DIES IRÆ III--THE FIRST DAY OF THE WRATH
Ay, truly, it was James Douglas, all incarnadine with the blood of
battle, his own and that which his right arm had shed. His splintered
sword was glued to his hand, the finely netted reins were slashed and
cut. His good horse had found its way to Thrieve wholly of its own
accord, for its master was far past speech or guiding motion. How he
had sustained himself through the dumb agonies of that ride God only
knows; for James Douglas, who did the deed, could not tell, and,
indeed, never knew.
Without a glance at me, without a moment of hesitation, Sholto
received his master into his arms, laid him bareheaded in his hacked
mail upon the grass, sprinkled the clear water of the river upon him,
while Maud gently disengaged the englued hilt and shattered blade from
his wounded right hand.
At the first sight of him the revolt of an intolerable disgust seemed
to engulf my spirit. The reek swirled thicker, more blinding. Acrid,
hateful odours swept across me in the dun, drifting spume. For one
awful moment I felt that I could take his own knife and slay James
Douglas as he lay there--that is, if he were not dead already.
The next, clear and lambent against the last vestige of the sunset,
glowed the kirk-ridge so dear to me, that little kirk aboon Dee water
where our baby lay. There leaped a prayer up into my heart--
“_Forgive us our trespasses as we also forgive those who have
trespassed against us!_”
And, stooping, I kissed his brow, in token that I also was not outside
the forgiveness of God. Ere, however, my lips touched his flesh, there
came to me a pang of the old recoiling. I stopped, quivering. For a
moment my heart hung uncertain. Then, seeing a lock of hair cling
dankly to his broad white forehead, I kissed that hastily, and stood
erect.
Then the very peace of God seemed to visit me. The pale gold of a
saints aureole glowed behind the little kirk where the babe rested
beneath the altar, under the coffer which holds the holy bread.
Then as they bore him in, speechless, gashed out of all cognisance, on
the bier which Sholto had hastily caused them make out of bridge-spars
and birchen branches, I walked beside. And a Voice seemed to cry in my
ear, “Better than blood spilt--better than vengeance achieved--better
than just hatred justly pursued, is the forgiving of sins--for love’s
sake--for Christ’s sake!”
* * * * * * *
Yet James Douglas was not dead--no, nor yet even wounded to the death.
He had fought a great fight somewhere or somehow. More than that there
was none to us, as for ten hours he lay unconscious between death and
life. But Sholto, who was, among other things, a cunning leech (so far
at least as the wounds and contusions of battle were concerned),
faithfully cared for his master with Maud at his elbow, holding
lukewarm water in a bowl, and a bundle of seventeen-hundred linen torn
into the finest shreds. Me they would not permit to do anything for
James--though God knows they might with all safety. For I had overcome
that which had been making a canker of my heart. Hatred should no more
have dominion over me.
Still, Sholto could not be expected to know that, though Maud Lindsay
ought. So I waited, still and patient, while they dressed the wounds.
There was a terrible gash across his head, where his helmet had been
broken by the blow of some mighty sword. When this was dressed Sholto
turned his attention to the nobly formed white body of him, moistening
and washing away the stains of battle in the clear, soft Dee water
with the shredded bunch of fine linen. Then at the place where the
gorget fits upon the shoulder blade, between that and the junction
with the body armour, Sholto, gently softening and touching, came upon
something hard, driven in forcefully against the shoulder blade.
With minute skill and caution he worked it out, when, lo! the point of
a pike appeared, or perhaps the broken tip of a Lochaber axe.
Sholto looked at the fragment attentively.
“That is my father’s own weapon!” he said, gravely and softly.
“God help us all, what, then, hath befallen?” I cried.
He held in his hand the steel splinter, shaped to a point with a
curious swirl like a half-filled spindle of yarn, quite distinctive
and peculiar.
“I know my father’s forging and his private mark under the peak,” he
answered me. “It was Malise M‘Kim who drave that stroke which came
near to slay James Douglas!”
And, as if responsive to the power of the name of his adversary, the
wounded man on the bed turned as if pain-twitched, opened his eyes
without seeing any of us who were in the room, and equally without
knowing where he was. He jerked his bandaged hand upwards stiffly.
“Come and fight with me, Malise M‘Kim,” he cried, “to the death--to
the death-grip let it be! Let no man come between!”
Then, as he lay tossing, he cried again, “Lead her off the field, I
tell you! Take her to sanctuary--Archie, Hugh, little John, do you
hear? I am the Douglas! Do as I bid you!”
We looked at one another in wonderment. This was a riddle we could not
unravel.
“Either the sword-stroke on the brain or the axe-point in his shoulder
hath touched his reason,” whispered Sholto M‘Kim. “His mind wanders!”
“Not so,” said Maud Lindsay; “give him a sleeping draught, bind up his
wounds with a plaister of healing herbs, and to-morrow we shall know.”
“Let me watch by his bedside,” I said beseechingly to Maud. But this
they would not permit, saying that with so strong a man, and one so
sore wounded, nursing was strong men’s work. However, being well aware
that I would sleep none, I caused Sholto to promise that if there was
any change, or any return to consciousness, he would call me. If he
were yet alive, and the reason left in him, I had a question to ask of
James Douglas.
* * * * * * *
He slept all that night, and (Sholto refraining from calling me) I
slept also, though heavily and without refreshment. I was waiting, I
suppose, and felt the suspense even in my dreams.
Late in the evening of the next day Sholto came to my room and
knocked. I had stayed there all day behind closed bars. Maud and her
husband in the sick chamber did not need me. The babes, with their
innocent chatter, would have fretted me beyond bearing.
“My Lady Margaret,” said Sholto, “for a time at least the Earl James
is returned to himself. His desire is to see you.”
The young captain of Thrieve spoke with much dignity, almost
officially indeed, as if washing his hands of any responsibility in
the matter.
“I will come to my lord!” I answered him, as curtly. And forthwith
made me ready.
The chamber in which James Douglas lay, swathed white in manifold
bandages, was darkened. As I entered, Maud rose to go out. But I
stopped her.
“Abide, dear friends both,” I said. “Henceforth what my Lord James
says to me, he says equally to you!”
But when James Douglas turned upon me his eyes, bright with fever,
pain-stricken and pitiful, my heart, wavering, well-nigh melted within
me. But there was my question to ask. He murmured something of which
none of us could catch the meaning.
“He is just awaking!” whispered Sholto. “By and by it will come
clearer.”
James Douglas motioned me to sit down beside him. The bandaged hand in
fitful motion again looked wondrously pitiful. But there was the
question. I bent towards him. His burning eyes dimmed as if the reek
had drifted across them again.
“_Where is she?_” I whispered. These words and no more.
He did not affect to misunderstand. He knew.
“_She is dead!_” he murmured.
I stood erect with a strange buzzing in my ears. Behind me I could
hear Maud’s sudden gasping moan. Then Sholto’s “Thank God!” half
fierce, half heart-breaking.
But once more James was gone from us, his spirit again eclipsed. As a
drowning man comes to the surface to wave a farewell, so his soul
seemed to have floated up merely to give me this one signal. But
Sholto knew better.
“A cup of that white wine, the Burgundian, Maud--quick, I tell you!”
he said, in an agitated whisper.
His strong arm went about his master. It lifted him gradually till
James was half raised from his couch. He moaned a little, the new
position changing the set of his wounds.
“Drink, my lord, drink!” said Sholto, loud in his ear. And at the word
the spirit, far-wandering, or perhaps lingering near, heard and
returned. James Douglas drank. In a little while he opened his eyes
and found me sitting by the bed, at the foot. For Maud and Sholto were
to keep the head on either side, to be ready to render service, they
said.
“I--have--come! I--alone of all!” he said, slowly and painfully. “We
are broken, destroyed, we Douglases--swept from the face of the
earth!”
As he went on to speak the wine began to put in its work. A faint
flush dusked his cheek. He lifted his hand to give emphasis.
“The Red Douglas hath put down the Black!” he went on more forcibly.
“Even as He hath dealt with me, may God deal with the traitor
Douglases--George of Angus and his cousin Dalkeith, who have turned
against their father’s house!”
Sholto bent over him, forcing him gently back on the pillow.
“Hush, my lord,” he whispered. “Who talks of the Douglas of the Black
being put down while Thrieve Castle stands, and Sholto M‘Kim is the
captain thereof?”
For the first time James seemed to recognise him. Again he started up
on his elbow.
“God curse you, Sholto M‘Kim! What do you here?” he cried fiercely.
“Am I then in the hands of yet more traitors? Have I come home to die,
only to find Thrieve in the hands of mine enemy?”
At this came a look of his father upon the face of Sholto M‘Kim, the
first I had ever seen there.
“My lord,” he said, “I am no traitor, neither am I a friend of James
Douglas. But so long as the Lady Margaret remains in this her castle,
I will remain to defend it. I am her servant. According to her sole
word I will come and go.”
“Then you have separated yourself from your family in this matter,
Sholto M‘Kim?” demanded James, wondering, perhaps, at something too
high for him to comprehend.
Sholto bowed. It appeared no matter of credit to him. He did not wish
to waste words; but James Douglas persisted.
“Are you then for me or against me?” he cried, again raising himself
on his elbow. “I bid you tell me!”
“Neither for you nor yet against you,” answered Sholto, with swift
decision. “I am _for_ my liege lady, my dear mistress, in all things.
In that in which she is _for_ you, I and mine are for you. In that
wherein she is against you, I am against you!”
“But when the besiegers come to Thrieve, as they surely will, on which
side will you fight?”
“For whomsoever my lady wills,” answered Sholto. “I am her buckler, so
long as she hath need of me. But if I go forth to battle, fear not any
treachery. My father will smite me even as he hath smitten you--only
more sure and to the death! He hath sworn, and I accepted his oath!”
The face of James Douglas darkened.
“Then you know?” he cried; “you have heard the tale of Arkinholm?”
We looked at one another, and James Douglas looked at us. It was the
first time we had heard that name of fear and fate. Our countenances
answered for us.
“No, you are true folk,” he said, “you have not heard.”
He heaved himself up with a certain pride.
“Now,” he said firmly, “I can sit up and tell you. There is no
shame--_in that!_” He added the last words as if recollecting himself.
“I have the strength--give me another cup of wine. I am drained to the
white like any calf. There! Now I can speak of Arkinholm, and tell how
the Douglases of the Black can die!”