withthe opal turned inward, and, with the dark anger mark of his racestrongly dinted upon his fair young brow, he faced the unseenintruder.

  "Who is there?" he cried loudly and imperiously.

  The door opened with a rasping of the iron latch, and a little girlishfigure clothed from head to foot in a white night veil danced in. Sheclapped her hands at sight of him.

  "You are come back," she cried; "and you have so fine a gown on too.But Maud Lindesay says it is very wrong to be out of doors so late,even if you are Earl of Douglas, and a great man now. Will you neverplay at 'Catch-as-catch-can' with David and me any more?"

  "Margaret," said the young Earl, "what do you away from your chamberat all? Our mother will miss you, and I do not want her here to-night.Go back at once!"

  But the little wilful maiden, catching her skirts in her hands ateither side and raising them a little way from the ground, began todance a dainty _pas seul_, ending with a flashing whirl and a low bowin the direction of her audience.

  At this William Douglas could not choose but smile, and soon threwhimself down on the bed, setting his clasped hands behind his head,and contenting himself with looking at his little sister.

  Though at this time but eight years of age, Margaret of Douglas waspossessed of such extraordinary vitality and character that she seemedmore like eleven. She had the clear-cut, handsome Douglas face, thepale olive skin, the flashing dark eyes, and the crisp, blue-blackhair of her brother. A lithe grace and quickness, like those of abeautiful wild animal, were characteristic of every movement.

  "Our mother hath been anxious about you, brother mine," said thelittle girl, tiring suddenly of her dance, and leaping upon the otherend of the couch on which her brother was reclining. Establishingherself opposite him, she pulled the coverlet up about her so thatpresently only her face could be seen peeping out from under thesilken folds.

  "Oh, I was so cold, but I am warmer now," she cried. "And if MaidBetsy A'hannay comes to take me away, I want you to stretch out yourhand like this, and say: 'Seneschal, remove that besom to the deepdungeon beneath the castle moat,' as we used to do in our plays beforeyou became a great man. Then I could stay very long and talk to youall through the night, for Maud Lindesay sleeps so sound that nothingcan awake her."

  Gradually the anger passed out of the face of William Douglas as helistened to his sister's prattle, like the vapours from the surface ofa hill tarn when the sun rises in his strength. He even thought withsome self-reproach of his treatment of Malise and of his uncle theAbbot. But a glance at the ring on his finger, and the thought of whatmight have been his good fortune at that moment but for theirinterference, ag
ain hardened his resolution to adamant within hisbreast.

  His sister's voice, clear and high in its childish treble, recalledhim to himself.

  "Oh, William, and there is such news; I forgot, because I have been sooverbusied with arranging my new puppet's house that Malise made forme. But scarcely were you gone away on Black Darnaway ere a messengercame from our granduncle James at Avondale that he and my cousins Willand James arrive to-morrow at the Thrieve with a company to attend thewappenshaw."

  The young man sprang to his feet, and dashed one hand into the palm ofthe other.

  "This is ill tidings indeed!" he cried. "What does the Fat Flattererat Castle Thrieve? If he comes to pay homage, it will be but amockery. Neither he nor Angus had ever any good-will to my father, andthey have none to me."

  "Ah, do not be angry, William," cried the little maid. "It will bebeautiful. They will come at a fitting time. For to-morrow is thegreat levy of the weapon-showing, and our cousins will see you in yourpride. And they will see me, too, in my best green sarcenet, riding ona white palfrey at your side as you promised."

  "A weapon-showing is not a place for little girls," said the Earl,mollified in spite of himself, casting himself down again on thecouch, and playing with the serpent ring on his finger.

  "Ah, now," cried his sister, her quick eyes dancing everywhere atonce, "you are not attending to a single word I say. I know by yourvoice that you are not. That is a pretty ring you have. Did a ladygive it to you? Was it our Maudie? I think it must have been our Maud.She has many beautiful things, but mostly it is the young men who wishto give her such things. She never sends any of them back, but keepsthem in a box, and says that it is good to spoil the Egyptians. Andsometimes when I am tired she will tell me the history of each, andwhether he was dark or fair. Or make it all up just as good when sheforgets. But, oh, William, if I were a lady I should fall in love withnobody but you. For you are so handsome--yes, nearly as handsome as Iam myself--(she passed her hands lightly through her curls as shespoke). And you know I shall marry no one but a Douglas--only you mustnot ask me to wed my cousin William of Avondale, for he is so sternand solemn; besides, he has always a book in his pocket, and wishes meto learn somewhat out of it as if I were a monk. A Douglas should notbe a monk, he should be a soldier."

  So she lay snugly on the bed and prattled on to her brother, who,buried in his thoughts and occupied with his ring, let the hours slipon till at the open door of the Earl's chamber there appeared the mostbewitching face in the world, as many in that castle and elsewherewere ready to prove at the sword's point. The little girl caught sightof it with a shrill cry of pleasure, instantly checked and hushed,however, at the thought of her mother.

  "O Maudie," she cried, "come hither into William's room. He has such abeautiful ring that a lady gave him. I am sure a lady gave it him. Wasit you, Maud Lindesay? You are a sly puss not to tell me if it was.William, it is wicked and provoking of you not to tell me who gave youthat ring. If it had been some one you were not ashamed of, you wouldbe proud of the gift and confess. Whisper to me who it was. I will nottell any one, not even Maudie."

  Her brother had risen to his feet with a quick movement, girding hisred gown about him as he rose.

  "Mistress Maud," he said respectfully, "I fear I have given youanxiety by detaining your charge so late. But she is a wilful madam,as you have doubtless good cause to know, and ill to advise."

  "She is a Douglas," smiled the fair girl, who stood at the chamberdoor refusing his invitation to enter, with a flash of the eye and aquick shake of the head which betokened no small share of the samequalities; "is not that enough to excuse her for being wayward andheadstrong?"

  Earl William wasted no more words of entreaty upon his sister, butseized her in his arms, and pulling the coverlet in which she hadhuddled herself up with her pert chin on her knees, more closely abouther, he strode along the passage with her in his arms till he stoppedat an open door leading into a large chamber which looked to thesouth.

  "There," he said, smiling at the girl who had followed behind him, "Iwill lock her in with you and take the key, that I may make sure oftwo such uncertain charges."

  But the girl had deftly extracted the key even as she passed in afterhim, and as the bolts shot from within she cried: "I thank you rightcourteously, Lord William, but mine apothecary, fearing that the airof this isle of Thrieve might not agree with me, bade me ever to sleepwith the key of the door under my pillow. Against fevers and quinsies,cold iron is a sovereign specific."

  And for all his wounded heart, Earl William smiled at the girl'ssauciness as he went slowly back to his chamber, taking, in spite ofhis earldom, pains to pass his mother's door on tiptoe.