WHOM GOD HATH TOUCHED
Never was Scottish siege so picturesque as this all in the broad
summer weather--the wide, pleasant strath of Dee glowing under the
August sun, and the knights of the king’s court riding forth every
morning decked as for a tourney.
Nevertheless, day followed day, and Malise fretted in his smithy, or
used words in the broadest Galloway to the king himself--which, had
they been understood of the monarch, might have damaged the good
intent there was between king and smith. For they were both fiery by
nature, and Malise cared just as little for what James Stewart thought
as James Stewart did for what was the opinion of his new ally and
master armourer.
But as for the effect of all they let loose upon the castle--the great
bolts that were shot from the slings and catapults, the crackings of
the new powder engines, and the firing of tow-headed arrows, sent
blazing across the river--the besiegers might all just as well have
blown their noses or sneezed once or twice in the direction of
Thrieve, for all the progress they made in the taking of it.
For Sholto, having had his times to make ready, had used them as none
knew better than he how to do. He had fortified the whole area of the
island with a wall, adding at the weaker places one wall behind
another, and leaving a trench between, which at pleasure he could fill
with water. More than that, all the ground opposite, on the other side
of the river of Dee, had been cleared of cover and made bare as the
palm of one’s hand. So that at any moment Sholto, holding as it was
the short inner lines, and having the breadth of the water of Dee on
all sides of him, could, by drawing his men together, stop any rush
that was made closer to the water’s side. So that the defenders,
firing from perfect cover, and with rests for their bronze culverins
and little iron fusils, did infinite damage to the king’s men without
receiving so much as a single scratch themselves.
The king, following the advice of his chief nobles, was all for the
slow advancement of the works by parallels and cross trenches to the
waterside--and then, a dash through and a rush with ladders for the
escalade!
But when my father heard this he was very angry, or rather, in a state
betwixt laughter and anger.
“Why, let them,” he cried (and you might have heard him on
Cairnsmore), “let them gather all the bairns from the burgh schools of
Scotland, all the lads the monks are teaching to put frocks about
their hurdies, also all the cow-herds and all the swine-herds and all
the goose-herds. For these are exceedingly expert in the use of the
‘billit-gun,’ that deadly weapon made of the bark of the bore tree.
Then with wads of tow, well chewed, let them practise upon the
fortress of Thrieve! After that, like Jericho, the walls thereof may
have a better chance of falling down. But as to this folly of the
king’s, there are no words which he will understand to tell him how
foolish it is! Nevertheless, I will try. But, ah!--if I could speak to
him in the Gallowa’! Then he wad think but little o’ himsel’!”
So Malise M‘Kim went to the king.
It was, they say, a stormy time. For the king, a man of wrath from his
youth up, could listen peaceably to no man. And as for Malise, my
father--well, by this time the world kens Malise the smith even better
than James of the Fiery Face.
“I tell you, King of Scots,” said Malise, clasping his hands tightly
about the axe-pike he had been in act to make--broad-bladed, and was
beaked like a falcon--“I tell you plainly that you may take up your
tents and kitchen cullenders, remove your blazons and shields hung on
spear-shafts. Stands Thrieve ever a whit the less staunch for these?
Months you have been here, and never the nearer by a yard. Also James
of Douglas is on foot again! My son Herries, who hath the long sight,
saw him yesterday (no further gone) directing the archers to mark down
your cannoniers upon the brae opposite the ford to the south, and in
ten minutes there was not a man upright upon his legs among the little
pivot guns, also the oxen that drew them were all dead too.”
“Good, my master armourer,” said the king; “there is matter in what
you say, as well as some insolence, which for this time I pardon in
you seeing whom ye have been serving all your life--!”
“Bide there, King James,” cried Malise. “I have, it is true, a death
quarrel with the man yonder--James of Douglas. But I was born under
another Douglas--ay, in the year of Otterburn--he at whose funeral
they led Percy captive. Under six earls have I served. Good men and
true men were they all--bucklers to their king, barriers against
England. These have I served all my life, and now at the end this man
hath cut me off from mine own loyalty as with a deadly blow! But, hark
ye, King of Scots, my quarrel is with the _man_ and not with the house
of Douglas, though in my rage I may have said other of it.
Nevertheless, I will aid you to bring yonder castle to the ground, and
the man in it to the rope’s-end or the edge of the sword for that
which he hath wrought to me and mine. Almost at Arkinholm my right arm
had saved you the trouble, but someone--I remember not well who--came
between me and my vengeance--!”
The old smith drew his hand slowly over his face, as if to clear his
brain from some encompassing cloud--possibly the same reek of hate and
vengeance which had so nearly turned another brain--as I read in the
chronicle which hath been written by the Lady Margaret herself.
There was--I saw it not always, but chiefly when he sat brooding and
thinking over his wrongs--a certain glowing madness or capacity for
madness in my father, ordinarily covered up, indeed, but ready to
break forth at the least mention of the name of James Douglas. As to
his daughter, it was otherwise. For he would start up suddenly from
his chair, or perhaps from a day-dream on a cool hearth in the smithy,
his back against the wall and his head deep sunk in his beard.
“Where is Magdalen?” was ever his cry; “good wife, where is our
Magdalen? I bid you tell me! ’Tis some time since she went out. She
bides over late on the hills!”
But there was none to answer as to where Magdalen might be found.
Meanwhile, all unwitting of this, the king and his suite stood
watching. James Stewart, having a certain curious sympathy for the
sorrow of the smith, quieted those behind him with a turn of the
hand--the which, perhaps because it was the same that had
treacherously slain his best friend and greatest subject, was not to
be regarded without a certain awe.
“Why, master armourer,” said the king, more gently, “’tis very well in
a proven man of war like Malise of Carlinwark and Mollance to commend
us young men to return to our wives’ petticoat tails and the surcots
and pearled veils of our sweethearts. He hath done his day’s darg. Six
great lords hath he served--better, perhaps, than they served the
Crown--!”
At this Malise interrupted once more.
“Yet did not your gran’ther, young man, bestow one of his daughters
upon an Earl Douglas, and never thought himself or her the worse? Nay,
by what other means doth the crown of the Bruces sit upon your own
head, James Stewart, an the first o’ your race had not fand it pinned
to the bolsters of a bride-bed?”
The king frowned and then laughed.
“True,” he said, “true indeed!--And so did we all come from Eve the
wife of a gardener, who had never a bolster at all, nor pillow whereon
to lay her head. Yet for the life of me, master armourer, I cannot see
that such talk as thine brings down the walls of Thrieve any faster
than our poor arbalests and bombards!”
Before answering, the smith passed his hand across his brow as if to
clear his mind. In these latter days this had become a fashion with
him. He seemed to get bogged in his own words, and then after a while
to return with a sudden start to the gloomy vengeance to which he had
vowed his days.
“Give me till to-morrow, my lord the king,” he said, with more
gentleness. “I have somewhat in my head here if only I can disentangle
it. Ravelled it is, and knotted, but it will lead us somewhither. But
first I would speak with my seven sons--nay” (he added quickly,
correcting himself), “with six only--Sholto, the best of all, is over
yonder! Yet” (he added), “it is strange; I have tried, and I cannot
curse Sholto!”
He turned gently about, a milder mood being upon him.
“Your Majesty and gentlemen,” he said, “I pray your pardon if one to
whom God has left more brawn than brain, more weight than wit, more
choler than courtesy, hath used words to hurt your gentrice. It was
far from his intent. But by long usage, old Malise M‘Kim is grown
rough as his own smith’s apron. Yet if he can hammer out the thought
that is in his head, yon high tower of Thrieve shall fall! And, if God
leave strength to this right arm and enough good hemp with the realm
of Scots, James Douglas shall die a dog’s death--for what he hath
done--for what he hath done--_what was it that he did?_ I forget,
gentlemen! Truly, I forget. But it was something he shall die
for--yes, die for! I am an old man, and everything goes from me. But
to-morrow we M‘Kims shall have this thought of mine hammered out and
welded and tempered--ready to be put before your Majesty. By the head
of my little wench Magdalen, it shall be so! She was so beautiful,
gentlemen, and innocent--and sat long upon my knees with her arms
about my neck. But she is dead, gentlemen. She is dead, and the angels
took her. I am an old man, a very old man, gentlemen all--I pray you
forgive me!”
And saluting with his bonnet brought as low as the knee in the palm of
his right hand, which was the courteous fashion of the ancient time,
Malise of the Strong Thews, my good father, withdrew him, his great
hand upon the shoulder of Herries, his son, not for support, but
rather as one might walk with a staff.
And they say that the king gently laid his finger on his own brow,
saying, “Be gentle in speech with him, my lords. God hath touched the
old man, or his trouble of mind, mayhap. He is strong as Samson. His
bodily strength is not abated. Only at times, as ye see, there is a
lack. Therefore provoke him not. For whoso doth, it is at his own
peril. His wife shall be a widow, his soul go to its own place, and
that without benefit of clergy--of which, to my ripe knowledge, the
feck of you stand in sore need!”