THE PEACE OF ZIMRI
At last there came for me a certain glad day when the ploughs on all
the open straths were blithely upturning the fallow, and the whole
world was filled with the swirling of white gulls and the smell of
fresh red earth--a heartsome day it was and a heartsome thing its
morning hours brought me.
For several weeks Laurence had appeared and disappeared at intervals,
saying no more than that he was upon the king’s business. And I,
thinking in my heart that he might have told me more, and doubtless
somedeal nettled at his silence, had held my tongue and refrained from
questioning him--which (I confess) was far from being my habit.
But this one day, by the grace of the Lady Agneta, he entered into my
chamber, and with a serious face asked me to come to the door, for
there were certain poor persons there, begging for my assistance. But
I believed him not. For at this time it was his delight to take me in
and cheat me into believing absurdities, rejoicing thereat afterwards,
like a very schoolboy. The which was foolish of him, yet nevertheless
a cheerful, likeable trait after all, speaking of a light heart and
easeful within.
So for a while I would not go forth, fearing ridicule. Because in his
eye, for all his grave mien, there abode a certain lurking twinkle
which aforetime had betrayed his evil intents to me more than once.
But at long and last I did go to the little wicket-gate of the
convent. Laurence threw it wide open.
And there, before my eyes stood Maud, my Maud, with all the five
children about her, and behind, halting a little upon a staff and
greatly paler than was his wont, I saw Sholto! I kissed them all--yes,
even Sholto, who blushed and stammered that he was not worthy--that I
was his liege lady and--other things which I forget.
Whereat, so glad was I, that I kissed him again, having ever a greedy
tooth for kissing and nothing to wear it on of late.
Which observing, Laurence looked so fain that I drew myself apart with
Maud, and bade her tell me all there was to tell of her journey, and
where she meant to abide. Then it came out that Master Laurence had
interceded with the king for the pardon of Sholto. And he,
anticipating in the future a need of such knights, as he had said
before, was easy to be entreated. So he had given the little tower
called the Larg of Kenmore upon Tayside to Sholto to dwell in, and
(said he) “If your Lady Margaret is waxen weary of her nunneries and
mummeries, let her also go thither and keep the bairnies’ frocks in
order. It will be better work than a Douglas hath set hand to in this
realm for some while!”
So, adieus being said, through the pleasant fields and fringing woods
we betook us to Kenmore, Maud keeping close to Sholto that she might
watch his face, causing him to get off and rest as often as she
discovered a trace of fatigue. In time, however, we reached our goal,
and lo! this thoughtful Laurence of ours had the house all fitted and
arranged. (It was, as to its building, a small farm-fortalice, not a
great castle like Thrieve.) And whenever I had been ill-natured with
him, he had hugged himself, thinking, “Ah, wait, Mistress Margaret,
till that which is coming, comes! Then will you not be sorry for these
hard speeches and averted eyes!”
And I was sorry, but not so sorry as he thought or expected. Because I
was glad that Laurence should have the heart within him to care so
much of making others happy. The men I had dealt with hitherto had not
the like much in mind--no, not even William Douglas.
The Larg of Kenmore was a place in which one might well be content to
grow old. Also, none could wish for better and more loving company
than that of Maud and Sholto. It had but one drawback: it was farther
from the king’s palace at Stirling, and so, of consequence, we saw
less of Laurence, or, at least, he came seldomer. Yet, abiding in the
house, where his bed was made down every night and his platter laid
for every meal, it was happiness of a better kind than when I saw him
but for an hour or two at the nunnery overlooking the towers of
Dunkeld.
Yet, because in the course of this history I have had much to tell of
these still places, where the crying of a bird or a change in the wind
is a subject for an hour’s converse, and the new moon seen over the
right shoulder an occasion of festival, I shall say little about the
Larg of Kenmore.
It was not by my choice that I spent so great part of my time in such
quietnesses. I did not make my life--no, nor any part of it, saving
perhaps when, in ignorance and perversity, having to choose between
two brothers, like a woman I preferred the less worthy. But the rest
of my life has been what men’s power and men’s ambitions have made it.
God is over all. I doubt it not. He is great; but He seems to me so
great that He interferes but little in the things of yesterday and
to-day and to-morrow.
Yet, mayhap, I do not see fairly or judge aright. Had I been a common
woman, without a groat, living in a better time, belike I had not had
this to say, as I do say it from my heart; but with Galloway and the
Borderlands, Ettrick Forest and Carrick, for my dower, I was, as I
have said, little better than a hand-ball propelled by the players,
William and James of Douglas, James Stewart the king, and Crichton the
Chancellor.
And as for God, doubtless He watched from behind the window-lattice of
His heaven; but, alas! He did nothing.
So at least I thought at the time. True, afterwards I came to see
better of it when, despoiled, mine estate and quality made worth no
man’s while, I tasted at last the grave and dulcet securities of
poverty.
But was I not speaking of the Larg of Kenmore, round which the heather
ringed itself, and at whose very doorstep the whaups and wild
moor-fowl cried suddenly in, making the bairns laugh at their meals.
Sholto grew slowly better, his wounds healing, like those of a child,
by the first intention. But one day there came, sudden as the
inbursting of one of the granite bolts of Mons Meg--Malise himself!
I was in the little hardly won garden sitting by myself in a sheltered
summer-house. I could see the house-door. It stood open, and in the
dusk of the chamber on a couch lay Sholto, with Maud Lindsay
cherishing him--sometimes with gentle touches that were not quite
caresses, but more often with lifted finger and the same chidings and
forbidding with which in time of sickness she entreated her children.
The bairns themselves were without the gate with Donald, the herd of
the Larg, no doubt tumbling and wrestling among the heather like young
dogs at play.
I heard the click of the yett, with which at night Donald barred in
Sholto’s scanty stock of bestial--for there were still wolves a-many
in the fastnesses of Kenmore. I sat frozen dumb with apprehension.
There stood Malise M‘Kim, looking dourly at the little white house
sleeping in the sun. Surely never grimmer wolf glared at sheepfold,
than the brain-clouded smith of Carlinwark upon the Larg of Kenmore.
Before I could move or cry out, he advanced with half a dozen great
strides across the yard and paused at the door, his bulk blocking the
entrance. I think he could see his son lying on his couch, and at the
sight his hand instinctively sought his dagger.
Had not this, his first-born son, separated himself from all his
family? Had not he and he alone balked the M‘Kims of their revenge?
For what purpose had Malise M‘Kim come hither, save that he might take
a second and surer vengeance upon the son unfaithful who had stood in
the breach till James Douglas escaped?
But the hand of Malise had not so much as reached the inlaid handle of
his dagger before Maud stood in the doorway. As she came she snatched
up the great household carving-knife from the top of the salt-box,
where of habitude it lay. And now she met the armourer-smith in the
doorway.
I could see her clearly--Maud--but what a Maud! A lioness defending
her whelps, a she-wolf at the den’s mouth on the side of
Briariach--these looked somewhat less fierce than she. She spoke no
word. She only stood there, her arm a little drawn together as if to
strike, her body half crouched for a spring, her fingers twitching on
the haft. And this was Maud--my Maud, the mother who heard the babes
their prayers in the gloaming, and every day taught them from Holy
Writ lessons of love and sacrifice.
“Go back!” she cried, her voice hoarse as that of a man in passion.
“Go back, Malise M‘Kim. You shall not lay hand on him till after you
have slain me. And I will slay you first. God’s help, I will!”
The smith looked at her a little bewildered. Then he drew his hand
across his broad, deeply scarred brow with the gesture which had
become habitual to him. His eye, no longer lurid or dangerous, seemed
rather trying to arrange facts he did not comprehend, to make
something clear to himself.
“You are Sholto’s wife,” he said, looking at her; “yes--yes--I mind.
He married young, over young. I passed the children on the moor.”
(Here Maud drew a long breath of apprehension--divided between desire
to run out to see that all was well with Marcelle, with the twins,
with Ulric and little David, and the yet more pressing need of abiding
where she was to defend her husband.)
But the attitude of the smith was reassuring, even humble.
He looked past Maud to where his son lay on his couch. He smiled a
little wistfully at him.
“Speak for me, lad,” he said. “This Highland wife of thine takes me
for a caird, a catheran, one that would rieve her of thee or carry
away the bairns. Ye have a snod bit housie here, Sholto! Bid the
mistress let your auld faither come his ways ben and rest him a while.
For he has had a lang, lang road to travel, and never a friend to
cheer him by the way!”
He looked so pitiful that Maud, impulsive at times, though mostly
since her marriage demure as a puss, dropped the knife and caught the
old man about the neck.
“Indeed and indeed,” she cried, “I am heart-sorry for my ill-bred
temper. Yet am I of Highland blood, and I do not forget either good or
evil! Come ben, our father, and speak peaceable things to us--for I
feared--I feared”--
She did not continue the subject, and perhaps it was as well. For, as
it soon appeared, one dangerous locker of the armourer’s mind was
closed--for the time, at least.
Malise clapped her gently on the shoulder.
“Feared?”--he murmured caressingly, as to a child; “foolish lass, what
was there to fear? Is not Sholto the eldest of my bairns? Are not you
another? Wherefore should I hurt mine own? I have been at the Court
and I am tired--tired of being grand--of having lackeys to wait on me,
old Malise M‘Kim! And they told me lies--lies--lies! Indeed--they do
naught else all day long that I can see--these courtiers that go
attired in scarlet and blue, and wear devices upon their mantles. But
I see through their lies!”
By this time he stood quite close to his son’s couch.
“Ah,” he said, touching the white cloth about his head, “what is this?
Hast fallen, lad? Who hath dealt thee that dooms lounder on the crown?
He that did it had some skill in cudgel play, I warrant him. For even
when thou wast a lad, there were not many that could give thee
better--let alone the breaking of thy head!”
The two stared at him in astonishment. Sholto was about to speak, but
over his father’s shoulder Maud made a sign to her husband to be
silent.
Was it possible he had wholly forgotten Thrieve and all that had been
done there? It seemed like it.
The old man bent over his son. He had the aspect of one about to
communicate a weighty secret.
“Sholto,” he said in a low voice, “I came because they told me that
you dwelt in a little house among the heather, and underlay the king’s
displeasure! Laurence told me so--but (this a whisper) Sholto, lad,
they--are--teaching--him--to--lie--at--the--Court, like the others!”
Sholto shook his head, but took his father gently by the hand.
“Care naught for ‘says he’ or ‘says she,’” he answered soothingly,
“Laurence is your own son. A M‘Kim does not lie!”
The smith responded nothing for a while, passing his other hand to and
fro across his brow a little wearily.
“Ah,” he said at length, “my own son, is he? A M‘Kim is he? Why then
does he call himself a Stewart? And why then does he compel me to help
him to forge cannon for a murderer?”
“_For a murderer?_” cried Sholto and Maud simultaneously, in the
greatness of their astonishment.
The old man tip-toed to the door and looked out. The heather spread
twenty leagues. The moor birds cried. Then very carefully he shut it
and came back to the side of Sholto’s couch.
“Listen,” he whispered, “they think I forget--that I am an old done
man. But I do not forget. How should I forget that once I had a
master--like to none the world hath seen! What of him? Who enticed him
to his death? _One, James Stewart by name!_ Who sat down to dine with
my master? _James Stewart!_ Who rose up with him and led him apart,
his arm about his neck, as friend doth with friend when the heart is
full and free! _Who but James Stewart?_”
He struck one hand hard into the palm of the other with a sound like
the crack of a musket.
“But the jest’s cream is that in the king’s house they talk of naught
but Thrieve and Mons Meg and a great victory gained over the Douglas!
I keep a serious face, for I know that victory. The victory was gained
by the traitor’s dagger in the little back-room where they put my Lady
Margaret to sleep the night she came to Stirling. There they gained
their great victory--these Stewarts, and he the chief of all, the
murderer king who struck his friend to the heart, his hand yet warm
from being about my master’s neck.”
Then with a pleased expression Maud nodded at Sholto. The armourer had
forgotten all that had happened after the death of William Douglas. At
that moment the sound of the voices of the children, as they raced
homeward athwart the heather, came sharply in at the open window.
Malise started up.
“What is that?” he demanded. “Hath the king sent for me? Am I to have
no peace in this world?”
“They are but the voices of the bairns, father,” said Maud softly,
caressing the old gnarled hand which lay on the smith’s knee, the
fingers gathering themselves up, and again being thrust out tense and
hard. “You shall have peace here with us, our father--so long as it
pleases you to bide!”
“Peace--peace!” he repeated, with a hard intonation, as if something
displeased him in the word. “Ah, Sholto, lad, you are here under the
king’s displeasure, and it is well. But James Stewart shall have no
peace! No!”
Then with extraordinary fierceness of energy, almost the snarl of a
wild beast, he added these words, “_Had Zimri peace that slew his
master?_”