THE YOUNG MAN IN BLACK
This is the written story of the Young Man in Black to whom the king
(chiefly because he desired to cross-buttock his sometime favourites,
in order that he might show them that he and not they had the mastery)
promised on the braes above the Brigend of Dumfries the dower of his
own royal name.
He hath put the script, carefully written, into my hands, so that
those things of which I, Margaret Douglas, could not have knowledge,
looking out from the ramparts of Thrieve, might yet duly be set
down--first, for the satisfaction of those who in their time were part
of these things (now, alas, but few!), and, secondly, for the
information of generations yet to come--for all histories that have
ever been writ do lie to the detriment of the Douglases, save only
this of mine.
THE STORY OF THE YOUNG MAN IN BLACK.
_Writ at length so that it might be prentit._
As I walked into the smithy of the Three Thorns nigh the king’s camp,
I found some four young men or thereby blowing up the fire and
clinking on red iron. Right sulkily they regarded me upon my entrance.
For it was long time since they had seen me, and never in such a garb.
“The king hath given orders that none are to enter here,” cried the
eldest, “saving those who have care of his armouries, and of these
only such as are
[Illustration: AS I WALKED INTO THE SMITHY OF THE THREE THORNS NIGH
THE KING’S CAMP, I FOUND SOME FOUR YOUNG MEN OR THEREBY BLOWING UP THE
FIRE AND CLINKING ON RED IRON.]
fit to be deacons of the guild of hammermen. We want no fine gentlemen
here, God wot--there is room and to spare for such elsewhere!”
And the second said, “The smiddy door stands wide! Go out by it, I
pray you, and that quickly, or I will break thy head with a pair of
cleps!”
“Nay, keep him,” cried a third; “we will make of him a whipcord to
bind a brace withal!”
For I had pulled my cap low over mine eyes, and in my altered
habiliments it fell out easily that they knew me not. Indeed, for all
their rough words, they kept steadily to their work at the forge.
“I am no fine gentleman,” I made answer, very quietly, “but of your
own guild, and if it please you, not wholly unfit to be a deacon
therein!”
“You are a hammerman--of the king’s armourers! Let us see your palms!”
And at that they laughed, setting their own hands on their hips and
laughing. For, indeed, my finger pads were fine and unhardened.
“Canst put shoes on war-horse?” cried one, “or so much as tell the
hind foot from the fore?”
“Ay, of a jimp court filly, mayhap!” shouted another. “Get thee
gone!--Thou lookest more fit to lace a jupe, like a woman’s
tailor--wide at the flounce, narrow at the gathers--than to rivet a
brigantine or to forge the chainwork bandolier for a king’s sword.
There is one in the fire now--try thy hand at it, boaster, if thou
darest!”
Now this task was, and with justice, accounted one of the most
difficult of all the practices of armoury, and one which commonly only
the chief armourer himself undertook. But I had been taught by one
that was a master of masters in the craft, and feared nothing.
So with the pincers I pulled the rivet bolt which was to close the
main ring out of the fire, and looking with apparent carelessness (but
really most carefully) to the degree of heat, I thrust it in again,
and bade the elder of the youth be ready to strike for me when the
colour of the steel pleased me. Then he, having a certain fear before
his eyes, would have drawn back, seeing me so determined.
“Our father is no easy man to deal with,” he grumbled; “why, he would
not think the cracking of a pouce on his finger nail of breaking the
back of you--ay, or a dozen like you--if you should spoil the
ring-grip of the king’s bandolier, which is to hold up his royal
sword.”
“Strike,” said I, “and hold your tongue. Ye tempted me to it by your
mocks. That ye well know. Now I will make good my word!”
And with that I took my small moulding hammer in hand--one, indeed,
which I knew very well--and getting the colour of the metal right to
my mind, I held it ready for the striker on the beak of the anvil. But
he, being afraid in his soul (perhaps in his body also), struck ill.
So that, with words contumelious, I bade him forthwith go sweep the
shoeing rank, as being all he was good for, and gave the hammer to his
brother. He, seeing his elder’s fall, did well enough--and afterwards
better than well. So I thrust in and took out, tempered and arroded,
as I had seen them do in France, not making a plain ring (which indeed
in Scotland was thought a good enough piece of work), but all in
facets and dimples, cunningly set, and each exactly of the same size,
like the cutting of a Venice glass.
And the lads stood and watched, saying no word after they had seen me
once at it.
So intent were they on the finishing that when I had at last given the
master stroke and laid the bandolier ring aside to cool, no one of us
had noticed that a certain huge man, who walked lightly on tiptoe, had
been observing us from the doorway.
“St. Bride,” he cried, “if that be not my son Larry’s stroke, may my
steel never do more than cut withes to make baskets withal!”
And with that he walked up to me, and, putting forth his hand, he took
off the squire’s cap which I had pulled low over mine eyes, and, in
spite of the walnut juice which I had used to tan my collegiate
blanching, he knew me at once.
“Faith, Larry,” he cried, “a rare good smith was spoiled in thee to
make a bad Mess John! But what will thy mother say, lad? Art run off
from thine abbacy?”
“Nay,” said I, “the archbishop and my Lord of Dunkeld both know my
reasons. Fear not, father. I have never been a monk at heart any more
than thyself, and now I have come to follow my star--glad as one who
hath been over long in the jingle-jangle of bells, the murmuring of
prayers, and the scent of incense, for all which he had little heart,
to escape to tented field and his king’s service!”
“What!” cried Malise M‘Kim, “are you then with us in this matter? Why,
Larry lad, I thought within me that you would have been even as
Sholto--he who commands over yonder.”
And he pointed with his hand in the direction of Thrieve.
“Nay,” I answered, “I am with you heart and soul!”
“But somehow,” he said, rubbing his brow in some perplexity, “it was
borne in upon me that there was in your heart a liking--more than a
liking, indeed (St. Bride, that an old man should speak of love and
the follies of youth at this time of day!)--for the little Lady
Margaret yonder--the Earl James’s wife!”
“Well,” I answered him, “and what of that, my father?”
“Why,” said he, still perplexed, for he was of a nature essentially
simple and no little moidered in his head by his troubles, “then I
would have thought that you would have gone to her and not to her
enemies!”
“By what name did you call the lady just now, my father?”
“Why--why,”--he searched about,--“what should I call her, an it were
not the Lady Margaret--Earl James’s well-favoured, ill-fortuned wife?”
“And think you, father,” I made him answer (for with Malise M‘Kim it
was best to use plain words), “that I would love the Lady Margaret the
less if she were, by chance, my lord earl’s _widow_ instead of my lord
earl’s wife?”
“U--m--m--m!” he said, slowly taking it in. Then he shook his head
gravely.
“Such thoughts are not for a blacksmith’s sons,” he grumbled in his
throat; “but I will admit that ye are worthy to be a deacon among
hammermen! Ye have noways forgotten your trade, Larry, my lad!”
Then my brothers crowded about me, welcoming me, and asking pardon for
their rough words.
“Out o’ that,” cried Malise, raising his hand; “go, forge pike points,
Corra. And you, Herries M‘Kim, come hither, lift this ring, and see
how the metal is run in the direction of the strength. Ye alone are
fit for something better than to clink ploughshares. But as for the
rest of you--Dun, Roger, and Malise, get the other forges a-going; for
there is work before us other than the making of springes to take
coneys. And now, son Laurence, let us talk!”