A PRINCE AMONG HAMMERMEN
In the smithy of the Three Thorns, Malise M‘Kim drew his sons
together. It was the morning after his interview with the king, very
early. All night the old man had walked about by the loch-side, and I
had kept him in sight till the dawning of the day. The sky of midnight
had been clear with faint pearl-grey clouds, high and rare in the
zenith. The loch gleamed at our feet like half-polished steel, flat
and without ripple to the dark woods of Gelston. Meantime, my mother,
Dame Barbara--her hair, that had been raven black with scarce a grey
hair, now flaxen white--watched stealthily from the cottage door the
steadfast _tramp-tramp_ of her husband’s feet along the narrow shingle
and over the green knolls. She too had followed the camp, and had
arrived at the Three Thorns the third day after the pitching of the
tents. She spoke nothing of Magdalen, and seemed altogether occupied
in watching the changes in Malise M‘Kim.
During the night his wife had only been prevented from following him
by my urgent entreaties and the repeated assurance that I was always
behind him, ready to prevent anything desperate which might suggest
itself to his troubled brain.
So I stole through the wood a little above him, silent as a moon
shadow drifting over the hills. But though my father muttered much to
himself and drove his great piked shepherd’s crook deep into the
clattering shingle of the little lakeside beaches, he did himself no
harm--nor, I think, dreamed of it.
In the later morning, when the light had begun to spread upwards from
the east, he caught sight of Corra (who for a while had come to
replace me) creeping through some underbrush, rather clumsily, let it
be said. He was upon him in a moment, with his staff upraised.
“Dare you spy upon me, spawn of evil?” he cried. “I will e’en break
thy back for thee with my clickie!”
And he would have done it, too, had it not been that I ran upon them
from the cottage door, with my mother behind me, and each of us seized
an arm.
“Let Corra be,” she cried. “Malise, my man, do you not understand? We
were in a fever about you--the lad did no more than he was bid!”
He stood leaning on his staff, his chin upon the crook.
“What might ye have been afraid of?” he queried, slowly and gravely;
“that I would do myself an injury?”
He turned about and pointed over the trees upon the ridge, ink black
against the brightening west.
“Do myself an injury?” he said, with a laugh which I loved not to
hear; “nay, be at rest--_not till my work is done!_”
Then to his wife, our mother, he said, “Go thy ways, goodwife. Make
the lads’ porridge and stir them weel. Let a driblet or two of meal
slip between thy fingers. For the lumps in a bowl of porridge are the
strength thereof. They make the bones of men. Now I would speak to the
lads--yea, while there is time and the clearness of the morning in my
head.”
And with that he led the way to the smithy.
Eastward, day was just beginning to break across the little group of
huts at the end of King Edward’s Causeway, that ancient paved road
which he made through the moss of Cuill and across the shallows of
Carlinwark. My father began to speak.
“Over yonder,” he said, jerking his thumb behind his shoulder towards
the camp of the king, “there be a many fine gentlemen and well-attired
lords, and, chief of all, His Majesty of the Fiery Face, Bloody Hand,
and--brain of a poll parrot--to whom, in the meantime, I wish long
life and much success! Lads, I serve him and them till the time
appointed--then I serve no more!”
Then he laughed again; but this time silently, and to himself.
“But that which we wait for we must work for. And it is not in the
possible of siccan grand lads, with their changes of apparel three
times a day, their pennons and gonfalons going before, to bring doon
yon auld prood castle o’ Thrieve, fenced aboot wi’ Dee water, drumly
after flood, or crystal-clear after spate!
“Na, nor is there a man in a’ the hosts of the king, frae the Bennan
to Carlinwark Hill, that can match Sholto M‘Kim, my son and your
brither. Nevertheless, it is laid upon me that yonder castle must
fall. And as to that I have a thought here!”
He paused a long while after this, so that the sun, throwing a sudden
beam in at the smiddy door, caused the shadow of an anvil, with a
forehammer leaning against it, to start across the floor of beaten
earth and iron filings.
“Lads,” he said, “we maun make a cannon, like to nane that hath
heretofore been upon the earth--a bombard that shall throw a great
ball, such as no man can lift, miles and miles across land and water!”
The lads (who, for all their being called “boys,” “lads,” and so
forth, were all well over their twenty-first year) looked at one
another with sudden glances, full of meaning, which I could interpret
right well. They thought that the want in the mind had come upon him
once again. But I knew better.
“Yes, my father,” I answered him, “I have heard of such as being
forged in the realm of Germany. They are made of great gauds of iron,
each separately forged and welded together, bound about with iron
bands, and finally compacted with wedges thrust within the rings!”
“Of what size are these German cannon?” demanded Malise the smith.
“Of the greatness that a man may knit his fingers and thrust his hand
within!” I answered.
My father rose and took a turn within the narrow limits of the smithy,
which he did of habitude, turning and walking, avoiding all the time,
without any observance, the pieces of armour and stands of arms
scattered about. For, though he was in all ways a man so great in
stature and thickness, he moved lightly as a cat, and that even to his
latest days.
“Laurence, you say well,” he answered; “but what is an engine like
that? Thrieve Castle is no iron broth-pot, nor a basin of red baked
clay to be battered with cobble stones over Dee water. The cannon we
shall fashion must be of a greatness so that twelve strong horses
shall have hard work to drag it over a made road. And instead of a
man’s fist, or even his joined nieves, he shall be able to thrust his
whole body therein with his sark upon his back and his hose on his
feet!”
The lads looked on in silent amazement. Malise turned to them.
“Ay, ay, we M‘Kims shall do it! Seven great forge fires shall there be
on the shore of Carlinwark--to each of us one. With our arms shall we
work at the metal, but the king’s men shall make a high fence--John
Johnstone the joiner and his loons clacking and hammering nails, so
that all shall keep their distance--ay, even the king’s own
majesty--till the work be finished and complete. Also the camp
followers shall bring us fuel, and we will work till we die--or the
work be done!”
“But--but--but,” began the lads, “we have never made or even seen any
powder guns greater than these culverins of bronze”--
Malise M‘Kim seized a hammer, and swung it in his hand.
“Hear ye, Corra, Dun, Herries, and the rest,” he shouted, “do as I bid
you, or, by St. Bride, I will make a row of herring heads of you
nailed against the smiddy wa’! Have I spent my labour in vain--in the
begetting of windle-straws, in rearing a cleckan of peeping pullets,
fit only to pick corn-seed about a barn-door? Am I not the master
smith? Am I not Malise M‘Kim? And shall a crew of lowns, scarce
breeched and scantily bearded, dare to crake and craw at me when I set
them their tasks and piece-work? To your day’s darg like good
hammermen! Strike hard! Say naught! Laurence and I will to the king!”
And to the king we went.
It was not far. Upon the ridge of Carlinwark, to the right, behind the
great beech trees which broke the westerly wind from the cottage of
the Three Tudors, rose the royal pavilion, with the Lion of Scotland
in front. Those of his chief lords, Angus, Morton, Crichton, Huntly,
with their several ensigns, were disposed irregularly about.
James of the Fiery Face was early astir. Indeed, so far as I ken, none
of the Stewarts were long liers a-bed. He met us in the doorway of his
tent, and at once bade all men go forth from him, save Crichton only.
This last proved to be a little wizened, cunning man with the visage
of a monkey, but he looked at us with a pair of the brightest eyes
that ever were seen in the realm of Scotland.
At the sight of him, and the king’s ardent commendation of his
qualities, I could see the dull red fires glow up in my father’s eyes.
“A cup of wine with you, Malise,” said the king, “and you, young slip
of lear, wha for your misdeeds wants a name to your tail--what do you
with our master armourer?”
“What do you with _that_?” said my father, somewhat truculently and a
great deal insolently, pointing his finger at Crichton, who sat at a
table turning over some papers diligently.
“Why, man, he is in some sort a headpiece to me,” said the king,
humouring the old man; “’tis well kenned that mine own is no great
things!”
“And even so is this youth mine,” answered my father swiftly, “though”
(he added more slowly) “I do admit he is a master craftsman also,
having studied the art of iron in France and other countries.”
For I had bound over my father and brothers not to reveal who I was.
The king called a pantler of the household train, and bade him fetch a
flagon of wine, of which he poured out a full cup.
But Malise put it away from him.
“Give such-like to the young,” he said; “I will drink no wine and eat
only such meat as is necessary for the sustaining of my body till the
castle yonder is in our hands.”
“And have you gotten that troublesome thought safely out of your head,
ingoted, and laid on anvil, eh, master smith?” demanded the king,
smiling.
“Ye shall hear, King James Stewart!” he answered. “’Tis ingoted,
barred, and ready for fire and hammer-stroke. Listen! I have much good
iron in the shed of the smithy under the trees. I expected that it
would serve my lifetime. In the town of Kirkcudbright there is much
more. Only, I pray you, give us men to build an enclosure about our
forge-hearth, for we would not be fashed in our labour.”
“And what,” said the king, “is this your labour of which you speak?”
“King James,” said the smith, “I have promised to serve you and to be
your man till the castle of Thrieve fall and the lord thereof comes by
his deserts. I will make you a cannon greater than any in the world.
This young man, having travelled far and near, hath seen the
like--only in little--in the German camps in the Low Countries! But I
will make a cannon which shall send a ball from where we stand to the
battering down of yon high towers of Thrieve--ay, farther an ye
will”--
“Malise, Malise,” said the king reproachfully, “I had expected more
and better than this mad ploy. The thing is clean impossible. The like
was never seen in this realm or in any other.”
My father erected himself, squaring his great shoulders till they
seemed almost to reach across the breadth of the pavilion.
“King of Scots,” he said, with solemnity, “you are a man, I am a man.
Your name is James Stewart, mine Malise M‘Kim! Have ye seen or heard
aught to gar ye think your royal word better than the word of Malise,
the smith of Carlinwark?”
“Methinks the comparison would lean somewhat heavily to your side of
the balance, good master armourer!” said the king good-humouredly.
“Not at all times can a king keep his word. He hath those about him,
like my excellent Chancellor at the table there, who will not let
him!”
And I thought that a dry smile passed over the face of Crichton, who
nevertheless continued to occupy himself with parchments and various
writings. As for me, I was in an agony of fear lest my father should
say something to the king about the safe-conduct which he had given,
writ with his own hand, signed with his name and seal, to William of
Douglas, when he brought him to Stirling to meet his death. But Malise
the smith was appeased by King James’s answer, and, after brooding a
little, laid the whole plan and design of the great cannon before him.
“I have here at the Carlinwark seven sons,” he said in conclusion,
“and that we will forge you the cannon I put their heads and mine own
in the balance. Let your headsman sharpen his blade for us if we
fail!”
“And if you succeed?” asked Crichton, looking up with a sudden
brightening of his countenance, “you seven will all need an earldom at
least. It is the fashion nowadays!”
“Nay,” answered Malise M‘Kim slowly, “not an earldom, nor yet a
chancellorship, my Lord of Crichton--nor any reward in lands or
siller. But only--five minutes alone with James Douglas!”
“That you shall have and welcome!” said the king. “But why do you not
ask for the life of your son who is in rebellion?”
“That will I not,” said Malise M‘Kim. “I have told you before, King of
Scots, the young man serves not James Douglas but the Lady Margaret,
his true mistress. He will serve you as well. Had he been in
rebellion, would he have been lacking at Arkinholm?”
“Malise,” cried the king, laughing, “I had not thought thee so subtle
in thy reasons. This lad in black must have quickened thee, as
Crichton doth my own sluggish harn-pan. But all the same, may the
saints confound that Sholto of thine--rebel or no rebel, traitor or
loyal subject--I wot well that he is giving us a huge through-other of
trouble in the midst of this wild Galloway. And, spite of thy cannon,
no man yet sees how it will end!”
* * * * * * *
So that very night on the shores of Carlinwark seven great forges were
set up. In the woods of Buittle and Borgue men black to the eyeholes
made charcoal for the fires that burned night and day. And we seven
M‘Kims shut ourselves out from the world--by day in a hot and panting
purgatory of burning sun and blowing fires. At night it was a little
better. The deep glow of the forges was reflected on the still waters
of the loch, and the clang of the fore-hammers was heard afar. Mostly
we seven were stripped and blackened to the waist with coal and grime,
and I warrant well that mine own almoner at Sweetheart abbey would not
have known his sometime Abbot had he met him these days ’twixt vespers
and prime.
Above on the slope, it was the nightly amusement of the soldiers, and
even of many young scions of the nobility, to cluster along the ridge
and look down upon us at our travail--now black against the firelight,
anon our faces and swart naked limbs lit up with the leaping flames.
Demons of the nether pit could have looked little otherwise, as,
escaping for a moment, we ran to the white cottage, demanding drink
from our mother, who, on her part, poor woman, slept little, watching
my father, and, like him, wearing herself out. But she for love even
as he for hate.
So the great iron gauds to make the body of the bombard were forged in
such a turmoil as never before or since have mine eyes beheld or mine
ears been deaved withal. We began to put the great cannon together,
and not till then did the mighty proportions of the monster appear,
taking shape dimly through the swelter.
Then came a period of yet fiercer excitement. So long as we were
merely working at the forging bars, each man had to heat and hammer by
himself, or, at most, with only one associate. But when at last the
monster began to take actual shape, and we saw before us the mighty
maw which should soon begin to vomit destruction, and the vast of the
cavern which would hold (as my father had truly said) the body of a
man, we could scarce stay ourselves from shouting aloud.
“Bide,” said my father grimly, “there is the pick and flower of the
work yet to do. The iron rings are yet to be shrunk upon her, and many
a stiff back and many a wet ringing brow shall ye hae afore that be
through with, lads of mine!”
I mind the night yet when the last band was fitted. It chanced that,
without our observing it, the wood and charcoal had gotten dangerously
near to the bottom of the pile. Also, though my father knew it not
(and we dared not tell him), the Borgue men had not arrived with fresh
loads--being more than two days behind, drinking of aquavit at some
dyke-back belike, after their kind. And so when the master band of all
was to be put about the cavernous muzzle, where the force of the
powder would spend itself most fiercely--lo! the fires were in danger
of falling low!
Then my father, who throughout had scarce spoken at all, save only to
give his orders, went like a man demented, and bade pull down the
ancient smithy of Carlinwark, and burn the beams for fuel. And as he
stood there with naught upon him save the great leathern apron twisted
about his middle to serve for a breech-clout, black from top to toe
with the forge sweat and charcoal grime, I doubt if even James Stewart
himself would have hesitated about obeying him, if he had bidden tear
down and burn Holyrood House itself.
At anyrate, we who underlay his wrath did not lose a moment, and were
a-tearing an’ a-scrambling at the roof before the words were well out
of his mouth. Yet for all I could not help thinking how much happier I
was, astride upon one beam and hacking at another, than ever I had
been sitting in my chair in the abbey of Sweetheart with the chanted
psalms and the incense going up about me in clouds of holy scent and
sound.
Well, we fetched it down with a run, and clumsy Corra, tramping
bullock-like along the rigging, well-nigh broke his neck by falling
through. So we brought the rafters, tinder-dry and brown with many
generations of smithy fires, and thrust them into the furnace.
“More and more!” shouted my father, lifting and feeding as if the
house beams had been but so much kitchen firewood.
“He will have the cottage itself about our heads in another moment,”
quoth my mother. “Laurence, go get him wood, or he will tear down the
house of the Three Thorns as he hath done the smiddy. And even when I
am deep under sod, I want to think o’ the gable of the bonny house,
where we two used to sit and talk, cleeked close on the bench he made,
the first year we were marriet! Find him wood, Laurence. Bring it to
him! Haste ye, Laurence, haste ye!”
So I gat hold of Herries and a strong country lad or two from without
the barriers, and tore down the fences which the king’s carpenters had
put up. There was a great crowd of the curious all about. But when I
made my choice of helpers, they pressed forward. But I made them go
back at the peril of their lives, for that Malise M‘Kim would crack a
man’s skull that night, as it were an egg-shell, if he found him where
he had no business to be.
And one behind them, wrapped in a great cloak, cried out for all to
stand back, and that he would help us himself. Which, being evidently
of some authority among them, he did, tearing down the boards and
pales of the enclosure and carrying them on his back to the door of
the cannon shed, but no farther.
“I have desire to look once,” he said, when at last we had finished.
“Let that be my reward!”
So I told him to keep well behind Herries, and he looked within. It
was indeed a ferlie worth seeing that he saw--Malise the great smith
leaping and striking with six attendant demons all pulling and
thrusting, and, as it seemed, passing their bodies through the fires
of hell ten times in a minute. The sparks flew great as crown pieces.
The flames danced upward in coils and spikes. And in the background
the great black monster stood waiting her last neckband.
“Here, Corra--Herries! All is ready!” shouted my father. “Come,
Laurence, and the rest of you--seven M‘Kims, all working as one, to
avenge the shame of our house! Would to God there had been eight!”
He called us seven, and spoke to me as if I had been there.
And lo! when I looked, with eyes dazzled by the light, it is true, I
could count seven M‘Kims in the forge, where, wanting me, there should
only have been six!
“Laurence, Laurence, strike with me, lad, for the last welding!” cried
my father, evidently believing that I was by his side.
I could not understand it. Nevertheless, I had perforce to shuffle our
helper away to the gap in the fence out of my father’s eye-shot, as
well as to get back to do my part. But as we reached the place a crowd
of curious had entered, and stood gaping and gazing, whom our helper
hotly ordered back.
But one, being of the insolent, ignorant sort, common in camps, called
out, “Well for you, crane’s neck, hook nose--_you_ have seen! We saw
you peep within. We will not go back, nor take our orders from you!
Who are you to make good soldiers of my Lord Angus jump hither and
thither at your orders, and tumble somersaults like puppy dogs?”
“That I will show you!” said the man, and dropped his cloak. _And it
was the king!_
Then every man gat him behind his neighbour, all trying to appear as
if they had come out solely to gaze upon the stars. At another time I
would have laughed, but then I had other most unhumorous business to
my hand.
“Provost Marshal,” cried the king, “take that man, and make him
discover how easy it is to jump hither and thither--ay, and for a good
soldier of my Lord Angus’s to tumble somersaults like a puppy dog!”
And so, with red flame and clangour infinite, the great cannon was
cast. It is the same which is called Mons or Mollance Meg, after my
father’s landed property, and stands in the castle of Edinburgh to
this day to witness if I lie.
* * * * * * *
_The End of the Portion of History writ by the Young Man in Black._