“In any case, I shall remain with you, Sholto!” said Maud Lindsay.
“You will obey your husband, wife!” retorted Sholto, without heat.
At which Maud heaved a sigh, for she knew that she would indeed abide by the babes in obedience to her husband. He was, in any case, a difficult person to disobey, this same Sir Sholto M‘Kim.
Nevertheless, Sholto kept a diligent watch on those things which needed to be done before the great cannon could fire its first shot. There were no iron or leaden bullets which would suffice to fill the maw of the ravening monster.
But Sholto found out, by methods of his own that the quarrymen of the king were busy cutting balls of stone from the granite sides of the Bennan nigh to the dock of Ken, rolling them to the foot and afterwards transporting them by water to the hill called the Byne of Camp Douglas, where Mons Meg in her wooden jacket stood waiting a favourable day for beginning the battering of the nine-foot thick walls of Thrieve.
As for Earl James, he cared for none of these things. Thrieve was intact. That was enough for him. Every outwork and bastion stood as it had done at the beginning of the siege. The king had gained no ground. The winter was coming on fast. This talk of a great cannon—pshaw! Had he not seen a dozen such, and one good lance-thrust or a well-swung battering-ram were worth them all. To think that the strong walls of Thrieve, three yards of stone and lime, could crumble before a missile discharged from the Byne of Camp Douglas!—it was folly so crass that no man in his senses could possibly consider it! These, in brief, were the opinions of the Earl James.
Nor did Sholto argue with his master. He let him go where he listed, say and do the thing he desired. What he himself occupied his time with appeared curious. His absences were frequent, especially after the workmen had finished the thickening of the dungeon. Still in his countryman’s dress, he climbed the long wooded slopes of the Bennan to be present at the shaping of the vast granite balls for the giantess. He knew when the powder waggons were to arrive from Edinburgh. On the other hand, he had gone, taking counsel with none, to Kirkcudbright, and there arranged for a little coasting vessel to wait in the Dutchman’s Lake at a place where embarkation would be easy, “in case of need,” as he said to the earl upon his return.
At one time it was his intention to take us all one by one through the marshes and put us aboard that ship. But two things stood in the way of this.
Maud would not consent to be separated from any of her children, and the confinement to the castle during the long hot summer, the great amount of water stagnant in the ditches and defences, as well as the marshes to the south, had produced in Ulric and Baby David a sort of low lingering fever.
At this time Sholto could without much difficulty have passed the earl through, but a kind of blind determination took hold of James—who, indeed, all through his life had been resolute in the wrong places. Flee to England he would not! In Thrieve he would abide! He had defied the king long. He would defy him altogether. To die—well, he was not afraid of death! Death came to every man. So far his star had not deserted him. So here he would abide and dree his weird; and so long as there was a hoof of nowt behind the isle dyke or a flagon of Bordeaux in the castle cellar, James Douglas would be noways unhappy.
So in Thrieve we remained watching with strange feelings the enemy’s preparations for our destruction, and above all, we gazed fascinated at that ominous shape, like a hay-wain with a wine vat a-top, pointing at us from the Byne of Camp Douglas.
Yet the thing was so little and so far. It seemed impossible, watching it in the still mornings from the ramparts of Thrieve, that yonder black dot, almost invisible, that framework of iron small as a child’s toy, should be pointed at us for the purpose of bringing our castle to the ground and death to all of us who were there.
Nevertheless, we waited with that curious chill stillness of indifference with which men and women of our nation face calamity which no care can evite.
It is as if they said, “Fate is upon us—who are we that we complain, alter, or amend?”
And such is mostly the spirit of the race of Galloway—not very grateful for prosperity, taking it as their right, rather. Neither greatly cast down by adversity. It is not their desert—still less their fault. Fate—Fate hath decreed the issues of Good or Ill. And so the true Pict of Galloway sits him down and is silent, not much dissatisfied with the Powers Above—still less (be it said) with himself.
* * * * * * *
The day in November when the great cannon was first fired remains very clear in my memory.
Nor is it likely that the impression will ever fade. See, I will try to call it up. It was what we call in Galloway “a sheep-wintering day”—that is, the kind of day on which the shepherds from the Merrick and the Rhinns of Kells would bring down the feck of their flocks to the lower pastures—leaving only old seasoned rams and “snaw-breaking” ewes to withstand the rigours of the hill storms.
To be more exact and explicatory to one who knows not our climate, the day was clear, mildly frosty, with a sun that looked down through a faint equal mist, granulated like glass long worn by the sea. There was a nip in the air, not snell, but with a grim threat of oncoming winter behind the pale sunshine of November.
About ten o’ the clock we were all out on the balcony which looks to the north. The river was very still and flowed towards us without apparent motion. It did not reflect—there was, indeed, nothing for it to reflect, save that colourless canopy of haze.
Suddenly Sholto lifted his voice.
“All to shelter!” he cried. And gathering up the three younger children, he carried them down into the deeps of Archibald the Grim—the dungeon which he had spent so much time in making cannon-proof for us.
Maud followed with the others, but I lingered a moment, curious. There was nothing to be seen upon the hill of Camp Douglas—at least no more than the ordinary number of black dots, who were always bustling about like ants in a disturbed nest. If anything, these seemed to be at a somewhat greater distance than was usual from the dark muzzle of Mons Meg.
As I stood gazing, there came from beneath the voice of Sholto M‘Kim.
“My Lady Margaret, your place is waiting, and I am waiting! Come!”
“One moment only!” I cried, anxious to see.
“Not one!” he answered. “I command at Thrieve, and I am responsible for your safety. Come!”
And I could not help smiling to myself, even at such a moment. For well I knew that Sir Sholto was quite capable, in the event of the least delay, of catching me up like one of the bairns and shutting me in Archibald the Grim with the low door locked behind me.
And, indeed, locked it was, and that upon the instant. And what a strange feeling to be shut up from all hope of succour—there, in the deepest deeps of the castle. But Sholto had been thoughtful for us, knowing that we were but women, and of that curious tribe whose first mother cost mankind Paradise.
Perhaps, on the other hand, he had made those slits for light and air before he knew that the great piece was to be dragged from Carlinwark to the hill northward of Thrieve, called the Byne of Camp Douglas.
Be these things as they may, it is certain that I had no small pleasure and satisfaction in looking through a little guarded arrow-slot in the direction of the fatal hill. Behind me Maud was busied with the children, disposing them upon the beds and benches which Sholto had provided. A dim but sufficient light from the narrow slots, mere lines of light penetrating from without, filled the interior of Archibald the Grim.
From a wooden stage attached to the wall hung a “cruisie” lamp, made of iron. The upper palm-shaped hollow was filled with oil, and carried a floating wick of teased linen. This, however, we were ordered not to light without closing carefully all the apertures which gave to the north.
I was instantly at the fortunate arrow-slot. It was well-nigh on the level of the river, and over the low rampart in front only the utmost top of the Byne of Camp Douglas could be seen. The long black wine-tun in her cradle had been pushed clear of the covering shed, and behind and to either side there stood a compact crowd of black dots—doubtless curious spectators come out to see the proof of that which had been so long in the making.
Somehow I had upon me a feeling that Laurence was up there. As indeed he was, bringing all his
mathematics to bear on the problem of how to point and elevate the mouth of the iron monster so that shot might strike the centre of the castle of Thrieve.
Meantime, on the battlements of the highest tower, Sholto and James Douglas watched with interest and without the least fear the trial which might bring them death the next moment. For thus are some men made—some, not all.
An instant more, and a puff of white smoke appeared on the summit of the Byne, rapidly mounted and spread outward in the shape of a cabbage, the top being blown off into haze by the light wind.
Followed by an unutterable pause—of moments which seemed years—æons—eternities!
Then—crash! The castle was shaken to its foundations. The walls seemed to rock. We heard the thunder of a great explosion. Something high above us seemed to rip like torn cloth, and in front of our little arrow-slip descended a rain of fragments of stone and the dust of lime, blown fine and powdery. The curious sulphury smell of a hammer stricken on blue whinstone pervaded everything.
For a time it appeared to us as if the whole castle had been destroyed. The keep itself seemed to have fallen upon our heads, almost crushing the solid stone roofing and tripled masonry of Archibald the Grim flat like the leaves of a book. Nevertheless Maud, quite unmoved, occupied herself in soothing little David. The twins, Cuthbert and Bride, scuffled for a place at the window, while, holding each of his brothers by a leg, sturdy Ulric complained even to tears, between his tugs, “I wants to see—I wants to see!”
Then presently we heard the voice of James Douglas without the dungeon.
“Goes all well within?” he cried.
“All is well,” answered Maud, starting quickly. “Where is Sholto?”
“He is safe and untouched,” said the earl, “but the castle has been breached in the midst of the first storey, above your heads. Many have been hurt—some, I fear, killed outright! Sholto is caring for them. He bade me come hither to ask after your welfare!”
Then, I think, there was not one of us who did not know that the end of the siege could not be far off. This our castle impregnable had been breached with the very first ball of Mons Meg—what might not the second do? I looked forth at the hill and the little groups of moving dots upon it. Would it come a second time? Where would it strike? Whom would it slay? If the missile broke a way into the castle so easily through walls nine feet thick, would even Grim Archibald be safe—that mother—these little babes?
Even then, God be thanked! I had the grace not to think very much about myself. Indeed, wherefore should I? Life or death were but slight things to me, knowing what I knew, having drunken deep of the bitter without once fairly tasting the sweet.
But what was the strangest thing of all, there came no second shot at all that day. The deadly black vat on wheels was nowhere to be seen. All the men ran to and fro, looking more like ants than ever over the smooth grey-green surface of the Byne—now and henceforth for ever to be called only “Knockcannon,” the hill of the cannon.
What happened we knew not then. We heard afterwards at length. The great iron murderer had rushed backwards with the recoil of the shot, almost killing Malise M‘Kim, who had fired the piece after Laurence had levelled the muzzle to direct a ball of granite, the weight of a Carsphairn cow, upon Castle Thrieve. This same Laurence, seeing his father’s danger, pulled him forcibly to the left. Whereupon Mons Meg, charging backward with the force of a peck of powder in her belly, knocked a hole through the rear of her wooden shed, and, before any could stop her, had run down the gently sloping sides of the Byne, overturning in the marsh at the bottom—without, however, doing herself any considerable harm.
But it was obvious to the M‘Kims, and especially to Laurence, the engineer of the family, that a strong backing of wood and earth must be built immediately upon the summit of the Byne, compacted with pales, in order to prevent a repetition of this performance after each shot.
So for several days we in Thrieve had rest; but all felt that it was only the reprieve of the condemned criminal before execution. No power on earth could save us when once they gat the gun into position again. So Sholto, after all the wounded men had been removed and the dead buried at the farther end of the isle, permitted us to come forth once more to breathe the air.
It was a strange and memorable spectacle that awaited us when we mounted to the great hall of Thrieve, commonly so grave and peaceful, with its black oak furnishings and ancient tapestries. The window which had given upon the tranquil river, and through which I had looked so often, was now a huge, yawning gap, irregularly toothed, some of the blocks above hanging only by the strength of the shell lime in which they had been embedded, and threatening every moment to descend into the gulf beneath. After effecting this havoc, the great ball of Bennan granite had passed through a group of soldiers of the guard, who had been peering from the window, scattering and slaying on its way; then it had broken through the arched and solid masonry upon which the hall was built, and plumped into the salle de garde beneath, where again many more had been slain.
With sorrowful hearts we walked outside on the green sward, Maud, with the children about her, looking across at the fatal Cannon Hill, now bare and deserted, all the king’s folk, doubtless, having descended into the marshes at the opposite foot of the incline to watch the raising of the monster from her soft bed, and the efforts of a hundred horses to place her again in position in her iron cradle.
But what did we see? Instead of the noble wall of Thrieve, rising with its narrow but well-moulded windows, straight as a cliff to the giddy battlements, a hundred feet above, lo! a great black gash, ragged and unseemly, with gillyflowers and small scaly-leaved ferns clinging droopingly to the edges of the ruin.
And from the hill, whence our fate had descended upon us, there came the sound of a wild crying, which sounded very forlorn and desolate—though likely no more than the voices of the waggoners and engineers of the king urging their horses to the task of rescuing the iron murderer from the suction of the bog.
To us, thus walking, approached James Douglas, courteous and easy in his demeanour as ever.
“This is no place for women and children,” he said, holding his steel cap in his hand. “I would that I had you all in a place of safety—in some nunnery or holy house, afar from the storms of war!”
“Trouble not yourself, my lord—we need it not,” said Maud. “For me, I am happy to abide by my husband and my children!”
Which was of the nature of an hard saying for me and perhaps for the earl also.
At anyrate, James Douglas looked at her long and earnestly.
“It is my duty to remain by the castle so long as one stone stands in its place,” he said. “Then—the race of the Douglases of the Black shall have an end!”
To all this I answered naught, nor opened my lips. For in my heart I knew that, with a certain nameless little grave in the kirk acre of Balmaghie, a tomb which carried no inscription or brass monumental, there had, some time before, come to an end the ancient race of the Douglases of Douglas, of Avondale, and of Galloway—a fair, sweet end to a race called so Black.
Furthermore, I trusted not at all in the great swelling words of James, Earl of Douglas, who had been my husband.
For I knew him.
Then came the day, memorable and terrible beyond words, the day of the final breaching. It was on a Wednesday that the great gun was first fired. It took Laurence M‘Kim and his father, together with such as they could use of the king’s folk, till Saturday late in the gloaming before they were able to make good the damage, and build such a solid butt of earth backed with stones as would stay the rearward rush of Mons Meg after she had delivered her second message.
But at ten of the clock next morning, just when the Sabbath bells were beginning to ring in a hundred parish kirks throughout the land, Sholto, who was on the watch, warned us all below. The monster had not yet said her last word. There was more and worse to follow. Again the puff of white reek, lazily disengaging itself from the summit of Knockcannon—again the dreadful pause, the rending crash, the castle rocking to its foundations!
This time the ball from the great cannon had struck the wall of the outer works to the west, toppling over one of the strong corner towers—which, however, thanks to the marvellous mixture of shell lime that held the stones together, fell outwards in one piece as if hewn from the solid rock.
The third ball struck the castle a little lower than the first (that of Wednesday), and succeeded in so enlarging the breach, that it became, even to the eyes of Sholto, quite practicable for escalade. The fourth, passing directly through the chasm already made, rattled from side to side of the salle de garde like a cube in a dice-box, killing and wounding more than thirty men of the guard of Thrieve. This, with the fall of the flanking tower, caused a sort of panic among the younger and less experienced of the garrison. There seemed no hope that any within the walls could escape. Several, in Sholto’s absence, ran for the fords to the south, only to fall in midstream under the sure and deadly fire of the king’s archers and arbalest men, who were posted among the bushes on the slope above.
The fifth missile from the Byne, equally well directed, struck low on the wall of the keep, immediately above the arrow-slot which looked to the north out of our prison-house. The fine sulphury dust well-nigh suffocated us who abode and waited in the entrails of Archibald the Grim.
Strangely enough, though the north-looking slot was now wholly closed by a mass of fallen masonry, we had still plenty of air, though very much less light. Other slits opened into the inner passages of the castle, which as yet had not been obstructed.
Also, and a marvel, the children were not very greatly frightened. To them it was like a thunderstorm without the terror of the lightning. They cried out, indeed, as the great bolts struck the castle, but were comforted by clinging to their mother’s skirts. Marcelle sat silent and apart, with pale set face, her hands working nervously over her beads, and little David abode in the darkest corner by himself, with his face in his hands, repeating over and over that he was “a great boy, and thunder did not make him afraid.” This he did to set himself on a higher pedestal than Ulric, who undisguisedly clasped his mother round the neck at each terrifying crash and rocking of the keep.
Those who have only seen the castle afterwards, a desolate and marvellous ruin, towering to the skies, with its riven sides and crumbled battlements, yet, for all that, grimly erect in its majesty, can have no idea of the terror of these hours when the whole building seemed ready to dissolve into a heap of stones, not one remaining upon another—as, indeed, Malise M‘Kim had prophesied would be the case.
In Archibald the Grim we women and bairn-folk were shut up. For the space of twenty-four hours we knew not what was happening above—whether those we loved were dead or wounded, or locked together in deadliest combat.
Yet, it might be said, there could be no great anxiety in my heart. For none loved me greatly—save Sholto and Maud, who (as right was) both loved each other more and otherwise. But it was not so. James Douglas was the head of the race. He was the father of the babe William, who rested under the Star in the kirkyard of Balmaghie. He, and he alone, had lain in my bosom. Together we had read all I knew of the book of life. And though that was at an end, such is the miracle of woman’s heart, that all was not as if it had never been. I did not wish James Douglas to die. I would rather have died myself—that is, if the choice had been given me.
I was glad that, in this thing at least, he was no craven. I knew he would be brave, and the thought that he was leading on the Douglases to the fight, holding the deadly breach, cheered (I admit it) these dark hours.
In Archibald the Grim we had, at least, plenty of food and water, and could we have but known what was happening above, I do not think we would have been much afraid or ill-content. But the awful “do-nothingness,” which at such times is the lot of women, preyed upon our spirits. We could not get out. The door of the dungeon was locked on the outside, and much sand and earth piled against it to lessen the danger of any rebound of the giant missiles. Sholto had seen to that in the midst of all his troubles. Indeed it was part of his strength that he always thought first of the weak things—the chief part of his greatness also, mayhap.
But there came upon Maud Lindsay and myself, penned there, prison-bound, the fierce desire to be men—to be above, combating the enemy, doing as they did, sharing their perils—if need be, dying their death.
But this, we well knew, was vain. In Archibald the Grim the night abode unbroken with us, while these last throws of the dice were being cast in the breaches above.
This it was that was happening there.
Simultaneously with the striking of the third bolt upon the castle—that which enlarged the breach—a strong force of the Angus Douglases, together with certain renegade Hamiltons from the west country, assaulted the works by the ford, where, however (for the instant), the few guardsmen held their own. But the fall of the great flanking tower to the west shook the nerve of our defenders. And those especially who, much against the will of Sholto, had been enlisted from Douglasdale and the Upper Ward, finding their own ancient friends and comrades in front of them, hoisted the white flag of surrender. A strong storming party crossed the ford and pressed towards the breach which had been made on the northern face of the castle. Their advance ought to have been galled by the bolts and shafts of our men from the ramparts. But such was the terror inspired by the new mode of warfare, that had fire descended from heaven and the levin-bolts stricken Thrieve Castle to the ground, the men of the guard could not have been in a greater amaze.
Let it be remembered that in all the land of Scots no cannon had ever before been seen which a couple of men could not carry easily upon their shoulders. And now it was with difficulty that the granite balls shot from the huge maw of Mons Meg could be carried on mason’s mortar-board by two men holding the trams.
There was, therefore, this excuse for the men of the Douglas guard—they would have died like men under a shower of English clothyards, or encountered steadily with levelled spear the charge of knights steel-clad. But this death, inevitable, coming from far, scattering in its progress not only the bodies of men, but the very defences of solid stone and lime which ages had counted impregnable—no, I blame them not greatly!
Yet there were some who stood firm—some, but very few. One hand will count them all.
The Lord James and Sholto were in the breach of the outerworks—the high gate of Thrieve still closed behind them, and the yawning chasm in the northward face looking down upon them with the ghastly gaze of a skeleton orbit.
“Go, my lord,” said Sholto, in a low voice; “the charger waits. One of these lads will take him across the water. The other will protect you while you swim after. I will hold the enemy in play in this place long enough to give you a chance. Cross the Dee at the deepest part, plunging in where the water touches the castle wall. Andro the Penman will meet you on the bank with the horse. John here will cover your retreat with his cross-bow. With my axe in my hand I can promise you that they shall not take you in the rear through yonder gap in the hall of the guard—till, at least, you set foot on Balmaghie grass.”
This Sholto said, knowing that within a few feet of him his wife and his five children were imprisoned. But such was his duty. He was the Captain of Thrieve, and, whoever escaped, he must bide at his post. For this man, whom he was aiding to escape, was, notwithstanding all, the chief, the Douglas—and in his single person the last Douglas of the Black.
From beneath, unseen, there was the crying of men about to be slain and of men in the act of slaying. Equally without haste or a moment’s hesitation Sholto took his dispositions. He had laid aside his sword of set purpose, and, standing clear of the wall, prepared to fight his last fight, axe in hand. It was a weapon which he had made wholly himself—double-faced, the weight perfectly balanced, the handle of stout ash, well seasoned, not quite straight, but with a certain backward twist in it near the head, which, as Sholto fancied, suited his hand. It was a terrible weapon in the hand of a master of it, and fitted for the roughest battle-play. Sholto had made it neither too sharp nor yet too highly tempered, judging that the weight of the stroke would do the work. Indeed, well-nigh he had quarrelled with his father upon the subject. For the old man had fixed ideas upon tempering and the art of weapon-making. He had, however, very soon a chance of testing practically the theories of his eldest son.
Now, James Douglas, seeing that all was lost, proved not difficult to persuade. He must, he said, trust to a good horse and the ship waiting in the Dutchman’s Lake at Kirkcudbright to carry Douglas and his fortunes, for a time at least, to another country.
“After all,” he added, “I am the only one who, in the event (which seems certain) of the castle surrendering, would of a surety be executed. James Stewart simply could not spare a third earl of Douglas after slaying two already! As for you, Sholto M‘Kim, they will give you quarter for the asking, and the women and bairns are as safe in Grim Archibald as in their own beds!”
“So?” said Sholto quietly; “at anyrate, it is time to be going! These Penman lads will put you safely through the deeps of the Dee. The horse is ready at the water-port. Trust me—I will keep your rear-guard until such time as I see you set spurs in your beast on the other side of the Pool of Thrieve.”
“I go,” said James Douglas, “but only under protest—since you judge it for the best! And I pray you bid farewell to”—
“I will,” said Sholto. “Go quickly!”
And James Douglas departed thus—even thus—slipping out by a secret passage from his own ancient castle of Thrieve, never to enter it again.
The same white charger which had brought him so gloriously home from Arkinholm was already gingerly pacing down the steps which led to the great western Pool of Thrieve—one of the deepest in the whole course of the Dee. Sholto had rightly judged. So strong was the enemy’s belief that on that side no one could possibly escape from the castle, that no notice was taken of the attempt till Andro the Penman and his charge were nearly across, with James Douglas swimming less strongly behind—for he was of Avondale, and little accustomed to squattering out and in of the water all day long like the lads of Thrieve.
But ere they could land a few archers ran by the fallen tower which flanks the water, clambering over the débris to shoot at the fugitives.
“Twang!” went the crossbow of John the Penman from the water-port.
“Good lad!” quoth Sholto, under his breath. “Now you are at a better job than sitting upon the bald rump of Douglas the Black in the midst of the shallows of Glenlochar while the kirk folk pass laughing by.”
“Twang!” Again Jack the Penman loosed his bow. And another Angus archer fell. Down went another, a lank, lean, flea-bitten man from the salt-marshes of Solway.
But at that moment, breaking in dense clusters through the fords, overleaping the first wall of defence, came the rush of the besiegers, solid and determined. Sholto stepped a yard to his own front, turned the axe in his fingers, hefted it till the grip suited his hand, swung it once so as to be sure of clearing everything—and was ready.
Sholto stood in the breach, waiting. Never soldier about to die looked his enemy more steadily in the face. I think, if my babe had lived, he would have been a soldier like Sholto, a man like him. I could not wish a better wish for him. May the sons of all good mothers be even as Sholto M‘Kim, is the prayer of a sonless woman.
Behind him the castle towered up grey and massy, the vast rent in its northerly side, for which the stormers were striving, making a black irregular patch on the cliff of stone and lime. That, at all hazards, he must defend. Once entered there, not only would the whole castle lie void of defence, but from the water-gate and the balcony the king’s men could shoot at their ease the swimmers across the Pool of Thrieve.
In the first rush of the stormers were Hugh Morton and Laurence.
“Stand back there!” cried Sholto. “I desire not your blood, brother!”
Gripping with both hands, Sholto swung his axe once—and Hugh Morton, smitten through the guard, fell with a cry to the ground. The ashen shaft had been cunningly strengthened with iron at the end nearest the axe-head. It could not be cut with a sword.
“Hold, brother!” answered Laurence. “I also have no quarrel with you. Let James Douglas come forth! He hides behind you! For this I laid aside my robe of abbot to cross swords with him.”
For as yet none of the assailants knew the attempt that was being made to afford the chief of the house of Douglas a last chance of escape.
“I am here in this place to do my duty, against you or any man!” quoth Sholto, balancing his axe with loving particularity.
And for a long minute none dared to try that path perilous across the breach. But there was one behind, somewhat less active than the youths who led the first rush of stormers, who yet toiled manfully in the rear. Malise M‘Kim it was who came across the grass, his great two-handed sword naked in his hand. He paused a moment, looming up vast and weighty by comparison with his son, as Mons Meg herself set on end beside a pennon-lance at a tent door.
Father and son stood face to face. A certain hesitation, not unnatural, manifested itself among the assailants. Laurence had no wish to slay his brother, nor yet to be slain by him in such a quarrel. Though the fall of young Hugh Morton had stayed the first rush of the stormers, yet, as Laurence well knew, the end was certain. But Malise had other thoughts in his mind. There was no halting or compromise in that sombre red eye.
“Sholto,” he cried, “stand aside! Or, by St. Bride, I will e’en slay thee with my hand—first-born son of my body though you be!”
“Slay!” said Sholto. “This is my place. I will stand here till I die—or till that is accomplished which I fight for!”
“You fight, then, to let James Douglas, the traitor, the enemy of your own house, escape?”
“Even so!” said Sholto calmly.
Then Malise M‘Kim, the madness rising suddenly in his eyes, raised his two-handed sword over his shoulders, and smote. Lightly Sholto stepped aside. The swing of the blade, taking the edge of the breach, cut through part of the sea-shell plaster, and jarred with terrific force against the freestone of a lintel. The shock brought the armourer to his knees, and in that moment, if so he had chosen, Sholto might easily have slain his father.
But, stepping quietly back, Sholto permitted the smith to arise, contenting himself with swinging his axe and measuring once again the length and freedom of his stroke. Whereat, seeing him as they thought embarrassed, a pair of Lothian men, Crichton of Brunston and Mickle Rob of the Nine Mile Stane, sprang forward together. But the axe of the Captain of the Guard had two faces, and with them Sholto struck this way and that with the swiftness of lightning. Shoulder to the right and face to the left bore witness to the virtue which abode in the cunning bend of that ash shaft a foot from the axe-head, which, together with Sholto’s wrist-action, doubled the spring of the stroke.
Of the two, Brunston proved the luckier, and Mickle Rob went visage-marred for the rest of his life.
Meanwhile, Malise had recovered himself, and, strangely, he was angry with his son—indeed, far more angry than before.
“Sholto M‘Kim,” he cried, “deliver to me that man—James Douglas! Or else I will make a road to him over your dead body and cloven skull. That you are my son matters nothing. That you keep me from my revenge matters all!”
He advanced upon Sholto again with the dull fury in his eye kindling red like a smithy fire when the bellows are plied.
“Stand forth like a man and fight!” he cried. “No dancing-master tricks will serve you a second time!”
“Father,” said the young man, “slay me if you can. I will strike you no stroke. But I have my duty to do. I fight to foil, but not to wound—not to kill. You are my father!”
“You speak as you fight, to waste time. Let me pass—yea or nay?”
“Nay, then, my father!” said Sholto.
Whereupon half a dozen of the king’s men, impatient at the delay, were about to rush the breach.
“He cannot slay us all—at him, I say! Fall on!” cried Angus Douglas, eager to be done with the fray.
“Leave this young man to me,” shouted Malise. “I who have given him life will rieve the life from him. I will render him the death of a traitor to his own house—of one who hath shamed his sister, the daughter of his mother!”
Against his father Sholto could only oppose his youthful litheness and such defence as he was able to make, using his Lochaber axe as a shield.
The armourer’s blow descended a second time—furious, annihilating, even had it been sustained by an armoured man. But Sholto, gliding forward, let it fall on his axe-head between the falcon-spur and the blade. The first it shore completely away, but the young man dexterously lowering his weapon, so directed the stroke that the blade of the two-handed sword glided along the steel strengthening of the shaft, and finally struck harmlessly, scoring the ground at his father’s feet.
Then arose a great crying and running about the defences of the castle. Some mounted on the fallen tower and began shooting arrows into the Pool of Dee. The fugitives had been discovered. But by this time, owing to Sholto’s stubborn defence, the distance was too great from any part of the castle accessible to the archers. Had these been able to mount the battlements of the castle, or above all to penetrate to the water-gate from which Andro the Penman and James Douglas had gone forth, they might have marked the swimmers down at their leisure. Even as it was, the young Captain of the Guard of Thrieve had several anxious moments.
But Sholto’s defence had been sufficient. The forefeet of the white charger were already on the turf of the Balmaghie shore. The light saddle, which Andro the Penman, swimming strongly, had carried across on his head, was in its place, and all scathless James Douglas was galloping southward through the thick woods, by paths which he knew perfectly, ere a final rush of stormers, directed in a fierce stream through the breach, carried Sholto off his feet. His father’s sword descended on his head as he fell. He was dashed this way and that, even carried into the interior of the castle by that turbulent, overwhelming tide of men.
Unconscious, as if in sleep, the waters closed over the Captain of Thrieve. The strong castle which he had held, as it had been with his sole arm, passed for ever out of the hands of its ancient possessors. But there was a man, black with the grime of Mons Meg, a man with nothing of the king about him save a red scar on his face, who stood over him crying aloud, “Save the young man! Lay him in a safe place! Do not trample on one so brave. The time is at hand when I shall have need of such!”
And it was indeed the king. For once the last and best friend of the fallen house owed his safety to their worst enemy.
On the strand of the Pool of Thrieve, vainly cursing, imprecating, foaming at the mouth with baffled fury, Malise the smith stood watching James Douglas—the man for whom so many had flung away their lives, ride comfortably into the deep, green solitudes of the Balmaghie woods. Ah, if he could only have gotten once within arm’s length of his unconscious son—at that moment Sholto M‘Kim would have paid the penalty from which he had saved the enemy of his house.
It is the testimony of all that Malise M‘Kim was never the same man after this terrible disappointment. He had been baulked of his vengeance when it seemed within his grasp, and from that time forth a film of the red stood between eye and brain. From that moment reason and memory abode but occasionally with him.
“Mons Meg! Mons Meg!” he would cry, striking his clenched hand on the table till the whole house rang again. “What is this prate of Mons Meg? What hath she done? Sandy Weir the Dumfries cooper had done as muckle with a wine-vat laid on its side! Dung down Thrieve, you say, given victory to the king? Bah! what of that? A puff-ball that cracks under one’s foot on the green! Doth not James Douglas live? And was he not saved by the sword of my son? Answer me that!”
But there was none that could make denial—nor indeed dared.
“Then,” he would cry, having put all to silence, “let me hear no more prating of Mons Meg!”
And had the king not prevented, the fit being on him, he would have taken a forehammer and destroyed the great cannon with his own hand.
As to us who were confined in Archibald the Grim, these events passed literally over our heads, and left us no whit the wiser. Indeed, till the door of our prison-house was opened we knew nothing certainly, and he who brought us forth was the same Young Man in Black, sometime Abbot of Sweetheart, Laurence M‘Kim.
And through all the sad destruction which the bombardment had wrought upon Thrieve—the down-trampled southerly garden which had once been for a joy to me, my solace in many lonely years, the misty glory of a too brief dream, I could not help rejoicing that it was finished—this life I had not chosen to live, but which had been thrust upon me from my birth. I do not say that afterwards it had not seemed natural. The love of Maud and the devotion of Sholto had made it even simple and tolerable. Yet even now, when I am old and have known many women, I judge there are but few such upon the earth who in their youth have had an experience stranger than mine.
There is this to be added—I knew no other. For the loves of Maud and Sholto seemed to me even as those of a father and mother to the children of a house—something in the nature of things, inevitable, existing from the beginning, continuing unto the end.
But for myself I expected no such love to come into my life. Was I not Princess of Galloway—Countess of Douglas, what you will! To the end I was fated to be a tennis ball that flies this way and that between the players. So, being born to a principality desired of men, it seemed natural to me.
So that being done with, I was glad to be quit of Thrieve—of the hideous confinement in the dungeon of Archibald the Grim, of the blind waiting, of the thunder of the rending shock, and the terror of great darkness. But it seemed still better to me (whatever might hereafter befall me) that I should never more see the face of James Douglas—never hear his voice, so smooth, so insinuating when he would—at other times, with the rasp of command in it! Therefore, because I desired to forget, said Maud Lindsay, it is certain that I never truly loved him.
At anyrate, it was done with, princessdoms and splendid prison-houses. And James Douglas, too, was done with. From the time he set foot on the little English ship in the Dutchman’s Lake at Kirkcudbright, I knew that I should see my husband’s face no more. It was not his way, with all his faults, to return to take a second place where once he had reigned supreme.
Then it was that, leaving Sholto to recover from his wounds under the care of Maud, in an untouched southerly corner of ruined Thrieve (a guard of king’s men being also in possession to see all safe in the interests of James Stewart), I was taken northward with the royal army.
Laurence M‘Kim, to whom the king, in fulfilment of his promise, had accorded his own name, together with the forfeited estates of Balveny, which had belonged to that Little John who died so well at Arkinholm, wished to send me for shelter to the good sisters of Sweetheart. But of this the king, who had his own purposes to serve, and his own interests to consolidate, would hear nothing. A Countess of Douglas within the bounds of Galloway might, he said, easily become a standard of revolt.
In vain I besought James Stewart, even on my knees, to permit me to abide in some place where I should hear no more the storms of war, nor know the ill hearts of men.
“Let me be always with Maud and Sholto,” I said. “I will be a serving-maid to their bairns, if you will. But as you love God, let me no more be tossed about, a cork on the waves of man’s ambition! I have suffered enough. Now let me have peace!”
“They tell me,” he answered not unkindly, “that you had over long time peace, and thought no great things thereof. Yet it may be that they lie!”
“They do lie and in their throats!” I cried; “only let me abide in peace with those who do love me, and I shall ask no more. At least I have never conspired against you!”
He shook his head not ill-naturedly.
“Of that I am none so sure, little lady,” he answered; “you are a Douglas, every inch of you, and it were ill for a Stewart to trust to one of that breed. Mayhap, however, a tacked-on Stewart may have better fortune with you than one true born!”
What he meant I had no notion of then, nor yet for long afterwards. So in spite of my prayers, they brought me by slow stages to Stirling, that fatal town. At every burgh the triumph of the royal arms was received with shoutings and processioning, with lurid torches flaring in the darkness by night, and parti-coloured flannel petticoats strung across the miry roadway by day.
I even recognised some of the latter. James and I had laughed at them, sitting together, hand in each other’s hand, those times when, with a great retinue, he and I had made our well-nigh progresses. It was all the same. Those who had shouted for the great Earl of the South in his day, now shouted just as loud for the King of the North. And the goodwives were as ready to hang out their gay kerchiefs and petticoats for one as for the other. For which small blame to them.
Little difference they kenned ’twixt earl and king. Both alike claimed lodging for their men. Neither paid a groat for bed or board. And if the honest burghers gat off with that, they might count themselves lucky. For soldiers are soldiers all the world over, wherever there is a pike to carry or a town to sack, and the fear of the king, and still more of Malise M‘Kim’s red eye, had held them somewhat severely in check at Thrieve. Moreover, there was not a silver pound of treasure in the castle, nor, saving Maud and myself, a woman within the four walls, both which lackings must notoriously have galled these honest fellows.
Laurence would have been glad to abide with his brother Sholto, but this also the king had no mind for. His mind was all set on the making of great and even greater guns, of the sort which in such brief space had brought Thrieve to the ground. He dreamed of the conquest of England, of the battering down of all the Border fortresses as far as York, of humbling the King of England as he had already done my Lord of Douglas. “If the earl had escaped,” he said, “why, so much the better; he will carry the news of Mollance Meg and her works!”
And for this he saw in Laurence the brain and skill of plan, in Malise and the other M‘Kims the instruments ready to his hand.
But it came to pass that, though the malady of the Armourer Smith grew rapidly upon him, the king would by no means permit either Malise or any of his family to leave his company, but carried him and his great cannon, with shoutings and honour, through the towns of Dumfries, Lanark, and, lastly, Renfrew, together with its pendicle, the little insignificant village of Glasgow, seated on a knoll, all broom and gorse, above a fine, clear river, the which possesses a kirk of a size most disproportioned to the needs of the mean fisher-folk who dwell there.
So when we came to Stirling, and saw the castle and palace, magnificent upon their ridge, right royal and comely we found them after the raft of pig-styes we had passed through of late. For Thrieve, surrounded with a river which cleansed all things and said no word, had given me a distaste for the rubbish heaps and cabbage leaves of the Scots burghs, with their other disconveniences yet more grievous, such as only a new flood of Noë would be able thoroughly to sweep away.
So, as I say, we came to Stirling. And yet my head, being no little mazed, it came about I scarce knew it for the royal town. Sometimes I seemed to be in Edinburgh, and more often at Amboise—sometimes in a mere city of faërie. For, with the long final stage and the chill (it was a winter’s day, grey and hard), and the king being determined to sleep at home that night, come what would, I was wearied far past my ordinary, and fain to rest, had it been in no better than a hay-loft.
So we rode within the court of the palace by eight of the clock, and, messengers having been sent on before, there was a great banquet ready in the hall. But as for me, though the king came in person to invite me, and showed himself most desirous to forget the past, I pleaded that I was wearied out of all bearing, and so gat leave to betake me at once to my chamber, which was on the ground floor, and opened on a court.
For, indeed, the heart was sick within me with yearning for Maud to comfort me, and with all that had passed during these terrible last days. So, having partaken of no sustenance, though Laurence knocked repeatedly with certain dainties for the sustaining of my strength and the tempting of my appetite, I would not open to him; the desire to eat was clean gone from me. So, without even entering into parley, I threw me on the bed and slept.
* * * * * * *
I know not what hour of the night it might have been, nor yet whether I slept or waked. But deep in the heart of night, when even the soul of man turns to water within him as when a spirit passes by, and that of woman is afraid at the cheep of the mouse behind the wainscot, I awaked or seemed to awake in my bed.
I had cast me down as I was, stretched out in my great cloak of voyage; and lo! when I awoke, the candle I had brought with me was burned down to a sort of broad yellow flickering in the socket. Nevertheless, the chamber being situate where it was, on the ground floor, the room was indistinctly lit with the illuminated torches of the masquers and mummers without who had come to wait upon the king in the great courtyard, while opposite my own lodging a cresset full of pine-knots, well rosined, burned in an iron basket. For many such conveniences, which even at Thrieve were never heard of, had been brought from France and Italy to the new palace of the king.
The chamber, therefore, where I lay was by no means dark. Or at least, so it seemed in my dream or vision of the night (I take it not upon me to say which it was).
But at the foot of my bed, between me and the window, plain as I see the paper I write upon, I saw William Douglas, who had been my husband. Of that I would take mine oath upon my dying bed.
He stood and looked down upon me—much as he used to do, but, as I thought, more tenderly—as it had been, more like to Laurence. It was, however, difficult to see his face, for his back was toward the lights without.
Then (always in my dream of the night) he said to me, “Margaret!”
And when I could not move my tongue to answer—not for fear, because it all appeared natural and naught out of place or to be affrayed of—he said again and in a more gentle tone, “Margaret!”
At the same time he came close up to me, and placed his hand upon my shoulder.
Whereat I rose up slowly, and not being yet rightly awake, sat on the bedside and regarded him. He seemed strangely kind. But still, being against my will compelled to remain silent, I said nothing, sitting tongue-tied and awkward before him.
Then he (or else that which stood there in his place, being permitted) took me by the hand and said, “Rise, Margaret, there is somewhat in the garden without, which it behoves you to look upon!”
So at these words I rose up and stood before him, and the revellers tossing torches in the air without, for the first time caused the light to shine on his face. It was gentle and grave as ever, but sweeter, and as if proven by a lifetime of adversity. Ah, if only he had looked at me like that in the woods of Cour Cheverney.
Then came the word to me suddenly. I was not afraid, then—no, nor yet at the ending of all.
“Are you indeed my husband whom the king slew treacherously?” I asked of him.
He put out his hand—or the semblance of a hand, still gently, and as it were with deprecation.
“It is past! Let it pass!” he said. “James the king is king in this realm to-day—not the best sort of king—but yet, perhaps, better for this folk than William of Douglas would have been. Have no fear of James Stewart, King of Scots!”
“But he is a murderer!”
“There are many ways of slaying—but one death!” said the figure which had come to me in my dream; “James Stewart is a rough, violent man, but not, in his heart of hearts, evil. Let that which he hath done be forgot!”
“How can I know that you speak truth?” I moaned. “There are, say the priests, spirits evil and spirits good—dreams that warn and instruct, and dreams that lead only to destruction. How can I be sure?”
“By this sign,” he said. “Bide a moment: wait for the man that hath been your husband, and for the sign he will bring in his arms.”
And in a moment he was not. Yet there remained, as it were, a kind of bluish haze, like moonshine striking slantwise through a skylight, in the place where he had stood.
I remained fixed in amazement. Yet it was of a chilly sort, and wholly without fear. Rather a certain reverence descended upon me, and I waited not unwillingly. And in a little, with a bright, shining light, he returned, carrying a child in his arms. And, lo! I did not need to be told. It was my babe, the babe who had been laid in holy ground in the kirk acre of Balmaghie, God and the monks of Sweetheart giving him good rest! But grown and glorified, and like the angels of heaven for beauty!
This time none spoke; but the babe smiled upon me, and held out its little arms.
“Mine!” I cried, and again “Mine!” Then I started forward to take him to my bosom.
At that, like the clapping of hands, all vanished, and I was alone, save that I heard a Voice from High Above (not that of William Douglas), which said, like a master correcting a child’s faulty lesson, “Mine also!”
And this was the end of my dream. For when I came to myself, lo, I was by the tall window! The chamber was empty, lit only by the uncertain flicker of the cresset dying down on the opposite wall. I was broad awake. Yet, if I had been asleep, I have no cognisance of how or when I awaked. The dream and the reality seemed one.
* * * * * * *
Then it came to me to do what He, my visitant, had said—to go into the enclosure on which my window opened. It was not the great wide court where the guards tramp to and fro all night, calling the hour and clanking iron heels, but an inner court or garden—close in the midst of the castle.
With difficulty I opened the window, which appeared strangely glued and long disused. It was a tall window like those I had been accustomed to in France. And so with only two steps I found myself on the short grass, grey and stiff with the November frost. Above, the trees were black and bald against the sky, reaching out their branches like withered hands clutching whole clusters of the stars.
On the hill of Ballingeich, near by, they had lighted a bonfire in honour of the king’s return. It had flamed, mounted, lowered, and now, like the cresset, was burning red and low. But on the frosty grass of the little courtyard it made a ruddy reflection which served somewhat to guide me.
I went out, scarce knowing what I did, save that I had been called in a dream. The enclosure was but a grass plot with ancient trees planted all about, mostly close to the walls. But as I went across the short grass, my foot caught on a mound, heaped like a grave, but not new-made. For the grass grew thick upon it, though not so spiky and strong as elsewhere.
There was no stone at head or foot. But, as in the dream, my heart knew all. Someone had scribbled on the wall under the dying cresset these words:
“SO PERISH ALLE TRAITOURS!”
But there was for me no need for that assurance. The man who was the truest of the true—so true that he trusted his house’s enemy against the warnings of his own (and died for the mistake)—lay at my feet.
My husband, William of Douglas! I knew him at last! There were none like him—there could be none—loyal, silent, faithful, always speaking good and always fearless of evil. In this place he lay treacherously slain by the hand of his sovereign, after the salt eaten, the banquet spread, the loving hand about the neck, as is the wont of brother with brother.
And it seemed to me that if I could but have recalled the past and the years that had overflown, I would never any more have misjudged him, but understood and helped him in his great aims.
That he had never loved me as it is the right of every woman to be loved, being wedded, seemed to matter but little now. I should have drawn him—so I told myself—taken him, held him—given him, home-returning, the comfort of mutual understanding, of love, touched him to humaner purposes, to the issues which some name passionate, but which also are divine.
Ah, but—I could not. It was too late. It was not so written, and the High Wall of Destiny who shall overleap?
Yet the heart within me was wae to think what he, the greatest of the race, had missed. William Douglas had known the vast unsatisfied loneliness of inheriting a matchless name. He had proved the still greater loneliness of companying perforce with ignoble men. The jar and fret of statecraft, the shaping of little means to great purposes—the triumph, partly assured, yet more and better seen in prospect—these and these alone had been his, before treachery, rank and foul, cut him off.
But these things which he had missed—the love of woman, the prattle of children—sons to bear his name, daughters held among the honourable of the earth! Ah, how much more and greater they were! Better still—the sweet serenities of the hearthstone, the tears at parting, more in the throat than in the eyes, the glad laughters and claspings of homecoming, when, after toil accomplished, he should return bringing his sheaves with him.
And as I thought upon these things, I threw me on my face, vehemently kissing the cold turf, frost spangled, under which I judged his head to lie.
“I would have given you all these,” I moaned, “all these and more, had you but asked me. But you would not—you would not!”
* * * * * * *
Long I lay thus, knowing nothing and thinking nothing, insensate as the dust beneath. Then into my heart there stole a conviction, that was all the surer because it came to me this time without spoken word or angelic dream.
I knew (I know not how, but of a certainty I knew) how in that country where the children grow up without sin (God’s nursery, mayhap!) the babe that had been born to me was growing up in the care and tendance of that all-princely spirit, making ready to be another and more humane William Douglas, not unworthy of him who, through infinite misunderstandings and shortcomings, had yet been my true husband.
So, much comforted, rising up, went within. And after that, even as the Solway tides erase a name writ upon the sands, that of James Douglas came no more into my heart as the name of a man I had loved.
Now the life at Stirling grew not to be long-time endured by me. The chamber where the blow was stricken, the yard where the dead lay buried, the vaunting courtiers, the painted courtesans parading the town with their scented lovelocks and empty mirth, all bore so heavy on my spirit that I was like to die, just to look from my window and see it all.
Then it was that Laurence (who to hide his sometime abbatical dignity was now called by the king’s name, “Laurence Stewart”) proved kind with a kindness which cannot be counted in tale, or weighed in any balance.
For one thing he took upon him to spare me the pain of coming and going to the royal table, being great with James Stewart, and he of the Fiery Face refusing him nothing. Nevertheless at first the king would allow no further relaxation of watchfulness, than to permit me to abide in my own apartment in the palace. So it is small wonder that I waxed pale of face and of my person meagre to look upon. For myself I thought that, having seen the dead that first night of my arriving at Stirling, I also should surely die. For so runs the rune, and indeed I was no ways unwilling it should be so.
But I was to find that it is not given to a woman to die when she will. Many, pressed by griefs and falsities, have tried it, and prayed to God for it sore and often, but save at the knife’s edge, it is not granted to woman’s heart thus to break and pass like a bubble that is blown. So I did not die, pray as I might.
Then at last, when Laurence had prepared the plans for certain great new cannon, which he and his father were to forge somewhere on the straths by Carron water, he besought the king again to permit me to retire from the court, to some more peaceful and quiet habitation.
“Ah,” cried the king, “I know you, Sir Laurence. You would have her back to her own country again, where every third man is a disbanded rebel, every second a dour Douglas, and ilka man, woman, and bairn a born traitor to their king! Na, na, Stewart in name though you be, ye shall not wile the lass back in her turbulent southland. Let her gang, an it please her, to the guid grey toon o’ Dunfermline, where it sends its reek up fornent Edinburgh hersel’. Or let her gang to the kind woman folk at Birnam, near to Dunkeld, where is a nunnery, and a bonny water rinnin’ clear an’ broon, wi’ grand fish for the catchin’ and the rae deer jookin’ oot o’ ilka covert. Let her choose! But to the south she shallna gang!”
So it came about that to Birnam I went, where the house of the good Sisters of Peace looked down on the towers of the cathedral out of a kind of green silence.
Then, indeed, there was time for rest and thought, most sweet and needful to me. For though I minded not greatly at the time the battering of Mons Meg, and the terrible thunderbolts which she launched upon us, yet when all was over and done with, I dared not walk by the archery butts for fear of the whistle of arrows. And if so much as a hare broke from a fern at my feet, or a blackbird chattered among the bushes, I would leap and cry aloud like a halfling dairymaid, at play round the corn-stacks with the lads what time the gloaming falls.
But at Birnam we dwelt in a kind of tranced peace. The Superior was of the king’s house—cousin-german, indeed, to that knight of Lorn whom his mother had married after his father’s death at Perth—a woman well on in years and who showed me much favour from the first. This, I fear me, was not wholly on my account. Indeed, I cannot lay it in any part to my own credit.
Now, how the loon managed it I know not, but from the very first the Mother Superior took a vast liking to Laurence, saying that he was the moral and image of her brother John, who had died in his youth, stricken in the eye with a lance in some tourneying in France.
Perhaps Master Laurence gave the lady to know that, though now permitted by the highest authority to return to the world and carry mail and casque, he, too, had once in his time worn the robe ecclesiastic, and gone on great embassies—yea, even to the Holy See itself. At all events, so it was. Laurence had extraordinary privileges among the Little Sisters of Peace, and I, as a guest and the king’s ward, still more as his friend, could do much as I chose in the house of these good women of Birnam.
This, as I say, came about out of no great love for me on the part of the most excellent Mother Agneta; for, truth to tell, save Maud, I have never drawn ordinary women to me, nor been wholly happy in their society. For the most part, they have been to me (saving, of course, Maud) as so much unripe fruit, chattering and backbiting, becking and bowing their heads over some scraplet of news, or breaking their backs at some endless broidering of bed-covers.
Now men, even in their wrong-doing, are not so. They wring the purple juice from the grapes in full vintage—yes; they eat the apples of the knowledge of good and evil till the fiery sword drives them forth, waving every way before the port of paradise! But they do not—at least, not the men I have known—speak evil of their neighbours behind backs, nor make of the house-place, from roof-tree to cellarage, a fret and a brawling, with their railing accusations and the yelp of their ill-natured yatter.
By Saint Bride, I would choose rather to spend an age in Purgatory with some sinner of sins, great and strong, apparent as Lebanon and salt as the sea, than share an alcove in Paradise with such-like women. And that is my mind upon the matter—concerning which enough said. Mayhap ’tis more than will be held to my credit. Many women there are whose ways and hearts are otherwise—only, saving Maud, I have not met them.
So as I have related, Laurence of the king’s name came over to Birnam, as often as His Majesty’s zeal for military enginery would permit him to steal away from the making of cannon.
And the oftener he came, the better pleased was Sister Agneta, till at last she got to calling him her brother John, and ended, as I think, by believing herself that he was indeed of her blood and family—all which was of little enough consequence to a young woman like myself, save as matter for laughter afterwards.
So in the woods of Birnam Laurence and I walked, as we had done (it seemed a myriad of years agone) in those of Cour Cheverney. But there was no making of mill-wheels now, nor any setting of paper boats, cunningly devised, adrift down the swift-running Tay. Once, I remember, Laurence tried it. But the old sunlight that had glinted through the white poplars at Cour Cheverney, and even gilded the birches on the Balmaghie slopes, would not shine for us on Tayside and in the midst of this drear December.
Faintly we smiled to each other at the lack of success, and I for one knew that for the present, at least, the house of life was left to me empty and desolate. In my cupboards there were no more any conserves of delight. The palaces were emptied of myrrh and aloes and cassia, and I, who had been reared as a king’s daughter, whose garments had been of wrought gold, walked in black widow’s weeds among an unwedded sisterhood.
My husband? He had fled to England. And I knew him. While I lived, he would return no more. Soon he would find some pretext for divorce—that I abode with the King of Scots, that I companied with his enemies—anything—so that he might put me from him in name as he had already done in fact.
Yet to all this I was strangely callous. For in me also there was part of the Douglas heritage. From the first of our race, with here and there an exception to make sure the rule, the Douglases had been ready to forget that which they left behind. Did not, for the sake of the glory of battle and the heady whirlwind of the charge, our Good Sir James himself forget the sacred mission he had sworn to lay the heart of the Bruce in holy earth? And as he, so, and with worse excuses, the others!
Some for the honour of military renown, some for glory in the State (and of these last the chief was he who had died at Stirling), others for a fair woman—as my well-beloved brother William, who, ere at Edinburgh they cut off his comely head, lifted up the goblet and drank his last toast to the woman who had betrayed him in these words, memorable amongst us for ever:
“I drink to you, my lady and my love!”
Some, not one woman only, tempted to forget the things that lay behind. And of such was that strong man James Douglas—strong, yet like to the statue with the head of gold and the feet of clay, seen by the prophet. He was not born to be faithful, this James of Douglas, and now, after the first wrench, the keen jarring tang of the viol’s string as it broke—lo! I cared as little for him as he for me.
At Birnam I had liberty to sit at ease in these sweet solitudes, and with peaceful books to while away the hours. Lives of saints and such-like were there in loads—every page a-drowse with dreamiest opiates, poppy, pulsatilla, mandragora. Nevertheless, with the Douglas unrest I yearned for other things than this, and that before long I desired to be as free in name as in reality. By the king’s mandate of annulment of my marriage? No! I could have had that for the asking. By the dissolving power of the Holy Father? Three times no! I had surely more than enough of his holy Bulls. They were Bulls barren, without power to bind or loose, without power or progeny. “The pope’s Bulls get no calves!” quoth the profane under their breaths.
No, James Douglas himself would of a certainty serve my turn. Give him line enough, and a little time. He would remarry him. Neither the thought of the woman who, in the gardens of Thrieve, had waited ten years in silence and solitude, only that at the end he should betray her—no, nor yet the memory of the girl who had shed her blood that she might save his life, would have a moment’s power to hold him back when the desire of the eye came upon him. I knew the breed—a right strong, masculine, give-and-take breed it is, but not one fortunate to the end. The hand of the righteous is against it! At the end of its lusting it shall pull down the branch and bite the Sodom apple, to find therein only dust and ashes—exceeding bitter fruit.
James Douglas was like the man I had heard Laurence read of in his Latin Scripture. He could take his sword and go forth to rob, and to slay, and to sail upon the sea. He could look forth like a lion into the darkness, and after he had slain and robbed and returned, he would lay all at the feet of his love—his new love whom he had found and drawn to him by the same power wherewith he had drawn me—me and That Other.
But at the uttermost end of all, God, sitting still on high, would enter into judgment with the strong man!
Thus, in the meantime, I was not ill-content to abide at Birnam and await the things which I knew would come to pass. Here Laurence, riding mostly from Stirling and returning ere he was missed to the forging of his cannons, was my chief visitor, and certainly he was the one best pleasing to the Lady Superior.
And after a time there came back to his eyes some part of his old innocent boyish insolence. For this, too, I liked him only the better. No ways as great as Sholto was Laurence M‘Kim—far from being so good. Yet, I think he suited me best. I had no wish to marry him, God knows, yet had he set about to marry himself to another woman, I had never cared to look man in the face again. And I had had that feeling almost from the time I was a girl. Even at Cour Cheverney, if I could have disposed of myself I would have chosen Laurence. Or, at least, so it seems now.
Sholto could do great things—not only could, but did them as they came—making them only part of his daily work. Great, simple, large of heart and determinate in action, it was difficult to find a fault in him. I suppose Maud knew of many such that he had. But if she did—at least she never named them to me.