"In time past I have dreamed," she thought to herself, "that I loved this one and that; but it was not at all like this. I cannot put him out of my mind for a moment, even when I would!"

As the brothers William and David Douglas crossed the rough bridge of pine thrown over the narrows of the Dee, they looked back simultaneously. Their mother stood on the green moat platform of Thrieve, with their little sister Margaret holding up her train with a pretty modesty. She waved not a hand, fluttered no kerchief of farewell, only stood sadly watching the sons with whom she had travailed, like one who watches the dear dead borne to their last resting-place.

"So," she communed, "even thus do the women of the Douglas House watch their beloveds ride out of sight. And so for many times they return through the ford at dawn or dusk. But there cometh a night when every one of us watches the grey shallows to the east for those that shall return no more!"

"See, see!" cried the little Margaret, "look, dear mother, they have taken off their caps, and even Sholto hath his steel bonnet in his hand. They are bidding us farewell. I wish Maudie had been here to see. I wonder where she has hidden herself. How surprised she will be to find that they are gone!"

It was a true word that the little Maid of Galloway spoke, for, according to the pretty custom of the young Earl, the cavalcade had halted ere they plunged into the woods of Kelton. The Douglas lads took their bonnets in their hands. Their dark hair was stirred by the breeze. Sholto also bared his head and looked towards the speck of white which he could just discern on the summit of the frowning keep.

"Shall ever her eyelashes rise and fall again for me, and shall I see the smile waver alternately petulant and tender upon her lips?"

This was his meditation. For, being a young man in love, these things were more to him than matins and evensong, king or chancellor, heaven or hell—as indeed it was right and wholesome that they should be.



CHAPTER XXIX

CASTLE CRICHTON

Crichton Castle was much more a defenced chateau and less a feudal stronghold than Thrieve. It stood on a rising ground above the little Water of Tyne, which flowed clear and swift beneath from the blind "hopes" and bare valleys of the Moorfoot Hills. But the site was well chosen both for pleasure and defence. The ground fell away on three sides. Birch, alder, ash, girt it round and made pleasant summer bowers everywhere.

The fox-faced Chancellor had spent much money on beautifying it, and the kitchens and larders were reported to be the best equipped in Scotland. On the green braes of Crichton, therefore, in due time the young Douglases arrived with their sparse train of thirty riders. Sir William Crichton had ridden out to meet them across the innumerable little valleys which lie around Temple and Borthwick to the brow of that great heathy tableland which runs back from the Moorfoots clear to the Solway.

With him were only the Marshal de Retz and his niece, the Lady Sybilla.

Not a single squire or man-at-arms accompanied these three, for, as the Chancellor well judged, there was no way more likely effectually to lull the suspicions of a gallant man like the Douglas than to forestall him in generous confidence.

The three sat their horses and looked to the south for their guests at that delightsome hour of the summer gloaming when the last bees are reluctantly disengaging themselves from the dewy heather bells and the circling beetles begin their booming curfew.

"There they come!" cried de Retz, suddenly, pointing to a few specks of light which danced and dimpled between them and the low horizon of the south, against which, like a spacious armada, leaned a drift of primrose sunset clouds.

"There they come—I see them also!" said the Lady Sybilla, and suddenly sighed heavily and without cause.

"Where, and how many?" cried the Chancellor, in a shrill pipe usually associated with the physically deformed, but which from him meant no more than anxious discomposure.

The marshal pointed with the steady hand of the practised commander to the spot at which his keen eye had detected the cavalcade.

"Yonder," he said, "where the pine tree stands up against the sky."

"And how many? I cannot see them, my eyesight fails. I bid you tell me how many," gasped the Chancellor.

The ambassador looked long.

"There are, as I think, no more than twenty or thirty riders."

Instantly the Chancellor turned and held out his hand.

"We have him," he muttered, withdrawing it again as soon as he saw that the ambassador did not take it, being occupied gazing under his palm at the approaching train of riders.

The Lady Sybilla sat silent and watched the company which rode towards them—with what thoughts in her heart, who shall venture to guess? She kept her head studiously averted from the Marshal de Retz, and once when he touched her arm to call attention to something, she shuddered and moved a little nearer to the Chancellor. Nevertheless, she obeyed her companion implicitly and without question when he bade her ride forward with them to receive the Chancellor's guests.

Crichton took it on himself to rally the girl on her silence.

"Of what may you be thinking so seriously?" he said.

"Of thirty pieces of silver," she replied instantly.

And at these words the marshal turned upon the girl a regard so black and relentless that the Chancellor, happening to encounter it, shrank back abashed, even as some devilkin caught in a fault might shrink from the angry eyes of the Master of Evil.

But the Lady Sybilla looked calmly at her kinsman.

"Of what do you complain?" he asked her.

"I complain of nothing," she made him answer. "I am that which I am, and I am that which you have made me, my Lord of Retz. Fear not, I will do my part."

Right handsome looked the young Earl of Douglas, as with a flush of expectation and pleasure on his face he rode up to the party of three who had come out to meet him. He made his obeisance to Sybilla first, with a look of supremest happiness in his eyes which many women would have given their all to see there. As he came close he leaped from his horse, and advancing to his lady he bent and kissed her hand.

"My Lady Sybilla," he said, "I am as ever your loyal servant."

The Chancellor and the ambassador had both dismounted, not to be outdone in courtesy, and one after the other they greeted him with what cordiality they could muster. The narrow, thin-bearded face of the Chancellor and the pallid death-mask of de Retz, out of which glittered orbs like no eyes of human being, furnished a singular contrast to the uncovered head, crisp black curls, slight moustache, and fresh olive complexion of the young Earl of Douglas.

And as often as he was not looking at her, the eyes of the Lady Sybilla rested on Lord Douglas with a strange expression in their deeps. The colour in her cheek came and went. The vermeil of her lip flushed and paled alternate, from the pink of the wild rose-leaf to the red of its autumnal berry.

But presently, at a glance from her kinsman, Sybilla de Thouars seemed to recall herself with difficulty from a land of dreams, and with an obvious effort began to talk to William Douglas.

"Whom have you brought to see me?" she said.

"Only a few men-at-arms, besides Sholto my squire, and my brother David," he made answer. "I did not wait for more. But let me bring the lad to you. Sholto you did not like when he was a plain archer of the guard, and I fear that he will not have risen in your grace since I dubbed him knight."

David Douglas willingly obeyed the summons of his brother, and came forward to kiss the hand of the Lady Sybilla.

"Here, Sholto," cried his lord, "come hither, man. It will do your pride good to see a lady who avers that conceit hath eaten you up."

Sholto came at the word and bowed before the French damosel as he was commanded, meekly enough to all outward aspect. But in his heart he was saying over and over to himself words that consoled him mightily: "A murrain on her! The cozening madam, she will never be worth naming on the same day as Maud Lindesay!"

"Nay," cried the Lady Sybilla, laughing; "indeed, I said not that I disliked this your squire. What woman thinks the worse of a lad of mettle that he does not walk with his head between his feet. But 'tis pity that there is no fair cruel maid to bind his heart in chains, and make him fetch and carry to break his pride. He thinks overmuch of his sword-play and arrow skill."

"He must go to France for that humbling," said the Earl, gaily, "or else mayhap some day a maid may come from France to break his heart for him. The like hath been and may be again."

"I would that I had known there were such gallant blades as you three, my Lords of Douglas and their knight, sighing here in Scotland to have your hearts broke for the good of your souls. I had then brought with me a tierce of damsels fair as cruel, who had done it in the flashing of a swallow's wing. But 'tis a contract too great for one poor maid."

"Yet you yourself ventured all alone into this realm of forlorn and desperate men," answered the Earl, scarcely recking what he said, nor indeed caring so that her dark eyes should continue to rest on him with the look he had seen in them at his first coming.

"All alone—yes, much, much alone," she answered with a strange glance about her. "My kinsman loves not womankind, and neither in his castles nor yet in his company does he permit any of the sex long to abide."

The men now mounted again, and the three rode back in the midst of the cavalcade of Douglas spears, the Chancellor talking as freely and confidently to the Earl as if he had been his friend for years, while the Earl of Douglas kept up the converse right willingly so long as, looking past the Chancellor, his eyes could rest also upon the delicately poised head and graceful form of the Lady Sybilla.

And behind them a horse's length the Marshal de Retz rode, smiling in the depths of his blue-black beard, and looking at them out of the wicks of his triangular eyes.

Presently the towers of the Castle of Crichton rose before them on its green jutting spur. The Tyne Valley sank beneath into level meads and rich pastures, while behind the Moorfoots spread brown and bare without prominent peaks or distinguished glens, but nevertheless with a certain large vagueness and solemnity peculiarly their own.

The fetes with which the Chancellor welcomed his guests were many and splendid. But in one respect they differed from those which have been described at Castle Thrieve. There was no military pomp of any kind connected with them. The Chancellor studiously avoided all pretence of any other distinction than that belonging to a plain man whom circumstances have raised against his will to a position of responsibility.

The thirty spears of the Earl's guard, indeed, constituted the whole military force within or about the Castle of Crichton.

"I am a lawyer, my lord, a plain lawyer," he said; "all Scots lawyers are plain. And I must ask you to garrison my bit peel-tower of Crichton in a manner more befitting your own greatness, and the honour due to the ambassador of France, than a humble knight is able to do."

So Sholto was put into command of the court and battlements of the castle, and posted and changed guard as though he had been at Thrieve, while the Chancellor bustled about, affecting more the style of a rich and comfortable burgess than that of a feudal baron.

"'Tis a snug bit hoose," he would say, dropping into the countryside speech; "there's nocht fine within it from cellar to roof tree, save only the provend and the jolly Malmsey. And though I be but a poor eater myself, I love that my betters, who do me the honour of sojourning within my gates, should have the wherewithal to be merry."

And it was even as he said, for the tables were weighted with delicacies such as were never seen upon the boards of Thrieve or Castle Douglas.



CHAPTER XXX

THE BOWER BY YON BURNSIDE

And ever as he gazed at her the Earl of Douglas grew more and more in love with the Lady Sybilla. There was no covert side through which a burn plunged downward from the steep side of Moorfoot, but they wandered it alone together. Early and late they might have been met, he with his face turned upon her, and she looking straight forward with the same inscrutable calm. And all who saw left them alone as they took their way to gather flowers like children, or, as it might be, stood still and silent like a pair of lovers under the evening star. For in these summer days and nights bloomed untiringly the brief passion-flower of William Douglas's life.

Meanwhile Sholto gritted his teeth in impotent rage, but had nothing to do save change guard and keep a wary eye upon the Chancellor, who went about rubbing his hands and glancing sidelong as the copses closed behind the Earl of Douglas and the Lady Sybilla. As for the ambassador of France, he was, as was usual with him, much occupied in his own chamber with his servants Poitou and Henriet, and save when dinner was served in hall appeared little at the festivities.

Sholto wished at times for the presence of his father; but at others, when he saw William Douglas and Sybilla return with a light on their faces, and their eyes large and vague, he bethought him of Maud Lindesay, and was glad that, for a little at least, the sun of love should shine upon his lord.

It was in the gracious fulness of the early autumn, when the sheaves were set up in many a park and little warded holt about the Moorfoot braes, that William Douglas and Sybilla de Thouars stood together upon a crest of hill, crowned with dwarf birch and thick foliaged alder—a place in the retirement of whose sylvan bower they had already spent many tranced hours.

The Lady Sybilla sat down on a worn grey rock which thrust itself through the green turf. William Douglas stood beside her pulling a blade of bracken to pieces. The girl had been wearing a broad flat cap of velvet, which in the coolness of the twilight she had removed and now swung gently to and fro in her hand as she looked to the north, where small as a toy and backed by the orange glow of sunset, the Castle of Edinburgh could be seen black upon its wind-swept ridge. The girl was speaking slowly and softly.

"Nay, Earl Douglas," she said, "marriage must not be named to Sybilla de Thouars, certainly never by an Earl of Douglas and Duke of Touraine. He must wed for riches and fair provinces. His house is regal already. He is better born than the King, more powerful also. The daughter of a Breton squire, of a forlorn and deserted mother, the kinswoman of Gilles de Retz of Machecoul and Champtoce, is not for him."

"A Douglas makes many sacrifices," said the young man with earnestness; "but this is not demanded of him. Four generations of us have wedded for power. It is surely time that one did so for love."

The girl reached him her hand, saying softly: "Ah, William, would that it had been so. Too late I begin to think on those things which might have been, had Sybilla de Thouars been born under a more fortunate star. As it is I can only go on—a terror to myself and a bane to others."

The young man, absorbed in his own thoughts, did not hear her words.

"The world itself were little to give in order that in exchange I might possess you," he answered.

The girl laughed a strange laugh, and drew back her hand from his.

"Possess me, well—but marry me—no. Honest men and honourable like Earl Douglas do not wed with the niece of Gilles de Retz. I had thought my heart within me to be as flint in the chalk, yet now I pray you on my knees to leave me. Take your thirty lances and your young brother and ride home. Then, safe in your island fortress of Thrieve, blot out of your heart all memory that ever you found pleasure in a creature so miserable as Sybilla de Thouars."

"But," said the young Earl, passionately, "tell me why so, my lady. I do not understand. What obstacle can there be? You tell me that you love me, that you are not betrothed. Your kinsman is an honourable man, a marshal and an ambassador of France, a cousin of the Duke of Brittany, a reigning sovereign. Moreover, am not I the Douglas? I am responsible to no man. William Douglas may wed whom he will—king's daughter or beggar wench. Why should he not join with the honourable daughter of an honourable house, and the one woman he has ever loved?"

The girl let her velvet cap fall on the ground, and sank her face between her hands. Her whole body was shaken with emotion.

"Go—go," she cried, starting to her feet and standing before him, "call out your lances and ride home this night. Never look more upon the face of such a thing as Sybilla de Thouars. I bid you! I warn you! I command you! I thought I had been of stone, but now when I see you, and hear your words, I cannot do that which is laid upon me to do."

William of Douglas smiled.

"I cannot go," he said simply, "I love you. Moreover, I will not go—I am Earl of Douglas."

The girl clasped her hands helplessly.

"Not if I tell you that I have deceived you, led you on?" she said. "Not if I swear that I am the slave of a power so terrible that there are no words in any language to tell the least of the things I have suffered?"

The Earl shook his head. The girl suddenly stamped her foot in anger. "Go—go, I tell you," she cried; "stay not a day in this accursed place, wherein no true word is spoken and no loyal deed done, save those which come forth from your own true heart."

"Nay," said William Douglas, with his eyes on hers, "it is too late, Sybil. I have kissed the red of your lips. Your head hath lain on my breast. My whole soul is yours. I cannot now go back, even if I would. The boy I have been, I can be no more for ever."

The girl rose from the stone on which she had been sitting. There was a new smile in her eyes. She held out her hands to the youth who stood so erect and proud before her. "Well, at the worst, William Douglas," she said, "you may never live to wear a white head, but at least you shall touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, taste the fruitage and smell the blossoms thereof more than a hundred greybeards. I had not thought that earth held anywhere such a man, or that aught but blackness and darkness remained this side of hell for one so desolate as I. I have bid you leave me. I have told you that which, were it known, would cost me my life. But since you will not go,—since you are strong enough to stand unblenching in the face of doom,—you shall not lose all without a price."

She opened her arms wide, and her eyes were glorious.

"I love you," she said, her lips thrilling towards him, "I love you, love you, as I never thought to love any man upon this earth."



CHAPTER XXXI

THE GABERLUNZIE MAN

The next morning the Chancellor came down early from his chamber, and finding Earl Douglas already waiting in the courtyard, he rubbed his hands and called out cheerfully: "We shall be more lonely to-day, but perhaps even more gay. For there are many things men delight in which even the fairest ladies care not for, fearing mayhap some invasion of their dominions."

"What mean you, my Lord Chancellor?" said the Douglas to his host, eagerly scanning the upper windows meanwhile.

"I mean," said the Chancellor, fawningly, "that his Excellency, the ambassador of France, hath ridden away under cloud of night, and hath taken his fair ward with him."

The Earl turned pale and stood glowering at the obsequious Chancellor as if unable to comprehend the purport of his words. At last he commanded himself sufficiently to speak.

"Was this resolution sudden, or did the Lady Sybilla know of it yesternight?"

"Nay, of a surety it was quite sudden," replied the Chancellor. "A message arrived from the Queen Mother to the Marshal de Retz requesting an immediate meeting on business of state, whereupon I offered my Castle of Edinburgh for the purpose as being more convenient than Stirling. So I doubt not that they are all met there, the young King being of the party. It is, indeed, a quaint falling out, for of late, as you may have heard, the Tutor and the Queen have scarce been of the number of my intimates."

The Earl of Douglas appeared strangely disturbed. He paid no further attention to his host, but strode to and fro in the courtyard with his thumbs in his belt, in an attitude of the deepest meditation.

The Chancellor watched him from under his eyebrows with alternate apprehension and satisfaction, like a timid hunter who sees the lion half in and half out of the snare.

"I have a letter for you, my Lord Douglas," he said, after a long pause.

"Ah," cried Douglas, with obvious relief, "why did you not tell me so at first. Pray give it me."

"I knew not whether it might afford you pleasure or no," answered the Chancellor.

"Give it me!" cried Douglas, imperiously, as though he spoke to an underling.

Sir William Crichton drew a square parcel from beneath his long-furred gown, and handed it to William Douglas, who, without stepping back, instantly broke the seal.

"Pshaw," cried he, contemptuously, "it is from the Queen Mother and Alexander Livingston!"

He thought it had been from another, and his disappointment was written clear upon his face.

"Even so," said the Chancellor, suavely; "it was delivered by the same servant who brought the message which called away the ambassador and his companion."

The Earl read it from beginning to end. After the customary greetings and good wishes the letter ran as follows:

"The King greatly desires to see his noble cousin of Douglas at the castle of Edinburgh, presently put at his Majesty's disposal by the High Chancellor of Scotland. Here in this place are now assembled all the men who desire the peace and assured prosperity of the realm, saving the greatest of all, my Lord and kinsman of Douglas. The King sends affectionate greeting to his cousin, and desires that he also may come thither, that the ambassador of France may carry back to his master a favourable report of the unity and kindly governance of the kingdom during his minority."

The Chancellor watched the Earl as he read this letter. To one more suspicious than William Douglas it would have been clear that he was himself perfectly acquainted with the contents.

"I am bidden meet the King at the Castle of Edinburgh," said Douglas; "I will set out at once."

"Nay, my lord," said Crichton, "not this day, at least. Stay and hunt the stag on the braes of Borthwick. My huntsmen have marked down a swift and noble buck. To-morrow to Edinburgh an you will!"

"I thank you, Sir William," the Douglas answered, curtly enough; "but the command is peremptory. I must ride to Edinburgh this very day."

"I pray you remember that Edinburgh is a turbulent city and little inclined to love your great house. Is it, think you, wise to go thither with so small a retinue?"

The Earl waved his hand carelessly.

"I am not afraid," he said; "besides, what harm can befall when I lodge in the castle of the Lord Chancellor of Scotland?"

Crichton bowed very low.

"What harm, indeed?" he said; "I did but advise your lordship to bethink himself. I am an old man, pray remember—fast growing feeble and naturally inclined to overmuch caution. But the blood flows hot through the veins of eighteen."

Sholto, who knew nothing of these happenings, had just finished exercising his men on the smooth green in front of the Castle of Crichton, and had dismissed them, when a gaberlunzie or privileged beggar, a long lank rascal with a mat of tangled hair, and clad in a cast-off leathern suit which erstwhile some knight had worn under his mail, leaped suddenly from the shelter of a hedge. Instinctively Sholto laid his hand on his dagger.

"Nay," snuffled the fellow, "I come peaceably. As you love your lord hasten to give him this letter. And, above all, let not the Crichton see you."

He placed a small square scrap of parchment in Sholto's hand. It was sealed in black wax with a serpent's head, and from the condition of the outside had evidently been in places both greasy and grimy. Sholto put it in his leathern pouch wherein he was used to keep the hone for sharpening his arrows, and bestowed a silver groat upon the beggar.

"Thy master's life is surely worth more than a groat," said the man.

"I warrant you have been well enough paid already," said Sholto, "that is, if this be not a deceit. But here is a shilling. On your head be it, if you are playing with Sholto MacKim!"

So saying the captain of the guard strode within. He had already acquired the carriage and consequence of a veteran old in the wars.

His master was still pacing up and down the courtyard, deep in meditation. Sholto saluted the young Earl and asked permission to speak a word with him.

"Speak on, Sholto—well do you know that at all times you may say what you will to me."

"But this I desire to keep from prying eyes. My lord, there is a letter in my wallet which was given me even now by a gaberlunzie man. He declares that it concerns your life. I pray you take out my hone stone as if to look at it, and with it the letter."

The Earl nodded, as if Sholto had been making a report to him. Then he went nearer and began to finger his squire's accoutrements, finally opening his belt pouch and taking out the stone that was therein.

"Where gat you this hone!" he said, holding it to the light; "it looks not the right blue for a Water-of-Ayr stone."

Sholto answered that it came from the Parton Hills, and, as the Earl replaced it, he possessed himself of the square letter and thrust it into the bosom of his doublet.

As soon as William Douglas was alone, he broke the seal and tore open the parchment. It was written in a delicate foreign script, the characters fine and small:

"My lord, do not, I beseech you, come to Edinburgh or think of me more. Last night my Lord of Retz spied upon us and this morning he hath carried me off. Wherever you are when you receive this, turn instantly and ride with all speed to one of your strong castles. As you love me, go! We can never hope to see one another again. Forget an unfortunate girl who can never forget you."

There was no signature saving the impression of the joined serpents' heads, which he remembered as the signet of the ring he had found and given back to her on the day of the tournament.

"I will never give her up. I must see her," cried the Earl of Douglas, "and this very day. Aye, and though I were to die for it on the morrow, see her I will!"



CHAPTER XXXII

"EDINBURGH CASTLE, TOWER, AND TOWN"

It was with an anxious heart that Sholto rode out behind his master over the bald northerly slopes of the Moorfoots. For a long time David Douglas kept close to his brother, so that the captain of the guard could speak no private word. For, though he knew that nothing was to be gained by remonstrance, Sholto was resolved that he would not let his reckless master run unwarned into danger so deadly and certain.

He rode up, therefore, and craved permission to speak to the Earl, seizing an occasion when David had fallen a little behind.

"Thou art a true son of Malise MacKim, whatever thy mother may aver," cried the Earl. "I'll wager a gold angel thou art going to say something shrewdly unpleasant. That great lurdain, thy father, never asks permission to speak save when he has stilettos rankling where his honest tongue should be."

"My lord," said Sholto, "bear a word from one who loves you. Go not into this town of Edinburgh. Or at least wait till you can ride thither with three thousand lances as did your father, and his father before him."

The Earl laughed merrily and clapped his young knight on the shoulder.

"Did you not tell me the same ere we came to the Castle of Crichton, and lo! there we were ten days in the place and not a man-at-arms within miles except your own Galloway varlets! Sholto, my lad, we might have sacked the castle, rolled all the platters down the slopes into the Tyne, and sent the cooks trundling after them, for all that any one could have done to stop us. Yet here are we riding forth, feathers in our bonnets, swords by our sides, panged full of the Chancellor's good meat and drink, and at once, as soon as we are gone, Sholto MacKim begins the same old discontented corbie's croak!"

"But, my lord, 'tis a different matter yonder. The Castle of Edinburgh is a strong place with many courts and doors—a hostile city round about, not a solitary castle like Crichton. They may separate you from us, and we may be able neither to save you nor yet to die with you, if the worst comes to the worst."

"I may inform you as well soon as syne, you waste your breath, Sholto," said Earl Douglas, "and it ill becomes a young knight, let me tell you, to be so chicken-hearted. The next time I will leave you at home to hem linen for the bed-sheets. Malise is a licensed croaker, but I thought better of you, Master Sholto MacKim!"

The captain of the Earl's guard looked on the ground and his heart was distressed within him. Yet, in spite of the raillery of the Douglas, he resolved to make one more effort.

"My lord," he said, "you know not the full hatred of these men against your house. What other object save the destruction of the Douglas can have drawn together foes so deadly as Crichton and Livingston? At least, my lord, if you are set on risking your own life, send back one of us with your brother David!"

Then cried out David Douglas, who had joined them during the converse, against so monstrous a proposal.

"I will not go back in any case," said the lad; "William has the earldom and the titles. I may at least be allowed part of the fun. Sholto, if William dies without heirs and I become Earl, my first act will be to hang you on the dule tree with a raven on either side, for a slow-bellied knave and prophet of evil!"

The Earl looked at his brother and seemed to hesitate.

"There is something in what you say, Sholto."

"My lord, if the blow fall, let not your line be wholly cut off. I pray you let five good lads ride straight for Douglasdale with David in the midst—"

"Sholto," cried the boy, "I will not go back, nor be a palterer, all because you are afraid for your own skin!"

"My place is with my master," said Sholto, curtly, and the boy looked ashamed for a moment; but he soon recovered himself and returned to the charge.

"Well, then, 'tis because you want to see Maud Lindesay that you are so set on returning. I saw you kiss Maud's hand in the dark of the stairs. Aha! Master Sholto, what say you now?"

"Hold your tongue, David," cried his brother; "you might have seen him kiss yet more pleasantly, and yet do no harm. But, after all, you and I are Douglases and our star is in the zenith. We will fall together, if fall we must. Not a word more about it. David, I will race you to yonder dovecot for a golden lion."

"Done with you!" cried his brother, joyously, and in an instant spurs were into the flanks of their horses, and the young men flew thundering over the green turf, riding swiftly into the golden haze from which rose ever higher and higher the dark towers of the Castle of Edinburgh.

Past grey peel and wind-swept fortalice the young Lords of Douglas rode that autumn day, gaily as to a wedding, on their way to place themselves in the power of their house's enemies. The sea plain pursued them, flecked green and purple on their right hand. Little ships floated on the smooth surface of the firth, hardly larger in size than the boats of fisher folk, yet ships withal which had adventured into far seas and brought back rich produce into the barren lands of the Scots.

At last they entered the demesne of Holyrood, and saw the deer crouching and basking about the copses or scampering over the broomy knowes of the Nether Hill. As they came near to the Canongate Port, they saw a gallant band gaily dressed coming forth to meet them, and the Earl's eye brightened as it caught in the midst the glint of ladies' attiring.

"See, Sholto," he cried, "and repent! Yonder is not a single lance shining, and you cannot turn your grumbling head but you will see nigh two score, with a stout Douglas heart bumping under each."

"Ah," said Sholto, without joy or conviction, "but we are neither in nor yet out of this weary town of Edinburgh!"

As the cavalcade approached, there came a boy on a pony at speed towards them. He carried a switch in his hand, and with it he urged his little beast to still greater endeavours.

"The King!" cried David, cheerfully. "I heard he was a sturdy brat enough!"

And in another moment the two young men of the dominant house were taking off their bonnets to the boy who, in name at least, was their sovereign and overlord.

"Hurrah!" cried the lad, as he circled about them, reckless and irresponsible as a sea-gull, "I am so glad, so very glad you have come. I like you because you are so bold and young. I have none about me like you. You will teach me to ride a tourney. I have been hearing all about yours at Thrieve from the Lady Sybilla. I wish you had asked me. But now we shall be friends, and I will come and stay long months with you all together—that is, if my mother will let me."

All this the young King shouted as he ranged alongside of the two brothers, and rode with them towards the city.

King James II. of Scotland was at this time an open-hearted boy, with no evident mark of the treachery and jealous fury which afterwards distinguished him as a man. The schooling of Livingston, his tutor, had not yet perverted his mind (as it did too soon afterwards), and he welcomed the young Douglases as the embodiment of all that was great and knightly, noble and gallant, in his kingdom.

"Yesterday," he began, as soon as he had subdued the ardour of his frolicsome little steed to a steadier gait, varied only by an occasional curvet, "yesterday I was made to read in the Chronicles of the Kings of Scotland, and lo, it was the Douglas did this and the Douglas said that, till I cried out upon Master Kennedy, 'Enough of Douglases—I am a Stewart. Read me of the Stewarts.' Then gave Master Kennedy a look as when he laughs in his sleeve, and shook his head. 'This book concerneth battles,' said he, 'and not gear, plenishing, and tocher. The Douglas won for King Robert his crown, the Stewart only married his daughter—though that, if all tales be true, was the braver deed!' Now that was no reverent speech to me that am a Stewart, nor yet very gallant to my great-grandmother, was it, Earl Douglas?"

"It was no fine courtier's flattery, at any rate," said the Douglas, his eyes wandering hither and thither across the cavalcade which they were now meeting, in search of the graceful figure and darkly splendid head of the girl he loved.

The Lady Sybilla was not there.

"They have secluded her," he muttered, in sharp jealous anger; "'tis all her kinsman's fault. He hath the marks of a traitor and worse. But they shall not spite nor flout the Douglas."

So with a countenance grave and unresponsive he saluted Livingston the tutor, who came forth to meet him. The Chancellor was expected immediately, for he had ridden in more rapidly by the hill way in order that he might welcome his notable guests to the metropolitan residence of the Kings of Scotland.

The Castle of Edinburgh was at that time in the fulness of its strength and power. The first James had greatly enlarged and strengthened its works defensive. He had added thirty feet to the height of David's Tower, which now served as a watch-station over all the rock, and in his last days he had begun to build the great hall which the Chancellor had but recently finished.

It was here that presently the feast was set. The banquet-hall ran the width of the keep, and the raised dais in the centre was large enough to seat the whole higher baronage of Scotland, among whom (as the Earl of Douglas thought with some scorn) neither of his entertainers, Crichton and Livingston, had any right to place themselves.

But the question where the Lady Sybilla was bestowed soon occupied the Douglas more than any thought of his own safety or of the loyalty of his entertainers. Sybilla, however, was neither in the courtly cavalcade which met them at the entrance of the park, nor yet among the more numerous ladies who stood at the castle yett to welcome to Edinburgh the noble and handsome young lords of the South.

Douglas therefore concluded that de Retz, discovering some part of the love that was between them, or mayhap hearing of it from some spy or other at Crichton Castle, had secluded his sweetheart. He loosened his hand on the rein to lay it on the sword-hilt, as he thought of this cruelty to a maid so pure and fair.

Sholto kept his company very close behind him as they rode up the High-street, a gloomy defile of tall houses dotted from topmost window to pavement with the heads of chattering goodwives, and the flutter of household clothing hung out to dry.

At the first defences of the castle Douglas called Sholto and said: "Your fellows are to be lodged here on the Castle Hill. The Chancellor hath sent word that there is no room in the castle itself. For the tutor's men and King's men have already filled it to the brim."

These tidings agonised Sholto more than ever.

"My lord," he said, in a tortured whisper, "turn about your rein and we will cut our way out even yet. Do you not see that the devils would separate you from all who love you? And I shall be blamed for this in Galloway. At least, let me accompany you with half a dozen men."

"Nay," said the Earl, "such suspicion were a poor return for the Chancellor's putting himself in our hands all the days we spent with him at his Castle of Crichton. To your lodgings, Sholto, and give God thanks if there be therein a pretty maid or a dame complaisant, according to the wont of young squires and men-at-arms."

In this fashion rode the Earl of Douglas to take his first dinner in the Castle of Edinburgh. And Sholto MacKim went behind him, no man saying him nay. For his master had eyes only for one face, and that he could not see.

"But I shall find her yet," he said over and over in his heart. It was but a boyish heart, and simple, too; but all so brave and high that the gallantest and greatest gentleman in the world had not one like to it for loyalty and courage.



CHAPTER XXXIII

THE BLACK BULL'S HEAD

The banqueting-hall of Edinburgh Castle, but lately out of artificers' hands, was a noble oblong chamber reaching from side to side of the south-looking keep, begun by James I. It was decorated in the French manner with oak ceilings and panellings, all bossed and cornered with massive silver-gilt mouldings.

Save in the ordering of the repast itself there was a marked absence of ostentation. Only a soldier or two could be seen, mostly on guard at the outer gates, and Sholto, who till now had been uneasy and fearful for his master, became gradually more reassured when he saw with what care every want of the Earl and his brother was attended to, and if possible even forestalled.

The young King was in jubilant spirits, and could scarcely be persuaded to let the brothers Douglas remain a moment alone. He was resolved, he said, to have his bed brought into their chamber that he might talk to them all night of tourneys and noble deeds of arms. Never had he met with any whom he loved so much, and on their part the young Lords of Douglas became boys again, in this atmosphere of frank and boyish admiration.

It was a state banquet to which they sat down. That is, there was no hungry crowd of hangers-on clustered below the salt. To each gentleman was allotted a silver trenchard for his own use, instead of one betwixt two as was the custom. The service was ordered in the French manner, and there was manifest through all a quiet observance and good taste which won upon the Earl of Douglas. Nevertheless, his eyes still continued to range this way and that through the castle, scanning each tower, glancing up at every balcony and archway, in search of the Lady Sybilla.

In the banquet-hall the little King sat on his high chair in the midst, with the brothers of Douglas one on either side of him. He spoke loudly and confidently after the manner of a pampered boy of high spirits.

"I will soon come and visit you in return at the Castle of Thrieve. The Lady Sybilla hath told me how strong it is and how splendid are the tourneys there, as grand, she swears, as those of France."

"The Lady Sybilla is peradventure gone to her own land?" ventured Douglas, not wishing to ask a more direct question. He spoke freely, however, on all other subjects with the King, laughing and talking mostly with him, and finding little to say to the tutor Livingston or the Chancellor, who, either from humility or from fear, had taken care to interpose half a dozen knights between himself and his late guests.

"Nay," cried the young King, looking querulously at his tutor, "but, indeed, I wot not what they have done with my pretty gossip, Sybilla; I have not seen her for three weeks, save for a moment this morning. And before she went away she promised to teach me to dance a coranto in the French manner, and the trick of the handkerchief to hide a dagger in the hand."

As the Earl listened to the boy's prattle, he became more and more convinced that the Marshal de Retz, having in some way discovered their affection for each other, had removed Sybilla out of his reach. Her letter, indeed, showed clearly that she was in fear of ill-treatment both for himself and for her.

The banquet passed with courtesies much more elaborate than was usual in Scotland, but which indicated the great respect in which the Douglases were held. Between each course a servant clad in the royal colours presented a golden salver filled with clear water for the guests to wash their hands. Through the interstices of the ceiling strains of music filtered down from musicians hidden somewhere above, which sounded curiously soothing and far away.

The Chancellor bowed and drank every few minutes to the health of the Earl and his brother across the board, while the tutor sat smiling upon all with the polish of a professional courtier. In his high seat at the table end the little King chatted incessantly of the times when he could do as he pleased, and when he and his cousin of Douglas would ride together to battle and tourney, or feast together in hall.

"Be sure, then, I will not keep all these grey-beard sorners about me," he said, lowering his voice cautiously; "I will only have young gallant men like you and David there. But what comes here?"

There was a stir among the servitors at the upper end of the room. Sholto, who stood behind his master's chair, heard the skirl of the war-pipes approach nearer. It grew louder, more insistent, finally almost oppressive. The doors at either end were filled with armed men. They filed silently into the hall in dark armour, all carrying shining Lochaber axes.

Douglas leaned back in his chair, and looked nonchalantly on like a spectator of a pageant. He continued to talk to the King easily and calmly, as if he were in his own Castle of Thrieve. But Sholto saw the white and ghastly look on the face of the Chancellor, and noted his hands nervously grip the table. He observed him also lean across and confer with Livingston, who nodded like one that agrees that the moment of action has come.

At the upper end of the hall were wide folding doors which till now had been shut. These were opened swiftly, either half falling back to the wall. And through the archway came two servitors in black habits, carrying between them on a huge platter of silver a black bull's head, ghastly and ominous even in death, with staring eyeballs and matted frontlet of ensanguined hair.

"Treachery!" instantly cried Sholto, and ere the men could approach he had drawn his sword and stood ready to do battle for his lord. For throughout all Scotland a bull's head served at table is the symbol of death.

The Earl did not move or speak. He watched the progress of the men in black, who staggered under their heavy burden. David also had risen to his feet with his hand on his sword, but William Douglas sat still. Alarm, wonder, and anxiety chased each other across the face of the young King.

"What is this, Chancellor—why is the room filled with armed men?" he cried.

But Crichton had withdrawn himself behind the partisans of his soldiers, and down the long table there was not a man but had risen and bared his sword. Every eye was turned upon the young Earl. A score of men-at-arms came forward to seize him.

"Stand back on your lives!" cried Sholto, sweeping his blade about him to keep a space clear about his youthful master.

But still the Earl William sat calm and unmoved, though all others had risen to their feet and held arms in their hands.

"What means this mumming?" he said, high and clear. "If a mystery is to be played, surely it were better to put it off till after dinner."

Then through the open doorway came a voice piercing and reedy.

"The play is played indeed, William of Douglas, and the lion is now safe in the power of the dogs. How like you our kennel, most mighty lion?"

It was the voice of the Chancellor Crichton.

The young King came running from his place and threw his arms about the Earl's neck.

"I am the King," he cried; "not one of you shall touch or hurt my cousin Douglas!"

"Stand back, James," said the tutor Livingston; "the Douglas is a traitor, and you shall never reign while he rules. He and his brother must be tried for treason. They have claimed the King's throne, and usurped his authority."

Sholto MacKim turned about. In all that threatening array of armed men no friendly eye met his, and none of all he had trusted drew a blade for the Douglas. Sholto stood calculating the chances. To die like a man was easy, but how to die to some purpose seemed more difficult. He saw the King with his arm about the neck of William Douglas, who remained quietly in his place with a pale but assured countenance.

It was Sholto's only chance. With his left hand he seized the young King by the collar of his doublet, and set the point of his sword to his back between the shoulder-blades.

"Now," he cried, "let a man lay hand on my Lord Douglas and I will slay the King!"

At this there was great consternation, and but for fear of Sholto's keeping his word half a score would have rushed forward to the assistance of the boy. The scream of a woman from some concealed portal showed that the Queen Mother was waiting to witness the downfall of the mighty house which, as she had been taught, alone threatened her boy's throne.

Sholto's arm was already drawn back for the thrust, when the voice of the Earl of Douglas was heard. He had risen to his feet, and now stood easy and careless as ever, with his thumb in the blue silken sash which girt his waist.

"Sholto," he said calmly, "you forget your place. Let the King go instantly, and ask his Majesty's pardon. Set your sword again in its sheath. I am your lord. I dubbed you knight. Do as I command you."

Most unwillingly Sholto did as he was bidden, and the King, instead of withdrawing, placed himself still closer to William of Douglas.

"And now," cried the Earl, facing the array of armed men who thronged the banquet-hall, "what would ye with the Douglas? Do ye mean my death, as by the Bull's Head here on the table ye would have me believe?"

"For black treason do we apprehend you, Earl of Douglas," creaked the voice of the Chancellor, still speaking from behind his array of men-at-arms, "and because you have set yourself above the King. But we are no butchers, and trial shall ye have by your peers."

"And who in this place are the peers of the Earl of Douglas?" said the young man, haughtily.

"I will not bandy words with you, my Lord Douglas. You are overmastered. Yield yourself, therefore, as indeed you must without remeed. Deliver your weapons and submit; 'tis our will."

"My brave Chancellor," said the Earl William, still in a voice of pleasant irony, "you have well chosen your time to shame yourself. We are your invited guests, and the guests of the King of Scotland. We are here unarmed, sitting at meat with you in your own house. We have come hither unattended, trusting to the honour of these noble knights and gentlemen. Therefore my brother and I have no swords to deliver. But if, being honourable men, you stand, as is natural, upon a nice punctilio, I can satisfy you."

He turned again to Sholto MacKim.

"Give me your sword," he said. "'Tis better I should render it than you."

With great unwillingness the captain of the guard of Thrieve did as he was bidden. The Earl reversed it in his hand and held it by the point.

"And now, my Lord Chancellor, I deliver you a Douglas sword, depending upon the word of an honourable man and the invitation of the King of Scotland."

But even so the chancellor would not advance from behind the cover of his soldiery, and the Earl looked around for some one to whom to surrender.

"Will you then appoint one of your knights to whom I may deliver this weapon? Is there none who will dare to come near even the hilt of a Douglas sword? Here then, Sholto, break it over your knee and cast it upon the board as a witness against all treachery."

Sholto did as he was told, breaking his sword and casting the pieces upon the table in the place where the King of Scots had sat.

"And now, my lords, I am ready," said the Earl, and his brother David stood up beside him, looking as they faced the unbroken ring of their foes the two noblest and gallantest youths in Scotland.

At this the King caught Lord William by the hand, and, lifting up his voice, wept aloud with the sudden breaking lamentation of a child.

"My cousin, my dear cousin Douglas," he cried, "they shall not harm you, I swear it on my faith as a King."

At last an officer of the Chancellor's guard mustered courage to approach the Earl of Douglas, and, saluting, he motioned him to follow. This, with his head erect, and his usual easy grace, he did, David walking abreast of him. And Sholto, with all his heart filled with the deadly chill of hopelessness, followed them through the sullen ranks of the traitors.

And even as he went Earl Douglas looked about him every way that he might see once more her for whose sake he had adventured within the portals of death.



CHAPTER XXXIV

BETRAYED WITH A KISS

The earl and his brother were incarcerated in the lower chamber of the High Keep called David's Tower, which rose next in order eastward from the banqueting-hall, following the line of the battlements.

Beneath, the rock on which the castle was built fell away towards the Nor' Loch in a precipice so steep that no descent was to be thought of—and this indeed was the chief defence of the prison, for the window of the chamber was large and opened easily according to the French fashion.

"I pray that you permit my young knight, Sir Sholto MacKim, to accompany me," said the Earl to the officer who conducted them to their prison-house.

"I have no orders concerning him," said the man, gruffly, but nevertheless permitted Sholto to enter after the Earl and his brother.

The chamber was bare save for a prie-dieu in the angle of the wall, at which the Douglas looked with a strange smile upon his face.

"Right a propos," said he; "they have need of religion in this house of traitors."

David Douglas went to the window-seat of low stone, and bent his head into his hands. He was but a boy and life was sweet to him, for he had just begun to taste the apple and to dream of the forbidden fruit. He held his head down and was silent a space. Then suddenly he sobbed aloud with a quick, gasping noise, startling enough in that still place.

"For God's dear sake, David laddie," said his brother, going over to him, placing his hand upon his shoulder, "be silent. They will think that we are afraid."

The boy stilled himself instantly at the word, and looked up at his brother with a pale sort of smile.

"No, William, I am not afraid, and if indeed we must die I will not disgrace you. Be never feared of that. Yet I thought on our mother's loneliness. She will miss me sore, for she fleeched and pled with me not to come, yet I would not listen to her."

Sholto stood by the door, erect as if on duty at Thrieve.

"Come and sit with us," said the Earl William kindly to him, "we are no more master and servant, earl and esquire. We are but three youths that are to die together, and the axe's edge levels all. You, Sholto, are in some good chance to live the longest of the three by some half score of minutes. I am glad I made you a knight on the field of honour, Sir Sholto, for then they cannot hang you to a bough, like a varlet caught stealing the King's venison."

Sholto slowly came over to the window-seat and stood there respectfully as before, with his arms straight at his side, feeling more than anything else the lack of his sword-hilt to set his right hand upon.

"Nay, but do as I bid you," said the Earl, looking up at him; "sit down, Sholto."

And Sholto sat on the window-seat and looked forth upon the lights leaping out one after another down among the crowded gables of the town as this and that burgher lit lamp or lantern at the nearing of the hour of supper.

Far away over the shore-lands the narrow strip of the Forth showed amethystine and mysterious, and farther out still the coast of Fife lay in a sort of opaline haze.

"I wonder," said William Douglas, after a long pause, "what they have done with our good lads. Had they been taken or perished we had surely heard more noise, I warrant. Two score lads of Galloway would not give up their arms without a tulzie for it."

"They might induce them to leave them behind, when they went out to take their pleasures among the maids of the Lawnmarket," said Sholto.

"Not their swords," said the Earl, "it needed all your lord's commands to make yours quit your side. I warrant these fellows will give an excellent account of themselves."

Presently the night fell darker, and a smurr of rain drifted over from the edges of Pentland, mostly passing high above, but with lower fringes that dragged, as it were, on the Castle Rock and the Hill of Calton.

The three young men were still silently looking out when suddenly from the darkness underneath there came a low voice.

"'Ware window!" it said, "stand back there above."

To Sholto the words sounded curiously familiar, and almost without thinking what he did, he seized the Earl and his brother and dragged them away from the wide space of the lattice, which opened into the summer's night.

"'Ware window!" came again the cautious voice from far below. Sholto heard the whistle and "spat" of an arrow against the wall without. It must have fallen again, for the voice 'came a third time—"'Ware window!"

And on this occasion the archer was successful, guided doubtless by the illumination of the lantern the guard had hung on a nail, and whose flicker would outline the lattice faintly against the darkness of the wall.

An arrow entered with a soft hiss. It struck beyond them with a click, and its iron point tinkled on the floor, the plaster of the opposite wall not holding it.

Sholto scrambled about the floor on hands and knees till he found it. It was a common archer's arrow. A cord was fastened about it, and a note stuck in the slit along with the feather.

"It is my brother Laurence," whispered Sholto. "I warrant he is beneath with a rope and a posse of stout fellows. We shall escape them yet."

But even as he raised the letter to read it by the faint blue flicker of the lantern, there came a cry of pain from within the castle. It was a woman's voice that cried, and at the sound of pleading speech in some chamber above them, William Douglas started to his feet.

The words were clear enough, but in a language not understood by Sholto MacKim. They seemed intelligible enough, however, to the Earl.

"I knew it," he cried; "the false hounds have imprisoned her also. It is Sybilla's voice. God in heaven—they are torturing her!"

He ran to the door and shook it vehemently.

"Ho! Without there!" he cried imperiously, as if in his own Castle at Thrieve.

But no one paid any attention to his shouts, and presently the woman's voice died down to a slow sobbing which was quite audible in the room beneath, where the three young men listened.

"What did she say?" asked David, presently, of his brother, who still stood with his ear to the door.

The Earl first made a gesture commanding silence, and then, hearing nothing more, he came slowly over to the window. "It is the Lady Sybilla," he said, in a voice which revealed his deep emotion. "She said, in the French language, 'You shall not kill him. You shall not! He trusted me and he shall not die.'"

Meanwhile Sholto, knowing that there was no time to lose, had been drawing in the cord, which presently thickened into a rope stout enough to support the weight of a light and active youth such as any of the three young men imprisoned in David's Tower.

But the sound of the woman's tears had thrown the Earl into an excitement so extreme that he hammered on the great bolt-studded door with his bare clenched hands, and cried aloud to the Chancellor and Livingston, commanding them to open to him. His first calmness seemed completely broken up.

Meanwhile Sholto, his whole soul bent on the cord which gave the unseen Douglases a chance of saving the lives of their masters, had drawn thirty yards of stout rope into the room. He fixed it by a double knot, first to a ring which was let into the wall, and afterwards to the massive handle of the door itself.

"Now, my lord," he whispered, as he finished, "be pleased to go first. Our lads are beneath, and in the shaking of a cow's tail we shall be safe in the midst of them."

The Earl held up his hand with the quick imperative motion he used to command silence. The sound of the woman's voice came again from above, now quick and high, like one who makes an agonised petition, and now in tones lower that seemed broken with sobs and lamentations.

At first William Douglas did not appear to comprehend the meaning of Sholto's words, being so bent on his listening. But when the young captain of the guard again reminded him that the time of their chances for relief was quickly passing, and that the soldiers of the Chancellor might come at any moment to lead them to their doom, the Earl broke out upon him in sudden anger.

"For what crawling thing do you take me, Sholto MacKim?" he cried; "I will not leave this place till I know what they have done with her. She trusted me, and shall I prove a recreant? I would have you know that I am William, Earl of Douglas, and fear not the face of any Crichton that ever breathed. Ho—there—without!" and again he shook the door with ineffectual anger.

His only answer was the sound of that beseeching woman's voice, and the measured tread of the sentry, whose partisan they could see flashing in the lamplight through the narrow barred wicket, as he turned in front of their door.

And it was now all in vain that Sholto pled with his master. To every argument Lord Douglas replied, "I cannot go—it consorts not with mine honour to leave this castle so long as the Lady Sybilla is in their hands."

Sholto told him how they could now escape, and in a week would raise the whole of the south, returning to the siege of the castle and the destruction of the traitors Crichton and Livingston. But even to this the Earl had his answer.

"What—flee like a coward and leave this girl, who has loved and trusted me, defenceless in their hands! You yourself have heard her weeping. I tell you I cannot go—I will not go. Let David and you escape! My place is here, and neither snivelling Crichton nor that backstairs lap-dog Livingston shall say that they took the Earl of Douglas, and that he fled from them under cloud of night."

David Douglas had been standing by hopefully while Sholto tied the rope to the rings. At his brother's words he sat down again. William of Douglas turned about upon him.

"Go, David, I bid you. Escape, and if aught happen to me, fail not to make the traitors pay dearly for it."

But David Douglas sat still and answered not. Then Sholto, desperate of success with his master, approached David, and with gentle force would have compelled him to the window. But, at the first touch of his hand, the boy thrust him away, striking him fiercely upon the shoulder.

"Hands off!" he cried, "I also am a Douglas and no craven. I will abide by my brother to the end."

"No, my David," said the Earl, turning for a moment from the door where he had been again listening, "you shall not stay! You are the hope of our house. My mother would fret to death if aught happened to you. This is not a matter which concerns you. Go, I bid you. On me it lies, and if I must pay the reckoning, why at least only I drank the wine."

"I will not;" cried the boy; "I tell you I will bide where my brother bides and his fate shall be mine."

Then Sholto, well nigh frantic with apprehension and disappointment, went to the window and leaned out, gripping the sill with his hands.

"They will not leave the castle," he whispered as loud as he dared; "the Earl will not escape while the Lady Sybilla remains a prisoner within."

"God in heaven!" cried a stern voice from below which made Sholto start, "we shall be broken first and last upon that woman. Would to God I had slain her with my hand! Tell the Earl that if he will not come to those that wait for him underneath the tower, I, Malise MacKim, will come and fetch him like a child in my arms, even as I did from under the pine trees at Loch Roan."

And as he spoke the strain of the rope and its swaying over the window-sill proclaimed that the mighty form of the master armourer was even then on the way upwards towards the dungeon of his chief.

"Go back, I command you, Malise MacKim," he said, "go back instantly. I have made up my mind. I will not escape from the Castle of Edinburgh this night."

But Malise answered not a word, only pulled more desperately on the rope, till the sound of his labouring breath and grasping palms could be heard from side to side of the chamber.

The Earl leaned further out.

"Malise," he said, calm and clear, "you see this knife. I would not have your blood on my hands. You have been a good and faithful servant to our house. But, by the oath of a Douglas, if you come one foot farther, I will cut the rope and you shall be dashed in pieces beneath."

The master armourer stopped—not with any fear of death upon him, but lest a stroke of his master's dirk should destroy their well-arranged mode of escape.

"O Earl William, my dear lord, hear me," he said in a gasping voice, still hanging perilously between earth and heaven. "If I have indeed been a faithful servant, I beseech you come with me—for the sake of the house of Douglas and of your mother, a widow and alone."

"Go down, Malise MacKim," said the Earl, more gently; "I will speak with you only at the rope's foot."

So very unwillingly Malise went back.

"Now," said the Earl, "hearken—this will I do and no other. I will remain here and abide that which shall befall me, as is the will of God. I am bound by a tie that I cannot break. What life is to another, honour and his word must be to a Douglas. But I send your son Sholto to you. I bid him ride fast to Galloway and bring all that are faithful with speed here to Edinburgh. Go also into Douglasdale and tell my cousin William of Avondale—and if he is too late to save, I know well he will avenge me."

"O William Douglas, if indeed ye will neither fleech nor drive, I pray you for the sake of the great house to send your brother David, that the Douglases of the Black be not cut off root and branch. Remember, your mother is sore set on the lad."

"I will not go," cried David, as he heard this; "by the saints I will stand by my brother's shoulder, though I be but a boy! I will not go so much as a step, and if by force ye stir me I will cry for the guard!"

By this time the young David was leaning half out of the window, and almost shouting out his words down to the unseen Douglases beneath.

"Go, Sholto," said the Earl, setting his hand on his squire's shoulder. "You alone can ride to Galloway without drawing rein. Go swiftly and bring back every true lad that can whang bow, or gar sword-iron whistle. The Douglas must drie the Douglas weird. I would have made you a great man, Sir Sholto, but if you get a new master, he will surely do that which I had not time to perform."

"Come, Sholto," said his father, "there is a horse at the outer port. I fear the Crichton's men are warned. As it is we shall have to fight for it."

Sholto still hesitated, divided between obedience and grief.

"Sholto MacKim," said the Earl, "if indeed you owe me aught of love or service, go and do that thing which I have laid upon you. Bear a courteous greeting from me to your sweetheart Maud, and a kiss to our Maid Margaret. And now haste you and begone!"

Sholto bent a moment on his knee and kissed the hand of his young master. His voice was choked with sobs. The Earl patted him on the shoulder. "Dinna greet, laddie," he said, in the kindly country speech which comes so meltingly to all Galloway folk in times of distress, gentle and simple alike, "dinna greet. If one Douglas fall in the breach, there stands ever a better behind him."

"But never one like you, my lord, my lord!" said Sholto.

The Earl raised him gently, led him to the window, and himself steadied the rope by which his squire was to descend.

"Go!" he said; "honour keeps the Douglas here, and his brother bides with him—since not otherwise it may be. But the honour of obedience sends Sholto MacKim to the work that is given him!"

Then, after the captain of his guard had gone out into the dark and disappeared down the rope, the Earl only waited till the tension slackened before stooping and cutting the cord at the point of juncture with the iron ring.

"And now, Davie lad," he said, setting an arm about his brother's neck, "there are but you and me for it, and I think a bit prayer would not harm either of us."

So the two young lads, being about to die, kneeled down together before the cross of Him who was betrayed with a kiss.



CHAPTER XXXV

THE LION AT BAY

The morning had broken broad and clear from the east when the door of the prison-house was opened, and a seneschal appeared. He saluted the brothers, and in a shaking voice summoned them to come forth and be tried for offences of treason and rebellion against the King and his ministers.

William of Douglas waved a hand to him, but answered nothing to the summons. He wasted no words upon one who merely did as he was bidden. All night the brothers had sat looking out on the city humming sleeplessly beneath them, till the light slowly dawned over the Forth and away to the eastward Berwick Law stood dwarfed and clear. At first they had sat apart, but as the hours stole on David came a little nearer and his hand sought that of his brother, clasped it, and abode as it had been contented. The elder brother returned the pressure.

"David," he said, "if perish we must, at least you and I will show them how Douglases can die."

So when they rose to follow the seneschal who summoned them, as they left the chamber of detention and the clanking guard fell in behind them, Earl William put his hand affectionately on his young brother's shoulder and kept it there. In this wise they came into the great hall wherein yester-even the banquet of treachery had been served. The dais had been removed to the upper end of the room, and upon it in the furred robes of judges of the realm, there sat on either side of the empty throne Crichton the Chancellor and Sir Alexander Livingston. Behind were crowded groups of knights, pages, men-at-arms, and all the hangers-on of a court. But of men of dignity and place only the Marshal de Retz, ambassador of the King of France, was present.

He sat alone on a high seat ranged crosswise upon the dais. The floor in the centre of the hall was kept clear for the entrance of the brothers of Douglas.

Crichton and Livingston looked uneasily at each other as the feet of the guard conducting the prisoners were heard in the corridor without, and with a quick, apprehensive wave of his hand Crichton motioned the armed men of his guard closer about him, and gave their leader directions in a hushed voice behind his palm.

The seneschal who had summoned them strode in first, and then after a sufficient interval entered the young Lords of Douglas, William and David his brother. The elder still kept one hand affectionately on the shoulder of the younger. His other was set as usual in the silken belt which he wore about his waist, and he walked carelessly, with a high air and an easy step, like one that goes in expectantly to a pleasant entertainment.

But as soon as the brothers perceived in whose presence they were, an air of pride came over their faces and stiffened their figures into the sterner aspect of warriors who stand on the field of battle.

Some three paces before the steps of the dais on which sat the self-constituted judges was arranged a barrier of strong wooden posts tipped with iron, and two soldiers with drawn swords were on guard at either end.

The Douglases stood silent, haughtily awaiting the first words of accusation. And the face of young David was to the full as haughty and contemptuous as that of Earl William himself.

It was the Chancellor who spoke first, in his high rasping creak.

"William, Earl of Douglas, and you David, called the Master of Douglas," he began, "you are summoned hither by the King's authority to answer for many crimes of treason against his royal person—for rebellion also and the arming of forces against his authority—for high speeches and studied contempt of those who represent his sovereign Majesty in this realm, for treasonable alliances with rebel lords, and above all for swearing allegiance to another monarch, even to the King of France. What have you to say to these charges?"

The Earl of Douglas swept his eyes across the dais from side to side with a slow contempt which made the Chancellor writhe in his chair. Then after a long pause he deigned to reply, but rather like a king who grants a favour than like one accused before judges in whose hands is the power of life and death.

"I see," said he, "two knights before me on a high seat, one the King's tutor, the other his purse-bearer. I have yet to learn who constituted them judges of any cause whatsoever, still less of aught that concerns William Douglas, Duke of Touraine, Earl of Douglas, hereditary Lieutenant-Governor of the realm of Scotland."

And he kept his eyes upon them with a straight forth-looking glance, palpably embarrassing to the traitors on the dais.

"Earl Douglas," said the Chancellor again, "pray remember that you are not now in Castle Thrieve. Your six thousand horsemen wait not in the courtyard out there. Learn to be more humble and answer to the things whereof you are accused. Do you desire that witness should be brought?"

"Of what need are witnesses? I own no court or jurisdiction. I have heard no accusations!" said the Earl William.

The Chancellor motioned with his hand, whereupon Master Robert Berry, a procurator of the city, advanced and read a long parchment which set forth in phrase and detail of legality twenty accusations against the Earl,—of treason, rebellion, and manifest oppression.

When he had finished the Chancellor said, "And now, Earl Douglas, what answer have you to these things?"

"Does it matter at all what I answer?" asked the Earl, succinctly.

"I do not bandy words with you," said the Chancellor; "I order you to make your pleading, or stand within your danger."

"And yet," said William Douglas, gravely, "words are all that you dare bandy with me. Even if I honoured you by laying aside my dignities and consented to break a lance with you, you would refuse to afford me trial by battle, which is the right of every peer accused."

"'Tis a barbarous custom," said the Chancellor; "we will try your case upon its merit."

The Earl laughed a little mocking laugh.

"It will be somewhat safer," said he, "but haste you and get the sham done with. I plead nothing. I do not even tell you that you lie. What doth one expect of a gutter-dog but that it should void the garbage it hath devoured? But I do ask you, Marshal de Retz, as a brave soldier and the representative of an honourable King, what you have done with the Lady Sybilla?"

The Marshal de Retz smiled—a smile so chill, cruel, hard, that the very soldiers on guard, seeing it, longed to slay him on the spot.

"May I, in return, ask my Lord Earl of Douglas and Duke of Touraine what is that to him?" he said, with sneering emphasis upon the titles.

"It matters to me," replied William Douglas, boldly, "more than life, and almost as much as honour. The Lady Sybilla did me the grace to tell me that she loved me. And I in turn am bound to her in life and death."

The Chancellor and the tutor broke into laughter, but the marshal continued to smile his terrible smile of determinate evil.

"Listen," he said at last, "hear this, my Lord of Touraine; ever since we came to this kingdom, and, indeed, long before we left the realm of France, the Lady Sybilla intended nothing else than your deception and destruction. Poor dupe, do you not yet understand? She it was that cozened you with fair words. She it was that advised you to come hither that we might hold you in our hands. For her sake you obeyed. She was the willing bait of the trap your foes set for you. What think you of the Lady Sybilla now?"

William of Douglas did not answer in words, but as the marshal ceased speaking, he drew himself together like a lithe animal that sways this way and that before springing. His right hand dropped softly from his brother's shoulder upon the hilt of his own dagger.

Then with one sudden bound he was over the barrier and upon the dais. Almost his blade was at the marshal's throat, and but for the crossed partisans of two guards who stood on either side of de Retz, he had died there and then by the dagger of William Douglas. As it was, the youth was brought to a stand with his breast pressed vainly against the steel points, and paused there crying out in fury, "Liar and toad! Come out from behind these varlets that I may slay thee with my hand."

A score of men-at-arms approached from behind, and forced the young man back to his place.

"Bring in the Lady Sybilla," said the marshal, still smiling, while the judges sat silent and afraid at the anger of one man.

And even while the Earl stood panting after his outburst of furious anger, they opened the door at the back of the dais and through it there entered the Lady Sybilla. Instantly the eyes of William Douglas fixed themselves upon her, but she did not raise hers nor look at him. She stood at the farther side at the edge of the dais, her hands joined in front of her, and her hair streamed down her back and fell in waves over her white dress.

An angel of light coming through the open door of heaven could not have appeared more innocent and pure.

The Marshal de Retz turned towards his sister-in-law, and, with his eyes fixed upon hers and with the same pitiless chill in them, he said in a low tone, "Look at me."

The girl raised her eyes slowly, and, as it had been, reluctantly, and in them, instead of the meek calm of an angel, there appeared the terror and dismay of a lost soul that listens to its doom.

"Sybilla," hissed rather than spoke de Retz, "is it true that ever since by the lakeside of Carlinwark you met the Earl of Douglas you have deceived him and sought his doom?"

"I care not to hear the answer," said the young man, "even did I believe that which you by your power may compel her to say. Unfaith in another is not unfaith in me. I am bound to this lady in love and honour—aye, even unto death, if that be her will!"

"I have, indeed, deceived him!" replied the girl, slowly, the words seeming to be forced from her one by one.

"You hear, William of Douglas!" said the marshal, turning upon the young man, who stood still and motionless, never taking his eyes off the slender figure in white.

The marshal continued his pitiless questioning.

"At Castle Thrieve you persuaded him to follow you to Crichton and afterwards to Edinburgh, knowing well that you brought him to his death."

"It is true!" said the girl, with a voice like one speaking out of the grave itself.

"You hear, William of Douglas!" said the marshal.

"And at Castle Crichton you played the play to the end. With false cozening words you deceived this young man. You led him on with love on your lips and hate in your heart. You kissed him with the Judas kiss. You led his soul captive to death by the drawing of your eyes."

In a voice that could hardly be heard the girl replied, her whole figure fixed and turned to stone by the intensity of her tormentor's gaze.

"I did these things! I am accursed!"

The ambassador turned with a fleering triumph.

"You hear, William of Douglas," he said, "you hear what your true love says!"

Then it was that, with the calm air and steady voice of a great gentleman, William Douglas answered, "I hear, but I do not believe."

A spasm of joy passed over the countenance of the Lady Sybilla. She half sprang towards her lover as if to clasp him in her arms.

But in the midst, between intent and act, she restrained herself.

"No, I am not worthy," she said. And again, and lower, like a lamentation, "I am not worthy!"

Then, while all watched eagerly, the marshal rose from his seat to his full height.

"Girl—look at me!" he cried in a loud and terrible voice. But Sybilla did not seem to hear him.

She was looking at the Earl, and her eyes were great and grey and vague.

"Listen, my true lord, and then hate me if you will," she said; "listen, William of Douglas. Never before have I found in all the world one man true to the core. I did not believe that such an one lived. Hear this and then turn from me in loathing.

"For the sake of this man's life, forfeit ten times over" (she pointed, as she spoke, at the marshal), "to whom, by the powers of hell, my soul is bound, I came at the bidding of the King of France and of this man, my master, to compass the destruction of the Earl of Douglas. Our King's son desired his duchy, and promised to this man pardon for his evil deeds. I came to satisfy them both. On my guilty head be the punishment. It is true that I cozened and led you on. It is true that at Castle Thrieve I deceived you, knowing well that which would happen. I knew to what you would follow me, and for the sake of the evil wrought by your fathers, I was glad. But afterwards at Crichton, when, in the woods by the waterside, I told you that I loved you, I did not lie. I did love you then. And by God's grace I do love you now—yea, before all men I declare it. Once for a season of glorious forgetting, all too brief, I was yours to love, now I am yours to hate and to despise. I tried to save you, but though you had my warning you would not go back or forget me. Now it is too late!"

As she spoke over the face of William Douglas there had come a glow—the red blood flooding up and routing the white determined pallor of his cheek.

"My lady," he answered her, gently, "be not grieved for a little thing that is past. That you love me truly is enough. I ask for no more, least of all for pity. I have not lived long. I have not had time allotted me wherein to do great things, but for your sake I can die as well as any! You have given me of your love, and of the flower thereof. I am glad. That you have loved me was my crown of life. Now it remains but to pay a little price soon paid, for a joy exceeding great."

But the Chancellor had had enough of this. He rose, and, stretching forth his hand towards the barrier, he said: "William of Douglas, you and your brother are condemned to instant death as enemies of the King and his ministers. Soldiers, do your duty. Lead them forth to the block!"

And with these words he left the dais, followed by Sir Alexander Livingston. The girl stood in the place whence she had spoken her last words. Then, as the men-at-arms went shamefacedly to take the Earl by the arm, she suddenly threw herself across the platform, leaped lightly over the barrier, and fell into his arms.

"William, once I would have betrayed you," she said, "but now I love you. I will die with you—or by the great God I will live to avenge you."

"Hush, sweetheart," said William Douglas, touching her brow gently with his lips, and putting her into the arms of an officer of the court whom her uncle had sent to remove her. "Fear not for me! Death is swift and easy. I expected nothing else. That you love me is enough! Dear love, fare thee well!"

But the girl heard him not. She had fainted in the arms that held her. Yet the Marshal de Retz had still more for her to suffer. He stood beside her and dashed water upon her till she awoke, that she might see that which remained to be done.

* * * * *

It was a scene dreary beyond all power of words to tell it, when into the courtyard of the Castle of Edinburgh they brought the two noble young men forth to die. The sun had long risen, but the first flush of broad morning sunshine still lingered upon the low platform on which stood the block, and beside it the headsman sullenly waiting to do his appointed work.

The young Lords of Douglas came out looking brave and handsome as bridegrooms on a day of betrothing. William had once more his hand on David's shoulder, his other rested carelessly on his thigh as his custom was. The brothers were bareheaded, and to the eyes of those who looked on they seemed to be conversing together of light matters of love and ladies' favours.

High above upon a balcony, hung like an iron cage upon the castle wall, appeared the Chancellor and the tutor. The young King was with them, weeping and crying out, "Do nothing to my dear cousins—I command you—I am the King!"

But the tutor roughly bade him be still, telling him that he would never reign if these young men lived, and presently another came there and stood beside him. The Marshal de Retz it was, who, with a fiendish smile upon his sleek parchment face, conducted the Lady Sybilla to see the end. But it was a good end to see, and nobler far than most lives that are lived to fourscore years.

The brothers embraced as they came to the block, kneeled down, and said a short prayer like Christians of a good house. So great was their enemies' haste that they were not allowed even a priest to shrive them, but they did what they could.

The executioner motioned first to David. An attendant brought him the heading cup of wine, which it was the custom to offer to those about to die upon the scaffold.

"Drink it not," said Earl William, "lest they say it was drugged."

And David Douglas bowed his head upon the block, being only in the fifteenth year of his age.

"Farewell, brother," he said, "be not long after me. It is a darksome road to travel so young."

"Fear not, Davie lad," said William Douglas, tenderly, "I will overtake you ere you be through the first gate."

He turned a little aside that he might not see his brother die, and even as he did so he saw the Lady Sybilla lean upon the balcony paler than the dead.

Then when it came to his turn they offered the Earl William also the heading cup filled with the rich wine of Touraine, his own fair province that he was never to see.

He lifted the cup high in his right hand with a knightly and courtly gesture. Looking towards the balcony whereon stood the Lady Sybilla, he bowed to her.

"I drink to you, my lady and my love," he cried, in a voice loud and clear.

Then, touching but the rim of the goblet with his lips, he poured out the red wine upon the ground.

* * * * *

And thus passed the gallantest gentleman and truest lover in whom God ever put heart of grace to live courteously and die greatly, keeping his faith in his lady even against herself, and holding death itself sweet because that in death she loved him.



CHAPTER XXXVI

THE RISING OF THE DOUGLASES

It was upon the Earl's own charger, Black Darnaway, that Sholto rode southward to raise to their chief's assistance the greatest and compactest clan that ever, even in Scotland, had done the bidding of one man.

The young man's heart was high and hopeful within him. The King's guardians dared not, so he told himself, let aught befall the puissant Douglases in the Castle of Edinburgh, without trial and under cover of the most courteous hospitality.

"Try the Earl of Douglas!" so Sholto thought within him. He laughed at the notion. "Why, Earl William could by a word bring a hundred thousand men of Galloway and the Marches to make a fitting jury."

So he meditated, his thoughts running fast and fiery to the beating of Black Darnaway's feet as he climbed the heathery slopes which led towards Douglasdale. Day was breaking as he rode down to the town of Lanark yet asleep and smokeless in the caller airs of the morn. At the gates of this frontier town he delivered his first summons of feudality. For the burghers of Lanark were liegemen of the Douglases of Douglasdale, and were (though not with much good-will) bound to furnish service at call.

Sholto had some difficulty in making himself heard athwart the ponderous wooden gates, bossed with leather and studded with iron. At first he shouted angrily to the silences, but presently nearer and nearer came a bellow as of a brazen bull, thunderous and far echoing.

"Fower o' the clock and a braw, braw morning."

It was Grice Elshioner, watchman of the town of Lanark, evidencing to the magistrates and lieges thereof that he was earning his three shillings in the week—a handsome wage in these hard times, and one well able to provide belly-timber for himself and also for the wife and weans who, dwelling in a close off the High-street, were called by his name.

Sholto thundered again upon the rugged portal.

"Open there! Open, I say, in the name of the Earl of Douglas!"

"Fower o' the morning! Lord, what's a' the steer? In the name o' the Yerl o' Douglas! But wha kens that it isna the English? Na, na, Grice Elshioner opens not to every night-raking loon that likes to cry the name o' the Yerl o' Douglas ower oor toon wa'!"

And Grice the valorous would have taken him off with a fresh, sleep-dispelling bellow had it not been that he heard himself summoned in a voice that brooked no delay.

"Open, varlet of a watchman, or by Saint Bride I will have you swinging in half an hour from the bars of your own portcullis. I who speak am Sholto MacKim, captain of the Earl's guard. Every liegeman in the town must arm, mount, and ride this instant to Edinburgh. I give you fair warning. You hear my words, I will not enter your rascal town. But if so much as one be wanting at the muster, I swear in the name of my master that his house shall be burned with fire and razed to the ground, and his wife be a widow or ever the cock craw on another Sabbath morn!"

And without waiting for a reply Sholto laid the reins upon the neck of Black Darnaway and rode on southward up Douglas Water to the home nest of the lordly race.

And behind him, with a wail in it, blared through the narrow streets the stormy voice of Grice Elshioner, watchman of Lanark, "Wauken ye, wauken ye, burgesses a'! The Douglas hath sent to bid ye mount and ride."

The birr of the war drum saluted Sholto's ears ere he had turned the corner of the town parks. Then came the answering shouts of the burghers who thrust inquiring and indignant heads out of gable windows and turret speering-holes.

"Birr!" continued the undaunted and insistent town drum.

"Harness your backs! Fill your bellies, and stand ready! The Douglas has need o' ye, lieges a'!" cried the sonorous voice of the watch. Sholto smiled as he listened.

"I have at least set them on the alert. They will join the Douglasdale men as they pass by, or we will show them reason why. But they of Lanark are ill-set town-ward men, and of no true leal heart, save an it be to their own coffers. Yet will they march with us for fear of the harrying hand and the burning roof tree."

The sun rose fair on the battlements of Douglas Castle as Sholto rode up to the level mead, whereon a little company of men was exercising. He could hear the words of command cried gruffly in the broad Galloway speech. Landless Jock was drilling his spearmen, and as the shining triple line of points dropped to the "ready to receive," the old knight and former captain of the Earl's guard came forward a little way to welcome his successor with what grace was at his command.

"Eh, siree, and what has brocht sic a braw young knight and grand frequenter o' courts sae far as Douglas Castle? Could ye no even let puir Landless Jock hae the tilt-yaird here to exercise his handfu' in, and keep his auld banes a wee while frae the rust and the green mould?"

But even as the crusty old soldier spoke these words, the white anxiety in Sholto's face struck through his half-humorous complaint, and the words died on his lips in a perturbed "What is't—what is't ava, laddie?"

Sholto told him in the fewest words.

"The Yerl and Dawvid in the power o' their hoose's enemies. Blessed Saint Anthony, and here was I flighterin' and ragin' aboot my naethings. Here, lads, blaw the horn and cry the slogan. Fetch the horses frae the stall and stand ready in your war gear within ten minutes by the knock. Aye, faith, will we raise Douglasdale! Gang your ways to Gallowa'—there shall not a man bide at hame this day. Certes, we wull that! Ca' in the by-gaun at Lanark—aye, lad, and, gin the rascals are no willing or no ready, we will hang the provost and magistrates at their ain door-cheeks to learn them to bide frae the cried assembly o' their liege lord!"

Sholto had done enough in Douglasdale. He turned north again on a yet more important errand. It was forenoon full and broad when he halted before the little town of Strathaven, upon which the Castle of Avondale looks down. It seemed of the greatest moment that the Avondale Douglases should know that which had befallen their cousin. For no suspicion of treachery within the house and name of Douglas itself touched with a shade of shadow the mind of Sholto MacKim.

He thundered at the town-ward port of the castle (to which a steep ascent led up from a narrow vennel), where presently the outer guard soon crowded about him, listening to his story and already fingering bowstring and examining rope-matches preparatory to the expected march upon Edinburgh.