At parting with his father, the young captain received many wise and grave instructions, all of which he resolved to remember and profit by—a resolution which he did not fail to keep for full five minutes.
"Be douce in deportment," said his father, speaking quietly and yet with a certain sternness of demeanour. "Think three times before you give an order, but let no man think even once before obeying it. Set him astraddle the wooden horse with a spear shaft at either foot to teach him that a soldier's first duty is not to think. Keep your eyes more on the alert for the approach of an enemy than for the ankles of the women-folk at the turnings of the turret stairs."
To these and many other maxims out of the incorporate wisdom of the elders, Sholto promised most faithful attendance, and, for the time being, he fully intended to keep his word. But no sooner was his father gone, and he introduced to his new quarters and duties by David Douglas, the Earl's younger brother, than he began to wonder which was the window of Maud Lindesay's chamber and speculate on how soon he would see her thereat.
In the castle of Thrieve that night there was little sleeping room to spare. The Earl and his brother laywrapped in their plaids in one of the round towers of the outer defences. In the castle hall the retainers of the French ambassador slept side by side, or heads and tails with the archers of the house-guard. Lights flickered on the turnpike stair which led to the upper floors. The servitors had cleared the great hall, and here on a dais, raised above the "marsh" and sheltered by an arras curtain hastily arranged, James the Gross slept on a soft French bed, which he had caused to be brought all the way from his castle of Strathavon on the moors of Lanarkshire.
In the Earl's chamber on the third floor was lodged the Marshal de Retz. Next him ranged the apartment of the countess. Here also was the Lady Sybilla at the end of the passage in the guest chamber which looked to the north, and from the windows of which she could see the broad river dividing itself about the castle island, and flowing as calmly on as if the stern feudal pile had been a peaceful monastery and the waving war banners no more than so many signs of holy cross.
Above, in the low-roofed chambers, which gave upon the wooden balcony, were the apartments of Maud Lindesay and her charge, little Margaret Douglas, the Fair Maid of Galloway.
Now the single postern stair of the castle was shut at the foot, where it opened out upon the hall of the guard by a sparred iron gate, the key of which was put into Sholto's charge. The night closed early upon the castle-ful of wearied folk. The marshals of the camps caused the lights to be put out at nine-of-the-clock in all the tents and pavilions, but the lamps and candles burned longer in the castle itself, where the Earl had beengiving a banquet to his guests, of the best that his estates could afford. Nevertheless, it was yet long before midnight when the cheep of the mouse in the wainscot, the restless stir or muffled snore of a crowded sleeper in the guardroom, was the only sound to be heard from dungeon to banner-staff of the great castle.
Sholto's heart throbbed tumultuous and insurgent within him. And small is the wonder. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined such a fate as this, to be actual captain of the Earl's own body-guard, even though neither title nor emolument was yet wholly his; better still, that he should dwell night and day within arm's reach almost of the desire of his heart, flinty-bosomed and mischievous as she was—these were heights of good fortune to which his imagination had never climbed in its most daring ascents.
No longer did he envy his brother's good fortune, as he had been somewhat inclined to do earlier in the day, when he thought of returning to wield the forehammer all alone in his father's smithy.
The first night of Captain Sholto's responsibility in the castle of Thrieve was destined to be a memorable one. To the youth himself it would have appeared so in any case. Only a panelled door divided him from the girl who, wayward and scornful as she had ever been to him, yet kept his heart dangling at her waist-belt as truly as if it had been the golden key of her armoire.
The ancient Sir John of Abernethy, dubbed Landless Jock, would not be separated from his masters, and slept with two sergeants of the guard in the turret adjacent to that in which the brothers of Douglas, William and David, lay in the first sleep of youth and an easy mind.
Sholto therefore found himself left with the undivided responsibility for the safety of the castle and all who dwelt within it. He was also the only man who, by reason of his charge and in virtue of his master-key, was permitted to circulate freely through all the floors and passages of the vast feudal pile.
Sholto went out to the barred gate of the castle, where in a little cubbyhole dark even at noonday, and black as Egypt now, the warder slept with his hand upon his keys, and his head touching the lever of the gear wherewith he drew the creaking portcullis up and rolled back the iron doors which shut the keep off from the world of the wide outer courtyard and the garrison which manned the turrets.
The porter, Hugh MacCalmont, sat up on his elbow at Sholto's salutation, only enough to see his visitor by the glint of the little iron "cruisie" lamp hanging upon the wall. He knew him by the golden chain of office which the Earl had given Sholto.
"Captain of the guard," he muttered, "Lord, here's advancement indeed. My lord might have remembered me that have served him faithfully these thirty years, opening and shutting without mistake. He might have named me captain of the guard, and not this limber Jack. But the young love the young, and in truth 'tis natural. But what Landless Jock will say when he comes to have this sprat set over him, I know not but I can guess!"
Satisfied that all was safe there, Sholto stepped gingerly over the reclining forms of the first relief guard, who lay wrapped in their cloaks, every man grasping his arms. Most of these were lying in the dead sleepof tired men, whilst others restlessly moved about this way and that, as if seeking an easier adaptation of their bones to the corners of the blue whinstones and rough shell lime than had been provided for when the castle was built by Archibald the Grim, Lord of Thrieve and Galloway.
Close by the last turn of the turret staircase yawned the iron-sparred mouth of the dungeon, in which in its time many a notable prisoner had been immured. It was closed with a huge grid of curved iron bars, each as thick as a man's arm, cunningly held together by a gigantic padlock, the key of which was nightly taken to the sleeping-room of the Earl—whether, as was now the case, the cell stood empty, or whether it contained an English lord waiting ransom or a rebellious baron expectant of his morning summons to the dule tree of the Black Douglas.
Then taking the master-key from his belt, Sholto unlocked the sparred gate leading from thesalle de gardeinto the turret stair which was the sole communication with the upper floors of the castle.
Slowly, and with a step no louder than the beating of his own heart, he went upwards, glancing in midway upon the banquet hall, where the dim light from the postern without revealed a number of dark forms wrapped in slumber lying on the dining-table and on the floor; ascending yet higher he came to the floor where slept the Countess of Douglas, the Lady Sybilla, and in the Earl's own chamber the Marshal de Retz, ambassador of the King of France.
Sholto stood a moment with his hand raised in a listening attitude, before he ventured to ascend thosenarrower stairs which led to the uppermost floor of all, on which were the chambers occupied by the little Maid Margaret and her companion and gossip Mistress Maud Lindesay.
He told himself that it was his duty to see to the safety of the whole castle; that he had special instructions to visit three times, during the course of each night of duty, all the passages and corridors of the fortress. But nevertheless it needed all his courage to enable Sholto to perform the task which had been laid upon him. As he dragged one foot after the other up the turret stairs, it seemed as if a leaden clog had been attached to each pointed shoe.
He had also a vague sense of being watched by presences invisible to him, but malign in their nature. Again and again he caught himself listening for footsteps which seemed to dog his own. He heard mysterious whisperings that flouted his utmost vigilance, and mocking laughter that lurked in unseen crevices and broke out so soon as he had passed.
Sholto set his hand firmly upon his sword handle and bit his lips, lest even to himself he should own his uneasiness. It was not seemly that the captain of the Douglas guard should be frightened by shadows.
Passing the corridor which led towards the sleeping rooms of the maid and her companion, he ascended to the roof of the castle, thrusting aside the turret door and issuing upon the wide, open spaces with an assured step. The cool breeze from the west restored him to himself in a moment. The waning moon cast a pale light across the landscape, and he could see the tents on the castle island glimmer greyish white beneath him. Beyond thatagain was the shining confluence of the sluggish river about the isle, and the dark line of the woods of Balmaghie opposite. He had begun to meditate on the rapid changes of circumstance which had overtaken him, when suddenly a shrill and piercing shriek rang out, coming up through the castle beneath, again and again repeated. It was like the cry of a child in the grip of instant and deadly terror.
Sholto's heart gave a great bound. That something untoward should happen on this the first night of his charge was too disastrous. He drew his sword and set in his lips the silver call which depended from the chain of office the Earl had thrown about his neck when he made him captain of his guard.
His feet hardly touched the stone stairs as he flew downwards, and wings were added to his haste by the sounds of fear which continued to increase. In another moment he was upon the last step of the turnpike and at the entrance of the corridor which led to the rooms of the little Lady Margaret and Maud Lindesay.
As Sholto came rushing down the steep descent from the roof he caught sight of a dark and shaggy beast running on all fours just turning out of the corridor, and taking the first step of the descent towards the floor beneath. Without pausing to consider, Sholto lunged forward with all his might, and his sword struck the fugitive quadruped behind the shoulder. He had time to see in the pale bluish flicker of thecruisielamp that the beast he had wounded was of a dark colour, and that its head seemed immensely too large for its body.
Nevertheless, the thing did not fall, but ran on andvanished out of Sholto's sight. The young man again set the silver call to his lips and blew. The next moment he could hear the soldiers of the guard clattering upward from their hall, and he himself ran along the corridor towards the place whence the screams of terror seemed to proceed.
He found that the noise came from the chamber occupied by the little Lady Margaret. When he arrived at the door it stood open to the wall. The child was sitting up on her bed, clothed in the white garmentry of the night. Bending over her, with her arms round the heaving shoulders of the little girl, Sholto saw Maud Lindesay, clad in a dark, hooded mantle thrown with the appearance of haste about her. The door of the next chamber also stood wide, and from the coverlets cast on the floor it was obvious that its occupant had left it hastily in order to fly to her friend's assistance.
At the sound of hasty footsteps Maud Lindesay turned about, and was instantly stricken pale and astonished by the sight of the young man with his sword bare. She cried aloud with a stern and defiant countenance, "Sholto MacKim, what do you here?"
And before he had time to answer, the little girl looked at him out of her friend's arms and called out: "O Sholto, Sholto, I am so glad you are come. I woke to find such a terrible thing looking at me out of the night. It was shaped like a great wolf, but it was rough of hide, and had upon it a head like a man's. I was so terrified that at first I could not cry out. But when it came nearer, and gazed at me, then I cried. Do notgo away, Sholto. I am so glad, so glad that you are here."
Maud Lindesay had again turned towards Margaret.
"Hush," she said soothingly, "it was a dream. You were frighted by a vision, by a nightmare, by a succubus of the night. There is no beast within the castle."
"But I saw it plainly," the maid cried. "It opened the door as if it had hands—I saw it stand there by the bed and look at me—oh, so terribly! I saw its teeth glisten and heard them snap together!"
"Little one, be still, it was but a dream," said Sholto, untruthfully; "nevertheless I will go and search the rest of the castle."
And with these words he went along the corridor, finding the men whom he had summoned by means of his captain's silver call clustered upon the landing of the turret stair which communicated with the third floor. As he glanced along the oak-panelled corridor, it seemed to Sholto that he discerned a figure vanishing at the further end. Instantly he resolved on searching, and summoning his men to follow, he led the way down the passage, sword in hand. As he went he snatched the lamp from its pin on the wall, and held it in his left high above his head.
At the further end of the corridor was the door of a little chamber, and it seemed to Sholto that the shape he had seen must have disappeared at this point.
He knocked loudly on the door with the hilt of his sword, and cried, "If any be within, open—in the name of the Earl!"
No voice replied, and Sholto boldly set his foot againstthe lower panelling, and drove the door back to the wall with a clang.
Then at sight of a something dark, wrapped in a cloak, standing motionless against the window, the young captain of the guard elevated his lamp, and let the flicker of the light fall on the erect figure and haughty face of a young man, who, with his hand on his hip, stood considering the rude advance of his pursuers with a calm and questioning gaze.
It was the Earl of Douglas himself.
Sholto stood petrified at sight of him, and for a long minute could in no wise recover his self-control nor regain any use of his tongue.
"Well," said the Earl, haughtily, "whence this unseemly uproar? What do you here, Sholto?"
Then the spirit of his father came upon the young captain of the guard. He knew that he had only done his duty in its strictness, and he boldly answered the Earl: "Nay, my lord, were it not for courtesy, I have more right to ask you that question. Your sister hath been frighted, and at sound of her terror all we who were dispersed throughout the castle rushed to the spot. As I came down the stairs from the roof at speed, I saw something like to a great wolf about to descend the turret before me. With my sword I struck at it, and to all appearance wounded it. It vanished, and after searching the castle I can find neither wolf nor dog. But I saw, as it seemed, a figure enter this room, and upon opening it I find—the Earl of Douglas. That is all I know, and I leave the matter in my lord's own hands."
The haughty look gradually disappeared from the face of the Earl as Sholto spoke.
Smilingly he dismissed the guard with a word, saying that he would inquire into the cause of the disturbance in person, and then turned to Sholto.
"You are right," he said, "you have entirely done your duty and justified my appointment."
He paused, looked this way and that along the corridor, and continued:
"It chanced that in the tower without I could not sleep, and feeling uneasy concerning my guests, I entered the castle by the private door and staircase which leads into the apartment corresponding to this on the floor beneath. I was assuring myself that you were doing your duty when, being disturbed by the sudden hubbub, and judging it needless that the men-at-arms should know of my presence in the castle, I came in hither till the matter should have blown over. And so, but for your good conscience and the keenness of your vision, the matter would have ended."
Sholto bowed coldly.
"But, my lord," he said, ignoring the Earl's explanation, "the matter grows more mysterious than ever. Your sister, the little Lady Margaret, hath been grievously frighted by an appearance like a great beast which (so she affirms) opened the door of her chamber and looked within."
"She but dreamed," said the Earl, carelessly; "such visions come from supping late."
"But, with all respect, your lordship," continued Sholto, "I also saw the appearance even as I ran down the stairs from the roof at the noise of her crying."
"You were startled—excited, and but thought you saw."
Sholto reversed his sword, which he had held with the point towards the ground while he was speaking with his lord the Earl.
Holding the blade midway with much deference, he presented the hilt to William Douglas.
"Will you examine the point of this sword?" he said.
The Earl came a step nearer to him and Sholto advanced the steel till it was immediately beneath the lamp. There was blood upon the last inch or so of the blade. The Earl suddenly became violently agitated.
"This is indeed passing strange. There is no hound within the castle nor has there been for years. Even the presence of a lap-dog will fret my mother, so in my father's time they were every one removed to the kennels at the further end of the isle of Thrieve, whence even their howling cannot be heard. But let us proceed to the Lady Margaret, and on our way examine the place where you saw the apparition."
Sholto stood aside for the Earl to pass, but with a wave of his hand the latter said courteously, "Nay, but do you lead the way, captain of the guard."
They passed the door of the chamber where lay the Lady Sybilla. The niece of the ambassador must have been a heavy sleeper, for there was no sound within. Opposite was the chamber of the Earl's mother. She also appeared to be undisturbed, but the increasing deafness of the Countess offered a complete explanation of her tranquillity.
Next the two young men came to the door of the marshal's chamber. As they were about to pass, it opened silently, and a man-servant with a closely cropped obsequious head appeared within. He unclosed the door nofurther than would permit of his exit, and then he shut it again behind him, and stood holding the latch in his hand.
"His Excellency, being overfatigued, hath need of a little strong spirit," he said, with a curious gobbling movement of his throat as if he himself had been either thirsty or in deadly and overmastering fear.
The Earl ordered Sholto to wake the cellarer and bid him bring the ambassador of France that which he required. He himself would go onward to his sister's chamber. Sholto somewhat sullenly obeyed, for his heart was hot and angry within him. He thought that he began to see clearly the motive of the Earl's presence in the castle. The youth was himself so deeply and hopelessly in love with Mistress Maud Lindesay that he could not understand any other of his sex being insensible to the charm of her beauty and myriad winsome graces.
As he went down the stairs he recalled a thousand circumstances to mind which now seemed capable of but one explanation. It was evident that the Earl William came to visit some one by means of the private staircase under cloud of night. Nay, more, Maud Lindesay and he might be already privately married, and the matter kept secret on account of the pride of his family, who devised another match for him. For though the daughter of a knight, Maud Lindesay was assuredly no fit mate for the head of the more than regal house of Douglas. He remembered how on Sundays and saints' days Earl William always rode to and from the kirk with his sister on one side and Maud Lindesay on the other. That the young Earl was by no means insensible tobeauty, Sholto knew well, and he remembered his words to his own father, when he had asked to be allowed to accompany him on his Flanders mare, that such attendance was not seemly when a man was going a-courting.
As is always the case, he grew more and more confirmed in his ill humour, so soon as the eye of jealousy began to view everything in the light of prepossession.
Sholto awaked the cellarer out of his crib, who, presently, with snorts of disdain and much jangling of steel keys, drew half a tankard from a keg of spirit in the cellar on the dungeon floor and handed it grudgingly to the captain of the guard.
"The Frenchman wants it, does he?" he growled. "Had the messenger been old Landless Jock, I had known down whose Scottish throat it had gone, but this one is surely too young for such tricks. See that you spill it not by the way, Master Sholto," he called out after him, as that youth betook himself up to the chamber of the ambassador of France.
At the shut portal he paused and knocked. His hand was on the pin to enter with the tankard as was the custom. But the door opened no more than an inch or two, and the dark face of the cropped servitor appeared in the crevice.
"In a moment, sir," he said, and again vanished within, while a strong animal odour disengaged itself almost like something tangible from the chinks of the doorway.
Sholto stood in astonishment with theeau de viein his hand, till presently the door was opened again very quickly. The form of the servitor was seen, and with a swift edging motion he came out, drawing the door behind him as before. He held a bar of iron in his hand like the fastening of a window, and a little breath of heat told the smith's son that though black it was still warm from the fire.
"Take this iron," he said abruptly, "and bring it to me fully heated. I am finishing a little device which his Excellency needs for the combat of the morrow."
The captain of the guard was nettled at the man's tone. Also he desired much to know what his master was doing on the floor above.
"Heat it at your own nose, fellow," he said rudely; "I am captain of the castle-guard, and must attend to my own business. Take the spirit out of my hand if you do not want it thrown in your face."
The swarthy, bullet-headed man glared at him with eyes like burning coals, but Sholto cared no jot for his anger. Forthwith he turned his back upon him, glad at heart to have found some one to quarrel with, and hoping that the ambassador's squire might prove courageous and challenge him to fight on the morrow.
But the man only replied: "I am Henriet, servant of the marshal. I bid you remember that I shall make you live to regret these words."
The door of Margaret Douglas's chamber still stood open, and Sholto found Earl William seated upon the foot of the bed, endeavouring by every means in his power to distract his sister's attention from her fears. Maud Lindesay, now more completely dressed than when he had first seen her, sat on the other side of the little lady's couch. She was laughing as he entered at some merry jest of the Earl's. And at the sound of her tinkling mirth Sholto's heart sank within him. So soon as she caught sight of the new captain of the guard the gladness left her face, and she became grave and sober, like a gossip long unconfessed when the holy father comes knocking at the door.
At sight of her emotion Sholto resolved that if his fears should prove to be well founded, he would resign his honourable office. For to abide continually in the castle, and hourly observe Maud Lindesay's love for another, was more than his philosophy could stand.
In the meantime there was only his duty to be done. So he saluted the Earl, and in a few words told him that which he had seen. But the soul of William Douglas was utterly devoid of suspicion, both because he held himself so great that none could touch him, and also because, being high of spirit and open as the sky, heread into the acts of others his own straightforwardness and unsuspicion.
The Earl rose smilingly, declaring to Margaret that to-morrow he would hang every dog and puppy in Galloway on the dule tree of Thrieve, whereupon the child began to plead for the life of this cur and that other of her personal acquaintances with a tearful earnestness which told of a sorely jangled mind.
"Well, at least," cried Earl Douglas, "I will not have such brutes prowling about my castle of Thrieve even in my sister's dreams. Captain Sholto, do you station a man of your guard in the angle of the staircase where it looks along each corridor. Pick out your prettiest cross-bowmen, for it were not seemly that my guests should be disturbed by the rude shots and villanous reek of the fusil."
Sholto bowed stiffly and waited the further pleasure of his master. Then the two young men went out without Maud Lindesay having uttered a word, or manifested the least surprise at the advancement which had befallen the heir of the master armourer of Carlinwark.
As soon as the door had closed upon the two maidens, the Earl turned a face suddenly grave and earnest on his young captain of the guard.
"What think you," he said, "was this appearance real?"
"Real enough to leave these upon the floor," answered Sholto, pointing to sundry gouts and drops of blood upon the turret stairs.
The Earl took the lamp from his hand and earnestly scrutinised each step in a downward direction. The spots ran irregularly as if the wounded beast had shakenhis head from side to side as he ran. They turned along towards the corridor where at the first alarm Sholto had found the Earl, and in the very midst of it abruptly stopped. While Sholto and William Douglas were examining the floor, they both looked over their shoulders, uneasily conscious of a regard upon them, as if some one, unseen himself, had been looking down from behind.
"Do you place your men as I told you," said the Earl, abruptly, "and bring me a truckle bed out of the guardroom. I shall remain in this closet till morning. But do you keep a special lookout on the floor above, that the repose of my sister and her friend be not again disturbed."
Sholto bowed without speech, and hastening down to the guardroom he commanded two of his best bowmen to follow him with their apparatus, while he himself snatched up the low truckle couch which custom assigned to the captain of the guard should he desire to rest himself during the night, and on which Landless Jock had always passed the majority of his hours of duty. This he carried to the Earl, and placing it in the angle he saw his youthful master stretch himself upon it, wrapped in his cloak and with a naked sword ready to his hand.
"A good and undisturbed slumber to you, my lord," said Sholto, curtly, as he went out.
He saw that his two men were duly posted upon the lower landing of the stair, and then betook himself to the upper floor where slept the little Maid of Galloway.
He walked slowly to the end of the passage scrutinising every recess and closet door, every garde-robe and wall press from which it was possible that the beast he had seen might have emerged. He was wholly unsuccessfulin discovering anything suspicious, and had almost resolved to station himself at the turn of the staircase which led down from the roof, when, looking back, at the sharp click of a latch, he saw Maud Lindesay coming out of the chamber of the little Maid of Galloway.
Softly closing the door behind her, she paused a moment as if undecided, and then more with her chin than with her finger she beckoned him to approach.
"She sleeps," said the girl, softly, "but so uncertainly and with so many startings of terror, that I will not leave her alone. Will you aid me to remove the mattress of my couch and lay it on the floor beside her?"
Sholto signified his willingness. His mind was more than ever oppressed by the thought that the Earl of Douglas loved this girl, whom he had found listening to his jests with such frank joyousness.
Maud stayed him with one of the long looks out from under her eyelashes. The dark violet orbs rested upon him a moment reproachfully with a hurt expression in their depths, and were then dropped with a sigh.
"You are still angry with me," she said, a little wistfully, "and I wanted to tell you how happy it made me—made us, I mean—when we heard that you were to be captain of the castle-guard instead of that grumbling old curmudgeon, Jock of Abernethy."
The heart of Sholto was instantly melted, more by her looks than by her words, though deep within him he had still an angry feeling that he was being played with. All the same, and in spite of his resolves, the eyeshot from under those dark and sweeping lashes did its usual and deadly work.
"I did not know that aught which might befall mecould be anything to Mistress Maud Lindesay," said Sholto, with the last shreds of dignity in his voice.
"I said not to me, but tous," she corrected, smiling; "but tell me what think you of this appearance which has so startled our Margaret. Was it ghost or goblin or dream of the night? We have never had either witch or warlock about the house of Thrieve since the old Abbot Gawain laid the ghost of Archibald the Grim with four-and-forty masses, said without ever breaking his fast, down there in the castle chapel."
"Nay, ask me not," answered Sholto, "I am little skilled in matters spiritual. I should try sword point and arrowhead on such gentry, and if these do them no harm, why then I think they will not distress me much."
But all the same he said nothing to the girl about the red blood on his sword or the splashed gouts on the steps of the staircase.
He followed Maud Lindesay into her chamber, and being arrived there, lifted couch and all in his arms, with an ease born of long apprenticeship to the forehammer. The girl regarded him with admiration which she was careful not to dissemble.
"You are very strong," she said. Then, after a pause, she added, "Margaret and I like strong men."
The heart of the youth was glad within him, thus to be called a man, even though he kept saying over and over to himself: "She means it not! She means it not! She loves the Earl! I know well she loves the Earl!"
Maud Lindesay paused a moment before the chamber door of her little charge, finger on lip, listening.
"She sleeps—go quietly," she whispered, holding thedoor open for him. He set down the bed where she showed him—by the side of the small slumbering figure of the Maid of Galloway.
Then he went softly to the door. The girl followed him. "You will not be far away," she said doubtfully and with a perilous sort of humility, "if this dreadful thing should come back again? I—that is we, would feel safer if we knew that you—that any one strong and brave was near at hand."
Then the heart of Sholto broke out in quick anger.
"Deceive me not," he cried, "I know well that the Earl loves you, and that you love him in return."
"Well, indeed, were it for my lord Earl if he loved as honest a woman," said Maud Lindesay, pouting disdainfully. "But what is such a matter, yea or nay, to you?"
"It is all life and happiness to me," said Sholto, earnestly. "Ah, do not go—stay a moment. I shall never sleep this night if you go without giving me an answer."
"Then," said the girl, "you will be the more in the line of your duty, which allows not much sleep o' nights. You are but a silly, petulant boy for all your fine captaincy. I wish it had been Landless Jock. He would never have vexed me with foolish questions at such a time."
"But I love you, and I demand an answer," cried Sholto, fuming. "Do you love the Earl?"
"What do you think yourself now?" she said, looking up at him with an inimitable slyness, and pronouncing her words so as to imitate the broad simplicity of countryside speech.
Sholto vented a short gasp or inarticulate snort ofanger, at which Maud Lindesay started back with affected terror.
"Do not fright a poor maid," she said. "Will you put me in the castle dungeon if I do not answer? Tell me exactly what you want me to say, and I will say it, most mighty captain."
And she made him the prettiest little courtesy, turning at the same time her eyes in mock humility on the ground.
"Oh, Maud Lindesay," said Sholto, with a little conflicting sob in his throat, ill becoming so noted a warrior as the captain of the castle-guard of the Black Douglas, "if you knew how I loved you, you would not treat me thus."
The girl came nearer to him and laid a white and gentle hand on the sleeve of his blue archer's coat.
"Nay, lad," she said more soberly, lifting a finger to his face, "surely you are no milksop to mind how a girl flouts you. Love the Earl—say you? Well, is it not our duty to the bread we eat? Is he not worthy? Is he not the head of our house?"
"Cheat me not with words. The Earl loves you," said Sholto, lifting his head haughtily out of her reach. (To have one's chin pushed this way and that by a girl's forefinger, and as it were considered critically from various points of view, may be pleasant, but it interferes most seriously with dignity.)
"He may, indeed," drolled the minx, "one can never tell. But he has never said so. He is perhaps afraid, being born without the self-conceit of some people—archers of the guard, fledgling captains, and such-like gentrice."
"Do you love him?" reiterated Sholto, determinedly.
"I will tell you for that gold buckle," said Maud, calmly pointing with her finger.
Instantly Sholto pulled the cap from his head, undid the pin of the archery prize, and thrust it into his wicked sweetheart's hands.
She received it with a little cry of joy, then she pressed it to her lips. Sholto, rejoicing at heart, moved a step nearer to her. But, in spite of her arch delight, she was on the alert, for she retreated deftly and featly within the chamber door of the Fair Maid of Galloway. There was still more mirthful wickedness in her eyes.
"Love the Earl?—Of course I do. Indeed, I doat upon him," she said. "How I shall love this buckle, just because his hand gave it to you!"
And with that she shut to the door.
Sholto, in act to advance, stood a moment poised on one foot like a goose. Then with a heart blazing with anger, and one of the first oaths that had ever passed his lips, he turned on his heel and strode away.
"I will never think of her again—I will never see her. I will go to France and perish in battle. I will throw me in the castle pool. I will—"
So the poor lad retreated, muttering hot and angry words, all his heart sore within him because of the cruelty of this girl.
But he had not proceeded twenty steps along the corridor, when he heard the door softly open and a low voice whispered, "Sholto! Sholto! I want you, Sholto!"
He bent his brows and strode manfully on as if he had not heard a word.
"Sholto!—dear Sholto! Do not go, I need you."
Against his will he turned, and, seeing the head of Maud Lindesay, her pouting lips and beckoning finger, he went sulkily back.
"Well?" he said, with the stern curtness of a military commander, as he stood before her.
She held the iron lamp in her hand. The wick had fallen aside and was now wasting itself in a broad, unequal yellow flame. The maid of honour looked at it in perplexity, knitting her pretty brows in a mock frown.
"It burned me as I was ordering my hair," she said. "I cannot blow it out. I dare not. Will you—will you blow it out for me, Captain Sholto?"
She spoke with a sweet childlike humility.
And she held the lamp up so that the iron handle was almost touching her soft cheek. There was a dancing challenge in her dark eyes and her lips smiled dangerously red. She could not, of course, have known that the light made her look so beautiful, or she would have been more careful.
Sholto stood still a moment, at wrestle with himself, trying to conquer his dignity, and to retain his attitude of stern disapproval.
But the girl swept her lashes up towards him, dropped them again dark as night upon her cheek, and anon looked a second time at him.
"I am sorry," she said, more than ever like a child. "Forgive me, and—the lamp is so hot."
Now Sholto was young and inexperienced, but he was not quite a fool. He stooped and blew out the light, and the next moment his lips rested upon other lips which, as it had been unconsciously, resigned their soft sweetness to his will.
Then the door closed, and he heard the click of the lock as the bolts were shot from within. The gallery ran round and round about him like a clacking wheel. His heart beat tumultuously, and there was a strange humming sound in his ears.
The captain of the guard stumbled half distracted down the turret stair.
The old world had been destroyed in a moment and he was walking in a new, where perpetual roses bloomed and the spring birds sang for evermore. He knew not, this poor foolish Sholto, that he had much to learn ere he should know all the tricks and stratagems of this most naughty and prettily disdainful minx, Mistress Maud Lindesay.
But for that night at least he thought he knew her heart and soul, which made him just as happy.
In the morning Sholto MacKim had other views of it. Even when at last he was relieved from duty he never closed an eye. The blowing out of the lamp had turned his ideas and hopes all topsy-turvy. His heart sang loud and turbulent within him. He had kissed other girls indeed before at kirns and country dances. He laughed triumphantly within him at the difference. They had run into corners and screamed and struggled, and held up ineffectual hands. And when his lips did reach their goal, it was generally upon the bridge of a nose or a tip of an ear. He could not remember any especial pleasure accompanying the rite.
But this! The bolt of an arbalast could not have given him a more instant or tremendous shock. His nerves still quivered responsive to the tremulous yielding of the lips he had touched for a moment in the dark of the doorway. He felt that never could he be the same man he had been before. Deep in his heart he laughed at the thought.
And then again, with a quick revulsion, the return wave came upon him. "How, if she be as untouched as her beauty is fresh, has she learned that skill in caressing?"
He paused to think the matter over.
"I remember my father saying that a wise man should always mistrust a girl who kisses overwell."
Then again his better self would reassert itself.
"No," he would argue, tramping up and down the corridor, wheeling in the short bounds of the turnpike head, and again returning upon his own footsteps, "why should I belie her? She is as pure as the air—only, of course, she is different to all others. She speaks differently; her eyes are different, her hair, her hands—why should she not be different also in this?"
But when Maud Lindesay met Sholto in the morning, coming suddenly upon him as he stood, with a pale face and dark rings of sleeplessness about his eyes, as he looked meditatively out upon the broad river and the blue smoke of the morning campfires, there was yet another difference to be revealed to him. He had expected that, like others, she would be confused and bashful meeting him thus in the daylight, after—well, after the volcanic extinguishing of the lamp.
But there she stood, dainty and calm under the morning sunshine, in fresh clean gown of lace and varied whiteness, her face grave as a benediction, her eyes deep and cool like the water of the castle well.
Sholto started violently at sight of her, recovered himself, and eagerly held out both his hands.
"Maud," he said hoarsely, and then again, in a lower tone, "sweetest Maud."
But pretty Mistress Lindesay only gazed at him with a certain reserved and grave surprise, looking him straight in the face and completely ignoring his outstretched hands.
"Captain Sholto," she said steadily and calmly, "theLady Margaret desires to see you and to thank you for your last night's care and watchfulness. Will you do me the honour to follow me to her chamber?"
There was no yielding softness about this maiden of the morning hours, no conscious droop and a swift uplifting of penitent eyelids, no lingering glances out of love-weighted eyes. A brisk and practical little lady rather, her feet pattering most purposefully along the flagged passages and skipping faster than even Sholto could follow her. But at the top of the second stairs he was overquick for her. By taking the narrow edges of the steps he reached the landing level with his mistress.
His desire was to put out his hand to circle her lithe waist, for nothing is so certainly reproductive of its own species as a first kiss. But he had reckoned without the lady's mutual intent and favour, which in matters of this kind are proverbially important. Mistress Maud eluded him, without appearing to do so, and stood farther off, safely poised for flight, looking down at him with cold, reproachful eyes.
"Maud Lindesay, have you forgotten last night and the lamp?" he asked indignantly.
"What may you mean, Captain Sholto?" she said, with wonderment in her tone, "Margaret and I never use lamps. Candles are so much safer, especially at night."
On the morrow, the ambassador of France being confined to his room with a slight quinsy caught from the marshy nature of the environment of Thrieve, the Earl escorted the Lady Sybilla to the field of the tourney, where, as Queen of Beauty, her presence could not be dispensed with.
The Maid Margaret, the Earl's sister, remained also in the castle, not having yet recovered from her fright of the preceding evening.
With her was Maud Lindesay and her mother—"the Auld Leddy," as she was called throughout all the wide dominions of her son.
In spite of his weariness Sholto led his archer guard in person to the field of the tournament. For this day was the day of the High Sport, and many lances would be splintered, and often would the commonalty need to be scourged from the barriers.
But ere he went Sholto summoned two of the staunchest fellows of his company, Andro, called the Penman, and his brother John. Then, having posted them at either end of the corridor in which were the chambers occupied by the two girls, he laid a straight charge, and a heavy, upon them.
"On your heads be it if you fail, or let one soul pass,"he said. "Stand ready with your hands on the wheel of your cross-bows, and if any man come hither, challenge him to stand, and bid him return the way he came. But if any dog or thing running on four feet ascend or descend the stair, make no sound, ask no question, cry no warning, but whang the steel bolt through his ribs, in at one side and out at the other."
Then Andro the Penman and his brother John, being silent capable fellows, said nothing, but spat on their hands, smiled at each other well pleased, and made the wheels of their cross-bows sing a clear whirring note.
"I would not like to be that dog—" said Andro the Swarthy.
"Whose foul carcase I pray God to send speedily," echoed John the Blond.
Sholto had hoped that whilst he was at the guard-setting, he might have had occasion to see once more the tantalising mischief-maker whom he yet loved with all his heart, in spite of, or perhaps because of, the distraction to which she continually reduced his spirit by means of her manifold and incalculable contrarieties.
Nevertheless, it was with an easier heart that Sholto wended his way out of the castle yett, all arrayed in the new suit of armour his lord had sent him. It was made of chain of the finest, composed of many rings set alternately thick and thin, and the whole was flexible as the deer leather which he wore underneath it. Over this a doublet of blue silk carried the Lion of Galloway done in white upon it, and all the cerulean of the ground was dotted over with the Douglas heart. But, greatest joy of all, there was brought to him by command of the Earl a suitable horse, not heavily armed like a chargerfor the tilt, but light of foot, and answering easily to the hand. Blue and red were the silken housings, fringed with long silver lace, through which could be seen here and there as the wind blew the sheen of the glossy skin. The buckles and bits were also of massive silver, and at sight of them the cup of Sholto's happiness was full. For a space, as he gazed upon his steed, he forgot even Maud Lindesay.
Then when he was mounted and out upon the green, waiting for the coming forth of his lord, what delight it was to feel the noble dark grey answer to each touch of the rein, obeying his master's thought more than the strength of his wrist or the prick of his heel.
As he waited there, his predecessor in office, old Sir John of Abernethy, Landless Jock as he was nicknamed, came out from the main doorway. He carried a gleaming headpiece from which the blue feather of the Douglas fell over his arm half-way to the ground. On its front was a lion crest which ramped among goldenfleur-de-lys. The old man held it up for Sholto to take.
"Hae," he said in a surly tone, "this is his lordship's new helmet just brought as a present frae the Dauphin of France. So he has cast off the well-tried one, and with it also the auld servant that hath served him these many years."
"Nay, Sir John," said Sholto, with courtesy, taking the helmet which it was his duty as his master's esquire to carry before him on a velvet-covered placque, "nay—well has the good servant deserved his rest, and to take his ease. The young to the broil and the moil, the old to the inglenook and the cup of wine beneath the shade."
"Ah, lad, I envy ye not, think not that of puir Landless Jock," said the mollified old man, sadly shaking his head; "I also have tried the new office, the shining armour, and felt the words of command rise proudly in the throat. I envy you not, though your advancement hath been sudden—and well—for my own son John I had hoped, though indeed the loon is paper backed and feckless. But now there remains for me only to go to the Kirk of Saint Bride in Douglasdale, and there set me down by my auld master's coffin till I die."
At that moment there issued forth from the gateway the young Earl, holding by the hand the Lady Sybilla. His mother, the Countess, came to the door to see them ride away. The Queen of the Sports was in a merry mood, and as she tripped down the steps she turned, and looking over her shoulder she called to the Lady Douglas, "Fear not for your son, I will take good care of him!"
But the elder woman answered neither her smile nor yet her word, but stood like a mother who sees a first-born son treading in places perilous, yet dares not warn him, knowing well that she would drive him to giddier and yet more dangerous heights.
The pennons of the escort fluttered in the breeze as the men on horseback tossed their lances high in the air, in salutation of their lord. The archer guard stood ranked and ready, bows on their shoulders and arrows in quiver. Horses neighed, armour clanked and sparkled, and from the moat platform twenty silver trumpets blared a fanfare as the Lady Sybilla, the arbiter of this day's chivalry, mounted her palfrey with the help of Earl Douglas. She thanked him with a low word inhis ear, audible only to himself, as he set her in the saddle and bent to kiss her hand.
A right gallant pair were Douglas and Sybilla de Thouars as they rode away, their heads close together, over the green sward and under the tossing banners of the bridge. Sholto was behind them giving great heed to the managing of his horse, and wondering in his heart if indeed Maud Lindesay were looking down from her chamber window. As they passed the drawbridge he turned him about in his saddle, as it were, to see that his men rode all in good order. A little jet of white fluttered quickly from the sparred wooden gallery which clung to the grey walls of Thrieve, just outside the highest story. And the young man's heart told him that this was the atonement of Mistress Maud Lindesay.
Earl Douglas was in his gayest humour on this second day of the great tourneying. He had got rid of his most troublesome guests. His uncle James of Avondale, his red cousin of Angus, the grave ill-assorted figure of the Abbot of Dulce Cor, had all vanished. Only the young and chivalrous remained,—his cousins, William and James, Hugh and Archibald, good lances all and excellent fellows to boot. It was also a most noble chance that the French ambassador was confined by the quinsy, for it was certainly pleasant to ride out alone with that beauteous head glancing so near his shoulder, to watch at will the sun crimsoning yet more the red lips, sparkling in the eyes that were bright as sunshine slanting through green leaves on a water-break, and to mark as he fell a pace behind how every hair of that luxuriant coif rippled golden and separate, like a halo of Florentine work about the head of a saint.
The Lady Sybilla de Thouars was merry also, but with what a different mirth to that of Mistress Maud Lindesay—at least so thought Captain Sholto MacKim, with a conscious glow of pride in his own Scottish sweetheart.
True, Sholto was scarce a fair judge in that he loved one and did not love the other. He owned to himself in a moment of unusual candour that there might be something in that. But when the gay tones of the lady's laughter floated back on the air, as his master and she rode forward by the edge of Dee towards the Lochar Fords, the first fear with which he had looked upon her in the greenwood returned upon the captain of the guard.
Earl William and the Lady Sybilla talked together that which no one else could hear.
"So after all you have not become a churchman and gone off to drone masses with the monks of your good uncle?" she said, looking up at him with one of her lingering, drawing glances.
"Nay," Earl William answered; "surely one Douglas at the time is gift enough to holy church. At least, I can choose my own way in that, though in most things I am as straitly constrained as the King himself."
"Speaking of the King," she said, "my uncle the Marshal must perforce ride to Edinburgh to deliver his credentials. Would it not be a most mirthful jest to ride with equipage such as this to that mongrel poverty-stricken Court, and let the poor little King and his starved guardian see what true greatness and splendour mean?"
"I have sworn never again to enter Edinburgh town," said the Earl, slowly; "it was prophesied that thereone of my race must meet a black bull which shall trample the house of Douglas into ruins."
"Of course, if the Earl of Douglas is afraid—" mused the lady. The young man started as if he had been stung.
"Madame," he said with a sudden chill hauteur, "you come from far and do not know. No Douglas has ever been afraid throughout all their generations."
The lady turned upon him with a sweet and moving smile. She held out her fair hand.
"Pardon—nay, a thousand pardons. I knew not what I said. I am not acquainted with your Scottish speech nor yet with your Scottish customs. Do not be angry with me; I am a stranger, young, far from my own people and my own land. Think me foolish for speaking thus freely if you like, but not wilfully unkind."
And when the Earl looked at her, there were tears glittering in her beautiful eyes.
"Iwillgo to Edinburgh," he cried. "I am the Douglas. The Tutor and the Chancellor are but as two straws in my hand, a longer and a shorter. I fling them from me—thus!"
The Lady Sybilla clapped her hands joyously and turned towards the young man. "Will you indeed go with me?" she cried. "Will you truly? I could kiss your hand, my Lord Douglas, you make me so glad."
"Your kiss will keep," said the Earl, with a quiet passion quivering in his voice.
"Nay, I meant it not thus—not as you mean it. I knew not what I said. But it will indeed change all things for me if you do but come. Then I shall have some one to speak with—some one with whom to laughat their pitiful Court mummery, their fiasco of dignity. You are not like these other beggarly Scots, my Lord Duke of Touraine."
"They are brave men and loyal gentlemen," said the generous young Earl. "They would die for me."
"Nay, but so I declare would I," gaily cried the lady, glancing at his handsome head with a quick admiring regard. "So would I—if I were a man. Besides, there is so little worth living for in a country such as this."
The Earl was silent and she proceeded.
"But how joyous we shall be at Edinburgh! Know you that at the Court of Charles that was my name—La Joyeuse they called me. We will keep solemn countenances, you and I, while we enter the presence of the King. We will bow. We will make obeisances. Then, when all is over, we will laugh together at the fatted calf of a Tutor, the cunning Chancellor with his quirks of law, and the poor schoolboy scarce breeched whom they call King of Scotland. But all the while I shall be thinking of the true King of Scots—who alone shall ever be King to me—"
At this point La Joyeuse broke off short, as if her feelings were hurrying her to say more than she had intended.
"I did wrong to flout their messengers yesterday," said William Douglas, his boyish heart misgiving him at dispraise of others; "perhaps they meant me well. But I am naturally quick and easily fretted, and the men annoyed me with their parchments royal, their heralds-of-the-Lion, and the 'King of Scots' at every other word."
"Who is the youth who rides at the head of your company?" said the Lady Sybilla.
"His name is Sholto MacKim, and it was but yesterday that I made him captain of my guard," answered the Earl.
"I like him not," said the Lady Sybilla; "he is full of ignorance and obstinacy and pride. Besides which, I am sure he loves me not."
"Save that last, I am not sure that a Douglas has a right to dislike him for any such faults. Ignorance, obstinacy, and pride are, indeed, good old Galloway virtues of the ancientest descent, and not to be despised in the captain of an archer guard."
"And pray, sir, what may be the ill qualities which, in Captain Sholto, make up for these excellent Scottish virtues?" asked the lady, disdainfully.
"He is faithful—" began the Earl.
"So is every dog!" interjected Sybilla de Thouars.
The Earl laughed a little gay laugh.
"There is one dog somewhere about the castle, licking an unhealed sword-thrust, that wishes our Sholto had been a trifle less faithful."
The Lady Sybilla sat silent in her saddle for a space; then, striking abruptly into a new subject, she said, "Do you defend the lists to-day?"
"Nay," answered the Earl, "to-day it is my good fortune to sit by your side and hold the truncheon while others meet in the shock. But the knight who this day gains the prize, to-morrow must choose a side against me and fight amêlée."
"Ah," cried the girl, "I would that my uncle were healed of his quinsy. He loveth that sport. He saysthat he is too old to defend his shield all day against every comer, but in themêléehe is still as good a lance as when he rode by the side of the Maid over the bridge of Orleans."
"That is well thought of," cried the Earl; "he shall lead the Knights of the Blue in my place."
"Nay, my Lord Duke," cried the Lady Sybilla, "more than anything on earth I desire to see you bear arms on the field of honour."
"Oh, I am no great lance," replied the Douglas, modestly; "I am yet too young and light. As things go now, the butterfly cannot tilt against the beef barrel when both are trussed into armour. But with the bare sword I will fight all day and be hungry for more. Aye, or rattle a merry rally with the quarter-staff like any common varlet. But at both Sholto there is my master, and doth ofttimes swinge me tightly for my soul's good."
The lady went on quickly, as if avoiding any further mention of Sholto's name.
"Nevertheless, to-morrow I must see you ride in the lists. My uncle says that your father was a mighty lance when he rode at Amboise, on the famous day of the Thirteen Victories."
"Ah, but my father was twice the man that I am," said the Earl, who had not taken his eyes from her face since she began to speak.
"Great alike in love and war?" she queried, smiling.
"So, at least, it is reported of him in Touraine," answered his son, smiling back at her.
"He loved and rode away, like all your race!" cried the girl, with a strange sudden flicker of passion which died as suddenly. "But I think it not of you, LordWilliam. I know you could be true—that is, where you truly loved."
And as she spoke she looked at him with a questioning eagerness in her eyes which was almost pitiful.
"I do love and I am loyal," said the young man, with a grave quiet which became him well, and ought to have served him better with a woman than many protestations.