“I have had one lesson,” he answered, not giving me back my smile, yet not rejecting it; “it is enough. For me, I will hold to the word I have spoken. To-morrow is our wedding-day. When we are once married, you and I, I shall order it so that James shall ride off as upon a report of danger to the Upper Ward, and I follow him immediately to Douglas Castle. Meantime, I will leave you here with Maud Lindsay for your guardian. It shall never be said that William Douglas took what was another man’s—that is, with knowledge and intent. As for James, I will speak with him apart. Till we meet at the altar, Margaret, I bid you farewell!”
And as he said, even so he did.
Even yet, of the marriage and all that concerns it I cannot bear to speak at length.
It was done, and as to that there was an end. I was left alone, at once a wife and a maid—the wife of William Douglas and the betrothed of James, his brother, with the full knowledge of both! Was ever girl so bestead?
What Will had said to James I knew not at that time—nor, indeed, till long afterwards, and then perhaps coloured by time and the personality of the narrator. Briefly, however, the two men were of an accord.
To James Douglas, till his brother’s death, Thrieve was a shut door. I laughed a little when I heard it, baldly stated by Will as a thing certified and agreed upon. For I could imagine very well James’s wry face, and the ill grace with which he would bind himself to that compact.
“But,” said the Earl William, with some philosophy, “the arrangement is good for both; I gain an arm, and James will have the advantage of a head”—
“And I?” I asked of him quickly—“what do I gain?”
He glanced at me simply and without suspicion.
“You will gain that which you yearned for—liberty.”
I pointed about the circumference of the Isle of Thrieve, round and round.
“There,” said I, “that is your liberty—a prison of twenty acres!”
William Douglas smiled. We were in the banqueting tent, sitting apart—and I daresay the guests thought that, as we raised our eyes to each other, we spoke of the light things of lovers, masking our hopes with glances and happy laughters, our anticipations with the touches of hands beneath the table board.
“Maud Lindsay finds it enough!” he said slowly. And I think that for once he spake to try me.
“I wot well,” I answered, giving him back glance for glance. “She hath here all that she desires: husband, bairns, housewifery, love”—
“Well?” he questioned, with some hidden meaning of his own in the word.
And I think he meant that even then I also might have all these if I chose. But if such was his intent, I knew not what was for my good. Will Douglas, if he believed this thing, had spoken too late. What he asked (if so be that he asked it) was no longer mine to give. And the fact that I was not sure whose it was did not help Will’s case at all. At any rate, it pertained not to William Douglas.
Laurence M‘Kim had come to the wedding after all, and throughout the ceremony (in which he took no part, being, though an abbot, only in deacon’s orders) I was conscious of his pale face, fine and clear in outline as the carving of a statue. Behind, in the groomsman’s place, James gloomed and glowered, seeming even then to meditate flinging me across his horse’s croup, and galloping out upon the road for the Little Ross on the chance of the vessel that was to take us into the roads of Nantes.
Before he departed I demanded of Will where were the boundary posts of my liberty, what I was to say to my jailers when I desired permission to cross the drawbridge, or if (upon disobedience) I was to have Black Archibald’s dungeon with bread-and-water. Yes, it was thus that I spoke when I was young. Time and the flux of things have made me sorry enough for it now. But during those years I am sure I had no particle of gratitude, and I am not even sure that I had any heart.
But Will answered quite gravely that Sholto and his two hundred men would be at my service if I desired to ride any considerable distance. Also that, as far as concerned the braes of Galloway, from Palnure to Carsethorn, and from the Ross to the Merrick foot, all was as safe for me as if I had been one of these bairns of Maud Lindsay’s that scampered and made daisy chains upon the green pied leas of Balmaghie and the Isle.
I looked across at James, as Will mentioned the Ross. I meant to remind him that all might not be as safe for me as the earl imagined. So, to reassure him, I added that I did not intend to be carried off twice to France, but would cling to Maud Lindsay’s tails close as a burr in a frieze coat.
“And then I can have Laurence sometimes, is it not so?” I asked. “He reads tales out of the Latin and tells them to Maud and me in the summer gloamings. Is it permitted to your prisoner that she should speak with Laurence when he comes over from Sweetheart?”
“Ay, surely,” said William Douglas carelessly, “have all the monks of Dundrennan if it be any pleasure to you, child. Let them tell you tales by the league—Laurence or another; ’tis all the same to me!”
For he had it not in him to be jealous of any—least of all of Laurence M‘Kim. And indeed, what call had he? For did not he ride away, free even as he left me behind him free, bidding me company with all, save only with his brother James? For that was the agreement that the brothers had made between themselves.
It was the deed of a great heart—though, perhaps, a somewhat cold one. Still, it made of James Douglas, almost to a certainty, ninth Earl of Douglas. It was something to wait for—two-thirds of Scotland—with a widow that had never been a wife into the bargain. Certes, a noble gift! Yet for all that, James Douglas only gloomed, thinking of the present, and looking as sulky as a dog from whom a stranger has taken a bone. But that was James’s way all the days of him.
Then William seemed to recall something to himself.
“Laurence M‘Kim,” he said meditatively, “yes—yes, that is well thought on. I am glad you spoke of him. He is a man of many books, and will be good company for you all. I will see to it—I will see to it immediately.”
He knitted his brows, as he did over great problems of the State, yet he was only thinking for my comfort. And I all the while as cold as a stone and as ungrateful.
He went on, “Also there is Malise over at the Carlinwark—by the Three Thorns. And did one not tell me of a girl there of your own age, or younger? What is her name? Magdalen, was it not? A maid with a rare beauty of promise! She will keep you company, and help you in summer with the flower-gathering, and at your broidering over the winter fire!”
At that I pouted. It was good of Will, doubtless; but as for me, I have always found both these occupations go better in company with a man than with any girl, of beauty how rare soever.
“I was very happy as I was,” I said; “why had you to come and make me marry you, only to ride away, you and James, leaving me with women and babies?”
“Child,” he said, a little drily, “you will find the bower as it was. It looks to the north, and commands a fine prospect!”
But I still was ill-satisfied, thinking of myself, and taking no account of his irony.
“Well, there is no one to speak with,” I complained; “you take away James.”
“Yes,” he answered, with mighty sudden gravity, “I take away James. I choose not that—my wife—should go to the Lady’s Bower with James Douglas, not if he were twice and three times my brother!”
“And Laurence?” I asked, determined to be as bitter with him as I could, though I cannot tell why, save that the events of the day had been too much for me.
“Oh,” he answered carelessly, “Laurence M‘Kim, or the collie dog from the Mains, or Puggy the monkey from the guard-hall—have whom you will at the Lady’s Bower! But as for my brother, let him bide his turn! I am doing enough and more for James Douglas!”
And at that I laughed. For, apart from the strange, pleasurable fear I had of James, and so far as good company was concerned, in my heart I preferred to be with Larry. For William had spoken truth. It was as safe to be with Laurence as with the collie from the Mains.
All the same, I did not think Laurence would have liked to be told of it, nor yet would James have been flattered to know that it was a certain relief to my heart, great and definite, to see them both ride away over the hills towards Douglas Castle.
Then the stillness settled down. The tents were struck, the ground cleared—the revellers departing as they had come to their keeps and peel-towers. There fell a deep peace—a Sabbath on the land. So still was it after their way-going, that often the ringing of the kirk-bell at Balmaghie could be heard for vespers or prime, Sir Harry the parson doubtless himself pulling at the rope.
It was indeed almost like the days at St. Brigida’s come again. Only—and it was a great difference—at Thrieve there was no Bald Cat and no hateful espionage. Also there were men sometimes, though only Laurence and Sholto counted very much—or rather, to speak truth, Laurence—that is, if he would only have come.
As for Maud, she grew sweeter every day. She made herself winsome and beloved by women, and that easily. For me it is different—I have found only a few women, not more than I could number twice over upon the fingers of a hand, who were even tolerable to me. But with Maud it was all different. She not only endured all women, but, with her motherly ways, won them to love her too. And yet I can recall her in her youth, as great a petticoated rogue and villain as the best! For I never had it in my heart to tease men as Maud Lindsay was used to do. Yet a home, a husband, and wealth of children may make the most daring of us even as Maud Lindsay!
Now the men had not long gone when I began to bethink me of what Will, my husband, had said as to company and riding—that all was safe in Galloway, and that he had left me a fair white mare of Arab blood, fine and gentle-pacing as a Spanish jennet, yet when fretted, fiery as Varlet after he had been in stable for a week—my dear old Varlet, that of his courtesy the Sieur Paul was keeping for me at Cour Cheverney lest I should again find myself in the land of France.
On Haifa, then (for so out of the old crusading histories I had named the little mare), I could go everywhere, and Sholto soon found that it was no heavy-haunched charger of the lists that could hold its own with the blood of Arabia.
But Maud Lindsay, for whose little finger Sholto cared more than for my whole body, was mounted on a steed that paced like a packman’s pony well laden with creels. Rouncy was the fitting name, given in derision, which this broad-backed, sure-footed beast of burden bore. Haifa could ride about and about the padding brute as a deerhound circles a charging ox. I think, however, that our Maud was none the best pleased to be thus made a matron of, while the earliest autumn of her beauty was yet far to seek. But it was all owing to Sholto’s affection, which fussed and fumed over her like a hen over ducklings. And as often as she went riding with me, it was ever, “Be wise now, Maud! Let not that madcap lead you into wild tricks!”
The first of our adventurings was on the day after they had ridden away—Will and James together over that hill, which we called the Hiding Hill, because behind it many and many a Douglas has passed in his time, watched by the eyes of loving women to the last flutter of the cap and the last gleam of the spear-head as it dipped and rose, and dipped again.
But this time, strangely enough, the two women in Thrieve were glad to see the men depart.
Maud heaved a sigh and threw up her hands, pressing her temples as if to still an ache or to be rid of an anxiety.
“I thought he was never going to understand,” she said. “If I had not seen James follow you across the meadow and round the willow copses towards the Lady’s Bower, I had surely been at my wits’ end. So I sent him after you twain!”
“For me,” said I, “I know not yet whether it was well or ill done of you!”
Maud looked a while at me fixedly, at first with a certain vexation, but afterwards gradually breaking into a smile, serene as gracious.
“Ah,” she said, “I was wrong. I took you for a child, but you are a woman for all that with your reasons and counterings. If you have a thing given you, you mislike it. If you get it not, that you like worse. But if, having cast it away as worthless, it will not come back, being whistled for—that you like worst of all! This it is to be all a woman! A very woman!”
It was with some anticipation, but still more, I think, with that exultation which comes from swift movement in the open air, that Maud and I started to ride the half-league which separated us from the cottage of the Three Thorns.
It was mid-August—that is to say, high summer in Scotland, for the beauties of this our dour land develop late. But there were now crops along the river bank, other than the daisies pied and winking gowans which had greeted me on my return from France, corn still green in the hollows, but thinning out and yellowing on the brae-faces, besides a hundred flowers all along the way we went. I had quite forgot the country names of most of them, though I could have given the most part of them in the French tongue readily enough.
There was a scent of delightful warmth, rare in Scotland, over everything. The morning mist, which heat draws from the ground in the moist south-west, had not yet wholly lifted. Except to children and lovers, the way through the marshes was always a little tedious, because of the need of searching out the best path across the peaty flowes, and of keeping to those bare patches of soil on which only tufts of heather and bent grew.
Then we mounted the hill, from which we could see the three famous thorn trees of Carlinwark, beside which Malise M‘Kim had dwelt all his life. He had, it is true, a much finer house at Mollance, a league and a half up the valley; but nothing contented the old man truly but the armourer’s house by the waterside, with the Isle of Firs in front of the door, immediately under the blue barn roof of Screel, and the sound of the water crisping and whispering on the pebbles along the shores of Carlinwark.
Malise M‘Kim, chief armourer-smith to the Douglases, met us by the door, his vast leathern apron about his middle. He showed himself a gnarled and knotted trunk of a man, with a face, in a general way, soberish, but upon occasion gravely mirthful as well, and even in repose showing a capacity for humour essentially Scottish.
He tossed his bonnet on the ground and stood before us bareheaded.
“That is where I should be too, if I had not grown so thick-about, my lady countess,” he cried. “Bide ye still where ye are, Sholto’s Maud! First I bode to rax doon my bonny! Sit your fit there!”
He thrust out a hand towards me, a hand broad as an oaken trencher from the servants’ hall. I put one foot into it, and with a touch of my hand, as it were on a mountain side, upon the shoulder of the giant, I found myself on the ground.
He laughed a low, satisfied, grumbling laugh.
“Ay,” he chuckled, “the Wee Yin hasna forgot the airt o’t! She has minded auld Malise, that stood afar aff and saw her married to his maister yester morn. But, wae’s me! They tell me the Earl William rade awa’ that verra nicht to Douglas Castle and left ye bird-alane! It canna be true!”
“Hush, father,” said Maud hastily, “come and help me down. There were tidings of great danger in the Upper Wards—that Crichton and Livingston were even then besetting Douglas Castle with a great army! You speak of things concerning which you have no knowledge!”
For so it was ever Maud Lindsay’s way to manage and mistress everyone. As many as possible she caused to do her will by simple ordinance, as she did with Sholto, or by alternate manège and the curb rein, as she had been wont to do with her lovers of old—now, however, mostly by wheedling and cajolery, or if no better might be, by the argument of tears, or that soft inveiglement and the attractive forces of those little kindnesses which touch and win a woman most from one of her own sex.
Old Malise lifted his daughter down, lightly and easily as he had done for me—though Maud had begun to pay the penalty of comfort and a home, with maternity and the happy care of children. In brief, she was no longer willow slender or quite feather-weight.
Now to me it was greatly pleasant to see again this grizzled giant, whom I but dimly remembered, his arms knotted and massy as the branches of an oak, smiling upon us—ready at once to give us of his best, or to lay down his life for either of us if need were.
“But why,” said I, “have we not to seek you at your new abode? Is not the Mollance a pleasant place to dwell in? If not, then we must e’en seek you another. Do you not know that the Douglas will be beholden to none, not even to an old friend?”
“Pleesant to the e’e, and heartsome—ay,” said the old armourer, “but the Mollance will never be hame to me. Some o’ thae daftlike young folk o’ mine will doubtless set up their canopied bedposts there. But there shall be nae hame for the auld smith but aneath the Three Thorns where he was born. There shall he leeve and there (God sainin’ him) will he dee; and when they carry him awa’, feet foremost, he will be buried oot yonder on the Kelton brae-face, wi’ the glint o’ rain and sunshine comin’ and gangin’, as if the Head Smith o’ a’ were hard at it, blawin’ the bellows o’ the wunds athort the lowin’ coals o’ the cloods o’ even. Hoots—there I am at it again, bletherin’ fule words aboot the cloods.”
He turned and, with a perfect whirlwind of voice, cried aloud, “Guidwife, are ye there?”
“Here I am, Laird M‘Kim,” replied another voice of almost equal volume from behind the peat-stack, “but I wad hae ye ken that golderin’ like a Bull o’ Bashan is in no way to caa’ for the leddy o’ the Mollance. Do ye think that I, Dame Barbara o’ that ilk, am but a tinkler’s wife for a’ the warld to scraich at?”
“And ’deed what better are ye?” said her husband, subduing his voice to shorter range, “ye are just puir auld Babby Kim, the smith’s wife at the Three Thorns! And,” suddenly sending his voice outward in a gust of sound, “gin ye dinna come oot frae ahint that peat-stack this minute—faith, I’se come an’ fetch ye like a clockin’ hen!”
“The poo’er is no’ gien ye by the Almichty, Laird M‘Kim,” said the voice, “ ‘Brawny’ though they caa’ ye! Ye mind what happened to that black scoondrel Ham for makkin’ a shame an’ a lauchin’-stock o’ his faither, and faith, it wad be waur for you to do the like to your douce marriet wife! Gang your ways intil the hoose an’ bid Magdalen bring me my paduasoy goon and my white mutch. For I am juist no’ fit to be seen, as weel ye ken, me bein’ a laird’s wife, an’ forbye, the mither o’ a beltit knicht an’ an abbot o’ Sweetheart Abbey. A bonny-like thing for a graund body like me to be catchit in an auld slip-body and clogs, feedin’ the pigs! Gang your ways and find Magdalen—hear ye me, Malise M‘Kim?”
“But, guidwife,” said Malise, with something like a wink across at us, “I’m some feared that Magdalen is gane to the far park yont the hill, to gather the white rose and the reid! Ye wull hae to come out as ye are, guidwife, I’m thinkin’!”
“Deil o’ that I’ll do, Laird M‘Kim!” cried the lady, while we waited smiling. I had signalled to Maud to be still, for, indeed, the words, and the very lilting strain of the voice when in pretended anger, recalled old things to me. For this same Dame Barbara had been my foster-nurse, even as she had been that of my two dead brothers, whom the Crichton slew so cruelly at Edinburgh. “Deil o’ that,” she repeated; “gang yoursel’, my man, to the armoire, an’ tak’ oot the paduasoy and the white mutch that hangs on the peg, a’ goffered an’ daintied! And mind ye that your hands are well washen, ye great muckle, hulkin’ blackamoor that ye are! For gin ye fyle a single kep-string or bowed puff, I’se”—
“Mother,” said Maud Lindsay suddenly, “let me go if you need suchlike, but do not forget that you are keeping the Countess of Douglas waiting!”
“The Coontess o’ Dooglas? Wha’s she?” (There was a sudden change in the voice.) “No’ my wee Margaret, her that lay at my breests, that was unto me as my ain—ay, an’ maybes mair—the last left o’ the bonny three that were bane o’ my bane an flesh o’ my flesh, as say the Scriptures!”
“Even so, Dame Barbara!” I cried. “If you will not come to see your foster-bairn, faith, blithely will I kilt my coats, and help you to feed the pigs—as I have done before, dear mother of mine, many and many a time!”
There reached us a sound of feet heavily plashing, excited breathings that came short and fast, then finally from behind the peat-stacks Dame Barbara appeared with her sonsy arms outspread to enfold me. A blue linen gown was broadly belted about that part of her body which it was a misuse of words to call her waist. A kilted skirt of rough frieze descended a little, a very little, below her knees, showing rig-and-furrow stockings of blue wool, and sturdy feet thrust into the huge wooden shoes, called “clogs”—a sort of left-handed cousin, I take it, of the sabot of Touraine.
“Oh, my ain wee bairnie,” she cried, “I wad hae kenned ye afar aff. There’s nane like ye! But I canna touch ye the noo. I declare I am a fair disgrace to be seen—me that micht hae been sittin’ in the bonny hoose o’ Mollance”—
“Ay,” said her husband, “twiddlin’ your thumbs roond yin anither like a mill-wheel in a spate an’ wishin’ that ye had the Carlinwark pigs to feed!”
“Ye needna think, muckle sumph that ye are,” retorted Dame Barbara, “that because ye canna pit by a day withoot the smell o’ apron leather, an’ the foost o’ het pleuch-irons fizzlin’ in the cauldron, that me, who is ain sister to a Provost o’ Dumfries, has nae mair respectable thochts in my heid!”
But having once felt my arms about her, the good Dame of Mollance easily forgat the imperfections of her attire, and alternately wept and laughed over me, now holding me at arm’s length to admire, and anon reflecting with some breadth upon the supposed ill-conduct of my husband in leaving me alone so soon after our marriage.
“Body an’ breath o’ haly Patrick,” she cried, “it wasna dune that gate in my young time—by gentle nor yet by simple. But wae’s me, wae’s me, the times are sair changed—and wi’ them the folk. There’s even oor wee bit Magdalen, and—Guid forgi’e me, nae sweeter or bonnier maid doffs kirtle at bedtime atween here and John-o’-Groats—though I say it that shouldna—but even she will gang aff by her lane instead o’ dancin’ on the green wi’ them that are o’ her age. Ye will find her ower yonder i’ the wild wood or up amang the heather, far far yont, sittin’ on a hassock o’ bent and listenin’ to the laverocks i’ the lift, as if she had never heard them afore in a’ her life. Ay, ay, puir lassie, an’ sae your groom’s gane an’ left ye, wae’s me, wae’s me!”
This was the beginning of our daily pilgrimages to see Malise M‘Kim and his wife, and (but that came later) Magdalen, their daughter, and their other five sons, Corra, Dun, Herries, Roger, and Malise the Younger. All these, however, were older than their
sole sister Magdalen, who, as her mother said, “had arrivit untimely, the child o’ oor auld age—the ithers being a’ as close on yin anither’s tails as a string o’ deuks gaun to the mill-pond.” So, as was natural, this one little daughter, the pearl of price, now in her fifteenth year, had drawn to her great store of the love of her parents, and found herself petted and worshipped as a divinity even by her brothers.
Nothing she could do was wrong. So Magdalen M‘Kim grew up encircled by love, and, what is more and other, by the unfailing expression of love. Her father, who melted to none else, followed her with his eyes as she went about the house. One day (so he said to himself) Magdalen would marry a laird’s son and be the lady of Mollance. For, as for the others, man and boy, they could fend for themselves as their father and mother had done.
But on this first occasion of our going we saw nothing of the maid, the fame of whose beauty, however, had already carried far across the countryside.
Yet I held it strange that as Maud and I overtopped the little ridge behind the Three Thorns, which is called the Hill of Carlinwark, I seemed to see all suddenly against the sunset the shape of a knight in armour mounted on a noble horse. He was stooping from his saddle to kiss a maiden’s hand, which she had rendered to him as if against her will. Both stood out black against the redness of the west, and in a moment they were gone, or at least hidden by a little rising of the ground as we rode on. The sight took my breath away. I must have dreamed it, I thought, for indeed at the time my head was full of visions and hopes and fears. So I said nothing to my companion.
And Maud, full of her babes, paid no attention, or at least she spoke never a word of the event if she saw aught. But to me it seemed that the knight with the black plume and the great square shoulders was of the build, make, and carriage of James Douglas.
Only in my heart I said, “Tush, Margaret, you get your mind too full of James Douglas these days. This must be ended, and suddenly! I will no more on’t!”
All the same, I thought on the vision afterwards, when I ought to have been asleep in my naked bed.
There still remained to me to make the acquaintance of the sole daughter of Malise M‘Kim, the sister of Sholto and Laurence. She was not yet sixteen years of age, but already her name had gone wide athwart the country. Yet withal she was a strange girl—with a look on her face like to one who had spoken with the Little People, so they said.
As her mother had told me, she loved the wild wood better than the village street, the heathery hill more than the noise of the market-place, the tumult of the fair, or even the genial push and jostle of the tourney when folk of all degrees looked over one another’s shoulders.
And still I had not set eyes upon this marvel. But one morning, awaking early, I heard two of our soldiers of the guard—A’Hannays both of them—Gib the Brown and Kirsten the Red, exchanging confidences on the stone balcony beneath my chamber, where their watch had been set by Sholto M‘Kim.
They had taken leave to rest their halberds in a corner, and to lean upon the balusters with their elbows (God help them if Sholto, or even Andro the Penman, came their way!).
“So ye were ower by at the Three Thorns yestreen, Kirsten?” inquired Gib the Brown, starting a subject which, in spite of his air of nonchalance, was evidently near his heart. “Saw ye ocht o’ the Flooer-o’-the-Haw?”
(For by this name, it appeared, the men of the Thrieve guard and the country folk about spoke of the daughter of the armourer.)
The Red one shrugged his shoulders and scratched meditatively.
“The Flooer—no,” answered Kirsten softly, “but the Thorn—ay! The Thorn was there!”
“Ye cam’ on Malise M‘Kim, then!—What said he till ye?”
“ ‘Said,’ quo’ he,” growled Kirsten the Red, “truth o’ Peter an’ Paul, I didna wait for what he said. I kenned the auld man’s foot, and I left—yes, Gib, ye may tak’ your oath on that! I left the viceenity!”
“But how kenned ye the fit o’ Malise M‘Kim?” inquired Gib.
Kirsten the Red turned upon his kinsman a look of mingled pity and contempt.
“Gib,” he said, “it’s little that ye ken. I kenned Malise’s fit by the sign that it liftit me near sax feet into the air, wi’ a spang like a green puddock loupin’ into a pool. So I cam’ awa’! Ay, Kirsten A’Hannay cam’ away frae there and waited for nae leave-takkin’ either!”
“Umph!” retorted Gib, “but ye are a poor plucked bantam to fight a man. Noo, if it had been me”—
“See here—you,” cried Kirsten, the Red A’Hannay, fiercely, “if ye think ye can do mair nor me—come your ways doon to the green yonder when our watch is lifted, and I’ll show you. Ay, or better yet, gang to the well-yett o’ Carlinwark an’ gae three whustles like this”—
Here Kirsten imitated the call of the peewit upon the moor with great exactness. Then he laughed. “Saul’s health!” he cried, “then ye will ken whether ye are welcome or no’ at the smiddy o’ the Three Thorns—thro’ the shape o’ the old man’s brogans!”
At this point there was a hurried rush to arms. The sound of footsteps approached from below, halted, again receded. Instantly halberds were grounded—piled, and the peaceful confabulation of the A’Hannays continued over the parapet.
“I said, Gib, she’s maist awsome bonny—yon Yin!”
“Ye’re speakin’, Red Kirsten!” replied his cousin. Then with a groan he added, “But oh, man, whiles I’m feared till I sweat that she’s no’ for the like o’ us, Gib. There was young Jock the Penman—they say he made up till her yae day on the road to Ba’maghie Kirk—near by the wood o’ Lochar. And my faith, I kenna what he said to her, but she bade him gang an’ seat himsel’ on the muckle stane in the mids’ of the ford—they caa’ it the Black Douglas, ye ken. And he was to sit there for a day an’ a nicht withoot speech, or else she wad tell her faither and her seven brithers the words he had spoken till her!”
“Lord sake, ye tell me sae? And did he gang?”
“Gang, Kirsten!” continued Gib solemnly. “Certes, there was nae two ways aboot that! He sat him doon there, a’ disjaskit an’ drookit-like (for he had to wade to the oxters and him dressed in his green velvets). Ay, as the stane was marvellous slippery, he had to sit on his hunkers, blinkin’ like a hoolet in the sunshine a’ the time the kirk folk were gaun by. An’ siccan jeerin’ and lauchin’ as there was at him, hotchin’ there, wi’ the caller Dee water sappy and broon about his hurdies, an’ the ill-faured laddies frae the kirkclachan flingin’ stanes an’ dirt at him! Eh, but it was graund to see!”
Kirsten made silent contortions indicative of delight.
“Ay, an’ yince he turned his back on the ford, and the lassie M‘Kim (I never thocht she had as muckle spunk in her) garred him turn him again and face the folk as they gaed planterin’ an’ splashin’ through the shallows on horse and on foot. And sae there sat Jock till what time Sir Hairry the parson had said his mass, and the kirk folk were on their road back again. Then Malise M‘Kim spied Maister Jock sitting a’ crowled up on the Black Dooglas—his chin on his knees and dreeping like seaweed on a tide-rock.
“ ‘What’s that fule doin’ there, Magdalen?’ said Malise.
“ ‘Had you not better ask him, faither?’ said the lass, speakin’ mim an’ denty like a wee white doo drinkin’ water.”
“Ay,” sighed Kirsten, “she canna help it. It’s an airt she haes!”
“ ‘Better ask at him, had I?’ growls Malise; ‘faith, richt sune I’ll do the speerin’.’
“Sae doon he gangs to the water-side on that muckle Flanders beast o’ his that wad carry a tun o’ wine, and he stands a bit while intent upon the peetifu’ object on the Black Dooglas, lookin’ an’ aye better-lookin’. An’ them that was there telled me that it was better nor a monk’s-play, when the black deils come chasin’ in after the ill-doers, wi’ their reid-het pincers. Ye ken what wi’ the sparks o’ forty years’ smiddwark, Malise wrinkles up his face into knots, and pu’s doon his broos till he girns at ye like a fox oot o’ a whun bush. This time, they say, he was fair fearsome to see.
“ ‘Wha are ye an’ what are ye doin’ there on the Lord’s day morning?’ says Malise in a voice that near shook Jock the Penman aff the stane intil the water. ‘Is this the feast o’ the King o’ Misrule?’
“But Jock he says naething, him kennin’ better.
“An’ sae Malise cries oot again, ‘Tell me what for ye are sitting there like a popinjay on a steeple, makin’ yoursel’ a cockshy for a’ the vagrom bairns and guid-for-naething rake-the-countries in ten pairishes? Is that the way to mak’ your maister respeckit?’
“But aye Jock said naething. For the lass was stannin’ watchin’ on the shore.
“Sae wi’ that Malise began to wade in to him on his muckle Flamand. In his hand the smith had a branch o’ an oak he had poo’ed in the wood o’ Glenlochar, an’ as he took his beast into the ford he strippit the cudgel to the white. And because Jock the Penman sat still, because he dauredna steer, the fear bein’ on him, Malise lifted him up like a half-drooned kitten, an’ cast him across his saddle-bow.
“ ‘I did it for a penance,’ says Jock at last; ‘it was a vow!’ And had the stake been the salvation o’ his saul, that was as near the truth as he bode to come that day, whatever.
“But, wae’s me, when Malise had brocht him to the shore, there was the lass waiting, an’ Jock telled me after, that his verra bowels turned to water within him when he saw her. But she only said, calm and saftlike as rain in summer when nae wind is, ‘What was it that ye said to me, John the Penman, as ye gaed oot through the woods o’ Lochar?’
“An’ for the life o’ him Jock could think o’ naething better to answer than that he had said it was a bonny day for the folk to gang kirkward, an’ sain their sowls hearkenin’ to the holy and blessed words o’ Mess Hairry, the parson o’ Ba’maghie!
“ ‘Nothing more than that?’ she said. ‘It runs in my head that ye said mair nor that.’
“ ‘Naething,’ cries Jock, ‘but that if it were the Lord’s ain wull, a drap or two o’ water wad be guid for the craps!’
“ ‘Sae ye bode to hae the hale flood o’ the Water o’ Dee to keep yoursel’ happy, ye numskull!’ said Malise, setting Jock on the ground wi’ a shake that garred his teeth chatter in their sockets.
“ ‘And when next you say your prayers for the folk at Mass,’ Magdalen put in, ‘and for the rain upon the crops, let your place of oratory be other than the middle o’ Dee Water, and your prie-dieu a fitter place than the Black Douglas o’ Glenlochar!’
“ ‘Ay, see to it!’ growled Malise. ‘Mind what the lass says, or else will I break thy thick head with this cudgel.’ ”
Then there was a pause as I abode listening. The two men stood silently degusting the tale of Jock the Penman. It seemed to have a personal flavour for them.
“And what think ye, Gib, after a’,” said Kirsten the Red, “was it that Jock said to the lass?”
“That,” answered Gib sententiously, “has never been revealed—but”—
“But what?” said Kirsten, whose temper was never of the longest.
“Weel, gin onybody ocht to ken what Jock the Penman said to Magdalen M‘Kim, it should be yoursel’, Gib A’Hannay! Ye hae had experience. Tak’ my advice, and keep far yont frae the Three Thorns. They are no’ a canny set, thae M‘Kims!”
There was silence again from that point for several minutes—a silence strained and disagreeable.
“Onyway,” said Gib, breaking out fiercely, “I haena been kickit and taen it like a lamb!”
“Hae ye no’,” cried his cousin, “weel, ye’ll no’ hae that lang to complain o’. There! And there! And there!”
I could hear the rush of the two A’Hannays to the corner where they had piled their arms, and the first click of the halberds as the weapons came to the engage. But as I did not wish two of Sholto’s best men put hors de combat for a few foolish words, I slipped out on the balcony and called down to them, “Have you seen Sir Sholto M‘Kim? Pray send him up to me.”
They were standing, breathing hard, their heads thrown back, foot to foot, weapon to weapon, as is the way of their fighting race. For the A’Hannays
can never hold land long, however they may gain it. They fall a-fighting among themselves when there is none other to strive with, and after the battle the land generally goes to the sole surviving cousin in the twentieth degree of relationship.
So when Gib the Brown and Kirsten the Red saw me, they drew themselves up and saluted.
“Now,” I ordered them severely, “let there be no more of this, or I will have you both in the dungeon of Archibald the Grim, on bread-and-water for a week—ay, and little enough of the first! This is no place for pikes and partisans when every good Douglas is wanted. If ye have aught to say to one another, go down to the green and say it with your fists like men!”
Still I had not seen Magdalen M‘Kim.
I was resolved that no longer would I miss my mark. So that very afternoon I sent Andro the Penman, whose swarthy countenance and determinate bachelordom protected him from any misconceptions as to his purpose, on mission to the Three Thorns of Carlinwark.
With him I sent a jewel of price to Magdalen—a cross made of a great moonstone, set about with black diamonds, of Saracen work—brought, so they said, from the Holy Land by some crusading Douglas. And with it I sent the letter which follows:—
“Sweet Magdalen and my little Foster Sister,—I have heard speak of you, often and mickle. Yet has it never been my lot to see you. Will you bring your father and Dame Barbara, with as many of your brothers as can be spared, to the Thrieve to-morrow—that I may see you, and know you for, as they report of you, the fairest and honestest maid in Galloway? This I desire all the more, that, before I was wedded, and so in one day grew an old woman, folk were used to call me also ‘The Fair Maid of Galloway.’ ”
This I signed with the name which (at that time) I had resolved should never be changed—“Margaret Douglas.” And then I waited, expectant as a lover for the coming of this marvel and non-such—the Flower of all the White Thorns that ever grew by the shores of Carlinwark.
It chanced that I awoke very early and looked across the little garden, wherein, upon the moist and fertile soil washed by the river, flourished the flowering rush and bachelor’s button, with the wild vine of Touraine climbing up the twin ilex oaks, which had been brought all the way from Rome and planted against the warm south-looking wall of Thrieve. There were open spaces, too, where, kept in countenance by gillyflower and the royal brake, there were beginning to take root those pretty dainty bunches called the “Fair Maids of France” which the Sieur Paul had sent overseas to remind me of Cour Cheverney.
Only on the southern face, under my window, was there any green leafage about Castle Thrieve. On every other side the castle rose clear, grey, lonely—a strong tower for defence, a hold against the storms of war, as indeed it had already been for generations—square, bare, and upstanding as if in scorn of compromise.
But now I loved the little garden best of all, perhaps because my dear Lady’s Bower was deserted. I had no desire to go thither. Two men seemed to stand between me and it—the two whom I had seen ride away together, each watching the other, behind the fatal Hiding Hill.
It was very early when I looked out on the morning we were to see Magdalen at Thrieve. The river wimpled below, glimmering like the inside of a pearl shell—little flecks of rosy cloud driven up from the east being, however, smilingly reflected in the grey. I could see the water wander away between the dark meadows till it drew to a point and was lost in the distance. As I leaned from the window of my chamber I felt a damp chill strike suddenly through me. The dew-dropping trees in the little garden shivered, though there was no wind. I also shuddered, as if I had been one of them.
Over yonder was the Hill of Carlinwark, the clouds of dawn reddening behind it. Why should Fear haunt me, and the trees of my garden tremble as if someone were treading on my grave?
Could aught of evil be coming to me from Over Yonder?
Surely not—only the daintiest, the most innocent, and the sweetest maid in Galloway—Magdalen, the daughter of the armourer of Carlinwark, that rare blossom of the May and the flower of the white and scented Thorn.
She came punctually at ten o’clock of the day, her mother, Dame Barbara, and Malise her father being with her. I was startled at first. I remembered her as a little child with a floss of golden hair and eyes like the sun shining on a mountain lake—at once dark and bright. There was no doubt about it—little Magdalen M‘Kim had grown into a bewitching woman—yes, a woman, though, according to her years and to her cleading, she was yet no more than a child.
Of her complexion she was fair, dazzlingly fair, as blonde as I (being a Douglas) was dark. As to her coif, it was marvellous. Each individual hair stood out like a wire of gold, infinitely fine, waving and crisping to her waist. So light the fleece was, the wind blew it this way and that in wisps, as mist is blown about the hill-tops.
In Magdalen’s eyes there was the depth of water seen under the shade of great ancestral trees. What colour they were—green, blue, hazel, or violet, I could not tell. Chiefly, I think, they changed according to the thought that stirred behind. The girl’s skin was clear, and flushed easily to a dainty rose. Something innocent and appealing looked out from under her eyelashes at you, claiming protection even before the full and gracious smile of her mouth had said, “I trust you!”
And so at long and last, here before me was Magdalen of the Three Thorns.
I went down myself to meet her, but when I would have embraced her first, she directed me to her mother.
“She will be disappointed else!” she whispered, bending from her saddle.
And so I kissed my old nurse first of all, and then, holding the girl at arm’s length, examined her from head to foot. The time being summer, she was clad in plain white linen cloth, fresh from bleaching upon the green grass of the Carlinwark meadows, and her hair was kept from straying by a snood or band of blue ribbon, broader than usual, which passed about her small and shapely head.
With that came Maud out also, smiling sweetly and full of content with her life, her babes, her husband. Maud could think wisely and well for others—witness how she had thought for me; but really her soul abode within her, content, unfretted, sufficient to itself as that of a good mother should, the young birds abiding still in the nest.
So we went in, and afterwards Malise came and joined us in the great hall, refusing, however, to sit down in the presence of his mistress.
“The boys?” he grumbled, I might say rumbled, when I had asked him why they had not all come, “na, na—they are better at hame. Twa sons o’ mine are lost to the anvil and the hammer. If a’ o’ them gaed the way of Prior Laurence yonder, and Sir Sholto here, what would come o’ the armourership to the Douglases o’ Thrieve, whilk hath been in my family ever since there was a Douglas to go forth to battle, or a M‘Kim to fit him for it wi’ steel harness and sword o’ mettle?
“ ‘Na, na, guid lads, bide where ye are,’ says I. And guid lads they are. But spoil a M‘Kim, an’ ye mak’ a devil unpitted. So I e’en set them their tasks, and explained what wad happen gin they werena dune by the doon-lettin’ o’ the nicht!
“ ‘The Lord help ye!’ said I. But they kenned fu’ weel that He wadna!”
* * * * * * *
It was to me a day most memorable, that August noon and afternoon when from the Three Thorns of Carlinwark Magdalen M‘Kim came first into my house of Thrieve. At this distance of time, and after all that is come and gone, it is hard for me to detach myself, and convey to those who never set eye upon this girl any true idea of the wonderful charm of her girlhood.
There have been beautiful and gracious women not a few whom I have seen and known—chiefest, of course, Maud Lindsay and Mistress Agnes Sorel—la “Belle des Belles.” But the like of Magdalen M‘Kim as she was at fifteen have I never seen—child-woman and woman-child in one.
I cannot mind me of any great thing we either said or did. We went into the south garden, I know, under the shadow of the ilex or Lady’s Oak, where I had had seats placed. Maud Lindsay came to us time and again as the duties of her housekeeping and nursery permitted. But mostly she left us alone to make acquaintance, taking Dame Barbara off with her, to count baby linen and apprise napery, while Malise went the rounds of the armoury with his son Sholto, growling at specks of rust to other eyes invisible, and informing the Captain of the Guard for the hundredth time how differently things were managed when he was in residence at Thrieve—“in the Tineman’s time,” as he was careful to add.
“Doubtless,” answered Sholto, growing at last a little nettled, “but then, if our arms are not so clean, we do not lose so many battles with them!”
“But more heads!” growled the ancient armourer in his beard. “And there would have been less of that same if the young Earl William would have taken my advice. But ’tis not too late even yet. Yonder, to begin with, are Chancellor Crichton and Tutor Livingston, that carry on their shoulders a pair of bosses that would be none the worse of a snedding!”
Sholto laughed, placing his hand affectionately on his father’s arm.
“But did you ever hear of a right Douglas yet,” he said, “that would take advice?”
Malise shook his head, perhaps remembering my brothers. Then he sighed.
“Never if it were guid advice! Or frae a man!” he added softly, and as if recalling something to his mind woeful and heavy with Fate.
* * * * * * *
So in the south garden Magdalen and I sat, the white doves that swooped and circled about, plumping squably upon the scattered grains of corn, not more innocently happy. I asked her after a while concerning her lovers and the men who came to the Three Thorns to woo her—of whose number and varied qualifications I had heard so great an account.
Magdalen smiled softly, with a swiftly passing reminiscence of her father’s humour in her eyes. Then they took on again the misty look of hills seen through an April shower.
“Ay, ay,” she said, “there is a deal of work to be done about the armoury—work that takes time, work that has to be waited for. And there are lads, and brisk lads too, that ‘cook’ their heads out of the smithy door when my mother steps across to the bleaching green, or one of my brothers comes ben for a drink of water. But,” here she smiled softly, “since John the Penman did his watery penance on the stone cairn, there has been more of peace about the house-place of the Three Thorns!”
“Who are they that come?” I said—not, I think, out of curiosity, but just because I wanted to know. For the things which happen to one girl always interest another.
So, to encourage her, I told her of Cour Cheverney, of the gallant knights there, and of how I liked Laurence, her brother, best of all. At which she smiled, and had for a moment the same childish, all-forgetful look I had seen in Larry’s eyes when he was setting the little mill-wheels to running in the tumble of the Touranian brooks.
Then, very carefully, I spoke concerning William, my husband; of how wise he was, how brave in word and act, praising him at the expense of his brothers, to see what she would say. For women do these things the one to the other. Then, after a silence, my reward came. Magdalen flashed out—
“But was it not true—so, at least, I was told—that Lord James conquered in the tourney, even as, when he was but a boy, he did at Stirling against the Knights of Bargandis?”
So with that I turned and said to the girl, “Hath my cousin, James Douglas, by any chance been often over at the Three Thorns?”
But she answered me quite steadily, with her own sweet and constant humility—a reproof in itself.
“Nay,” she said, “he is over-great a lord to think of me; nevertheless, I have seen him ride by when I was gathering flowers—yes, ever since I was a little girl, whom he would take up on his saddle before him, being kind. But now that I am too old for such-like, he will, when he meets me, dismount and walk a little way, asking concernedly for my father and brothers, with whom he was in France, and for whom he cherishes love and affection past the common—!”
“Ah, yes,” said I, “such affection is more common than you suppose, sweet Magdalen!”
But even then the girl took no offence, nor dreamed of such a thing as irony, being simple and pure, and set about with strong brothers and a father that had a name upon the earth, whom no man—no, not even James Douglas—would care to cross in his angers. She did not even look up, but went on throwing corn to the doves, pile by pile. For the which Sholto, coming in, brother like, reproved her.
“Ye may do as ye like at the Three Thorns and welcome,” he said, “but here I am in charge of the larder of Thrieve. And since it has been prophesied that there shall be a siege of the place within three years, there are horses and men that may be glad of the grain you are flinging so freely to these fat squabs!”
And since it was our Douglas way never to interfere with any man in his jurisdiction and responsibility, I said nothing. Indeed, I would have said as little had he reproved me—such being his right and duty.
But Magdalen blushed crimson athwart the white of her cheeks.
“I am sorry, Sholto,” she murmured, and then she looked with a certain appeal at me.
“We are all his slaves here,” I whispered; “wait till he is gone!”
Then there came a voice from the window above.
“Come up thither and hold the babe while I see to the chambers. These lazy sluts leave half their work undone. This it is to live in a castle with a guard of men-folk in the hall beneath.”
We both knew the voice of Maud Lindsay, and very hurriedly and with long strides Sholto departed to do the duty of parent auxiliary.
I laughed aloud when he was fairly gone.
“Ah, little girl,” I cried, “it is well that there is something up yonder which can tame even a captain of the guard. Hearken!”
And clearly through the open lattice there came the sound of a babe’s crying.
“That makes us all slaves!” I said. Then at the words I flushed hot as fire.
And swiftly, causelessly, as if also ashamed or affrayed, Magdalen nestled up against me.
It becomes not me to write of the doings of William Douglas—of how he began to realise his ideal, by taking the king out of the hands of Crichton and Livingston, of his being made Lieutenant-General of the Realm—of how he besieged and destroyed Crichton Castle, and afterwards took that of Edinburgh. Of course William Douglas would succeed. I never doubted of that of him, being my husband.
Twice only did he take me with him when he was received in state, and stood at the king’s right hand. But I liked not James Stewart’s appearance—no, not though he was a king and twice the descendant of kings. On his face was the birth tache which gave him his nickname—James of the Fiery Face. His temper was naturally uncertain, yet capable of rages which made him dangerous as a cur that runs amuck in the dog-days. Never could I bear the name and kind all the days of me—Stewards and turnspits mating with foreign kings and princes, yet ceasing not to intrigue with the scum and filth of the land, in order to put down the noblest and bravest of their own. Out upon the Stewarts, I say! And as to this, it was Malise who first opened my eyes.
Sholto was now often away in the north or in Edinburgh and Stirling with the Earl William. For my husband came but seldom to Thrieve since he grew so great in the land, even as it was written that he should. Yet this I think was for my sake, and he never came without bringing me a present of the rarest and best—such things as he knew would please me, curious Oriental caskets, egg-shaped, carved out of ivory, carpets of Turkey work, and for myself all manner of beautiful garmentry, which, if I had put upon me, I would have been gayer than the peacock that pivoted his tail upon the sundial in front of the arbour beneath the ilex in my garden.
I knew he meant to be kind. For ofttimes it seemed that he would arrive at Thrieve with something to say to me, and yet sit in the garden talking of indifferent things, while he took my hand, holding it in his—but only as a cousin might do, even in France. I think he remembered always the Lady’s Bower, and what had been said and done there. For me I sometimes wished he had forgotten.
I have said that my south-looking chamber had beneath it a terrace with a baluster, the same whereon I had heard the brothers A’Hannay take up their parable concerning Magdalen M‘Kim. At the least it was so, and by opening my window, either in the little outer chamber or in the bedroom, one could hear excellently what went on beneath. For my part I did not mean to hearken, but sometimes there was little else to be done at Thrieve.
So one September gloaming—still and gracious it was, I mind it yet—William Douglas and I sat together on the low seat by the window of my chamber. He had brought me stuff of Persia, soft like a cushion, yet strong, to lay upon it from end to end. All to pleasure me he did it, having taken the measure secretly, or else carried it in his head. For such at this time was his wont.
Almost, indeed, he had forgotten that he was my husband. It was so long since any one had reminded me of it—least of all William Douglas himself. So now it was more as friends that we sat together, talking easily, or rather he talking and I listening. For, to speak truth, there was in my heart a great desire to hear him speak of James, his brother, whom I had not seen since my marriage-day. Yet because I would not ask and he would not tell, I was silent while he recounted of all that Archibald was doing in the north, where he had been made Earl of Murray. Then he told of Hugh, who was now Earl of Ormond, and little John, who must needs have a barony of his own and set up as “My Lord of Balveny!”
“And what,” said I, to lead the converse, “have you done for James? Is he alone to be left plain knight when the Lieutenant-General portions out all Scotland among his brothers?”
As I was speaking a strange look passed over my husband’s face. He looked out across the green garden, over the wall of the square enceinte of Thrieve to where, on the green grass, Maud’s elder children were sporting, rolling, biting, and clawing at each other like young puppies.
“Ah,” he said slowly, choosing his words, “there is an old title in Scotland that I have reserved for James, older than Murray, or Ormond, or Balveny. It is enough for my second brother that he is, and shall remain, the Master of Douglas!”
This, as I knew, was the title reserved for the heir of all. So, after this answer of William’s concerning his brother, we sat a long while silent. I know not of what my husband thought, but for me I said nothing, because I had nothing to say that would comfort him. At last he spoke, looking at me gently enough.
“You weary here?” he asked. “Have you no desire sometimes to change Thrieve for Douglas Castle or Avondale? If so, I will give the orders!”
“Then I may not go again to Edinburgh or Stirling, where the court is?” I asked, to try him. For, indeed, I knew the answer already.
“I judge it not safe,” he said. “There be many about the king’s court that would be glad to trap the Douglases all at one bird-catching. Therefore, if I am here, James is at the court, and Archie and Hugh busy in the north. As for you, little as you are, do not forget that you carry with you as your dower all Galloway and the Borders, together with such hard-won honours as can be wrenched from the thieves of Annandale and the lads of the Forest.”
He smiled faintly, and almost wistfully, holding my hand the while; but still only as a brother might.
“Yes,” I answered, “it is indeed no small thing to have laid upon another’s back the burden of so much! But for me I am content with Deeside, and Maud and Sholto—and the spectacle of another woman’s love, all siccar and untroubled!”
“There is no such thing on earth!” said William Douglas, “as you will find, my sweet cousin, when”—
“Hark, listen!” I whispered, interrupting him; “it is the cooing of the turtle-doves!”
“What—what?” he answered quickly. “I will not listen! It is not fitting—to overhear the captain of my guard and his wife at their private conversations!”
And he moved precipitately to go out.
But I caught him by the arm and dragged him down.
“It had been for your good if you had heard more and listened more, my Lord of Douglas,” I whispered to him, “ay, and stood thus behind window-bars with your finger on your lip. Good William, you know not everything! Listen, there are the makings of the prettiest quarrel down on the terrace yonder.”
“A quarrel?” he said in wonder. If I had said a tournament, I do not think he would have been more astonished.
“Yes,” said I, “a quarrel first, most petulant and provocative; afterwards—well, you shall see!”
“How do you know this?”
“Have I not watched little housewife Maud trimming her sails for a storm all day long—ay, ever since she rose and laced her stomacher?”
“St. Bride,” quoth honest Will, “do women spend their time on such trifles?”
“Ay, and enjoy it too,” I answered him. “It is their life to them, as bands and treaties and lieutenant-generalships are yours. And they have on the whole the greater certitude of happiness! But hush, here are our doves of Thrieve!”
“I cannot stay! I will not!” said William Douglas.
But I put my hand on his arm and held him forcibly, bearing all my weight upon it.
“Stay,” I said, “yes, stay, William. You may learn more in half an hour than you have learned at the king’s council-board all your life.”
By this time the evening had fallen still, soft, and with a wide peace, through which the swallows seemed to swoop down from unseen heights as from another world. You could hear the laughter of the men-at-arms sent on forage duty, paying court, after their kind, to the milkmaids, none too coy, across the water at the Mains of Thrieve.
Beneath us, and dark against the silver of the water, I could just see Maud. She leaned on the stone baluster, even as the A’Hannays had done. Sholto was farther within, occupied with some matter of the adjustment of armour, concerning the exactitude of which (as became a good soldier) he was a mighty stickler. Maud looked two or three times over her shoulder; but Sholto, busied with some intricate fabrication of leathern belts and steel buckles, whistled on, paying no heed.
“Come here, Sholto,” said Maud Lindsay quickly; “I want you!”
Sholto glanced up, with his usual swift authoritative toss of the head, an action which showed the firm setting of the chin on the neck and the squareness of the shoulders.
“In a moment, Maud,” he said. “I am busy. What is it?”
“I want you!”
Sholto rose instantly, throwing down the soft leathern setting of the armour he was designing, and laying aside the pieces of shining steel he had been fitting upon it.
“What is it, Maud?” he said gently, as he approached.
“You would not come,” she said. “You are not as you used to be. You think more of your armour and weapons than you do of me”—
“Dearest—!” cried Sholto, aghast at the very suddenness of the attack.
Maud turned upon him and held out her arms.
“Do you love me?” she cried—“really—truly—tell me!”
“Of course I love you!” said Sholto, with the true baldness of a man long wedded, who has had time to use up his vocabulary.
“Say it otherwise, if you mean it, Sholto!” persisted Maud.
“Je t’adore!” said Sholto promptly. He had not been in France for nothing. Maud looked at him smiling, and then suddenly burst into tears. Any excuse was better than none. Sholto gazed at her, frankly bewildered, and then would have put his arms about her, but she repelled him indignantly.
“You make light of our love,” she said. “You would not have done it when you first knew me. But now—I am old. I am the mother of children. And what can a woman expect? Men change!”
“Maud!”
“Oh, ’tis easy to say ‘Maud,’ and take a poor foolish woman in your arms! But to love her, and hold to it year after year—that is another matter!”
I could feel William Douglas growing restless as the twilight deepened and from beneath the voices came clearer. But I would not let him go.
“For my sake,” I said to him.
“Oh, if Maud and Sholto would only behave themselves,” I thought, “I would yet go to Edinburgh with my husband.”
And for the rest of the time in the chamber I thought no more of any man—of James Douglas or another. The voices came again. It was Maud who spoke. Apparently somehow, without words, Sholto had made his peace, and perhaps he thought (poor man!) that Maud had altogether delivered herself.
“Sholto,” she said, looking at him softly, “do you know that sometimes I dream of going far away with you—to another country? I know not where that land is. Only that there we will have no wars or rumours of war, no steel breastplates or sharp-piercing lances, no killings and treacheries. But just you and me for ever living on in a sweet peace, in a little house by ourselves, with the children growing up about us. And then there will be always a blue sky above, and close by a river running.”
“That will do to drink, but what shall we eat?” said Sholto, with practical tenderness. “Eh, tell me that, baby?”
At another time Maud (if such had been her mood) would have resented his tone as trifling with all that was of highest and holiest. But as it happened, she only clasped him in her arms the more tightly.
“Oh, Sholto, I could live upon your love,” she said; “you are better to me than meat or drink—more necessary than the air I breathe.”
“Good,” said Sholto imperturbably. “I did not know I was so nourishing. But how about the children? Could they diet upon me too?”
We heard the clear ringing impact of fingers on cheek.
“That is for being insolent,” said Maud, whose mood changed every moment. “You know what I mean?”
“Yes!” said Sholto dutifully, but still somewhat doubtfully.
“Of course, it is all just a dream, a foolish dream,” said Maud, looking out on the river, “a dream born of the sunset and the—the—having you here with me—all alone!”
“Margaret,” whispered William Douglas, “this makes a shame of me. I will stay no longer.”
“A shame,” answered I softly. “Are we not married—you and I—even as they? Hush! you cannot go now, they will hear you! Bide. This is only the beginning—she means to quarrel with him yet, or I am a Welshman. A quarrel and a reconciliation are what I call ‘Maud’s nightcap’ when she hath been fretted.”
“You do not mean to say—?” began William Douglas.
I covered his mouth with my finger in the dark, and whispered in his ear, “Of course I do! What else is there to do in Castle Thrieve, think you, but quarrel with those we love?”
Then the voice of Maud, as I had supposed, took up her plaint.
“Sometimes,” she said, “I wake in the night and think you are dead! Does not that show how I love you?”
As Sholto appeared to contemplate this subject without extreme enthusiasm, Maud proceeded—
“Then I have beautiful visions of flying with you through the air, on angels’ wings, the two of us all clad in whiteness, and the children, too, clad like little angels (which they are now, indeed, only not able to fly). Do you ever have a dream like that?”
Conscientiously Sholto turned over the treasures of his midnight memories.
“No,” he answered simply. And then, perhaps feeling the word a little bald, he added, “But I have dreamed of riding on a horse”—
Maud pushed him from her with vigour.
“Always of horses and armour and fightings,” she said. “You never think beautiful things as I do. Why, I sometimes dream that we shall die the self-same day. It will be in the morning—no, the evening. That would be sweeter for you and for me!”
“And as to the children?” said Sholto quietly. “It would be a cheerful awakening for them, poor brats, next morning!”
“God would care for them!” said Maud, with a vague piety. She was certainly hard bestead for a cause of quarrel.
“Well,” said Sholto, “at least I think the babes would be none the worse off for one or the other of us to be spared to them!”
Maud leaped upon the argument fiercely.
“Ah, there it is,” she cried. “You want me to die before you. You would soon fill my place. I know that well!”
She pushed him back, and in the reflection of the sunset sky on the water we could see her bend a little on her knees and look up into his face.
“Ah, I believe it,” she cried, beginning quite suddenly to sob uncontrollably. “You would—perhaps you know of someone already. You are only waiting for my death to—to bring her here!”
Maud flung one arm out. She had acted so well that (like a woman!) she was beginning to believe her own chance assertions. Her hand struck him on the breast.
“I will not stay,” she cried hoarsely. “Let me go. I will take my children away. I will save them—from—from that woman!”
“Maud,” gasped Sholto, “I tell you—I swear to you—I beseech you. I never thought of such a thing! You yourself know I did not!”
“Do not deny it. Do not dare to defend yourself. Do not add lies to your wickednesses. I have seen it for long, long years. There—let me pass! I will go where the innocents sleep. If I am to die, at least let me die beside them.”