THE WITCH WOMAN
One of these was Malise the Smith, towering like a giant. His hands
rested on the hilt of a mighty sword, whose blade sparkled in the
lamplight as if the master armourer had drawn it that moment from the
midst of his charcoal fire.
A little in front of Malise there stood another figure, less imposing
in physical proportions, but infinitely more striking in dignity and
apparel. This second was a man of tall and spare frame, of a
countenance grave and severe, yet with a certain kindly power latent
in him also. He was dressed in the white robe of a Cistercian, with
the black scapulary of the order. On his head was the mitre, and in
his hand the staff of the abbot of a great establishment which he
wears when he goes visiting his subsidiary houses. More remarkable
than all was the monk's likeness to the young man who now stood before
him with an expression of indignant surprise on his face, which slowly
merged into anger as he understood why these two men were there.
He recognised his uncle the Abbot William Douglas, the head of the
great Abbey of Dulce Cor upon Solway side.
This was he who, being the son and heir of the brother of the first
Duke of Touraine, had in the flower of his age suddenly renounced his
domains of Nithsdale that he might take holy orders, and who had ever
since been renowned throughout all Scotland for high sanctity and a
multitude of good works.
The pair stood looking towards the lady and William Douglas without
speech, a kind of grim patience upon their faces.
It was the Earl who was the first to speak.
"What seek you here so late, my lord Abbot?" he said, with all the
haughtiness of the unquestioned head of his mighty house.
"Nay, what seeks the Earl William here alone so late?" answered the
Abbot, with equal directness.
The two men stood fronting each other. Malise leaned upon his
two-handed sword and gazed upon the ground.
"I have come," the Abbot went on, after vainly waiting for the young
Earl to offer an explanation, "as your kinsman, tutor, and councillor,
to warn you against this foreign witch woman. What seeks she here in
this land of Galloway but to do you hurt? Have we not heard her with
our own ears persuade you to accompany her to Edinburgh, which is a
city filled with the power and deadly intent of your enemies?"
Earl William bowed ironically to his uncle, and his eye glittered as
it fell upon Malise MacKim.
"I thank you, Uncle," he said. "I am deeply indebted for your so great
interest in me. I thank you too, Malise, for bringing about this
timely interference. I will pay my debts one day. In the meantime your
duty is done. Depart, both of you, I command you!"
Outside the thunder began to growl in the distance. An extraordinary
feeling of oppression had slowly filled the air. The lamps, swinging
on the pavilion roof tree, flickered and flared, alternately rising
and sinking like the life in the eyes of a dying man.
All the while the lady sat still on the couch, with an expression of
amused contempt on her face. But now she rose to her feet.
"And I also ask, in the name of the King of France, by what right do
you intrude within the precincts of a lady's bower. I bid you to leave
me!"
She pointed imperiously with her white finger to the black, oblong
doorway, from which Malise's rude hand had dragged the covering flap
to the ground.
But the churchman and his guide stood their ground.
Suddenly the Abbot reached a hand and took the sword on which the
master armourer leaned. With its point he drew a wide circle upon the
rich carpets which formed the floor of the pavilion.
"William Douglas," he said, "I command you to come within this circle,
whilst in the right of my holy office I exorcise that demon there who
hath so nearly beguiled you to your ruin."
The lady laughed a rich ringing laugh.
"These are indeed high heroics for so plain and poor an occasion. I
need not to utter a word of explanation. I am a lady travelling
peaceably under escort of an ambassador of France, through a Christian
country. By chance, I met the Earl Douglas, and invited him to sup
with me. What concern, spiritual or temporal, may that be of yours,
most reverend Abbot? Who made you my lord Earl's keeper?"
"Woman or demon from the pit!" said the Abbot, sternly, "think not to
deceive William Douglas, the aged, as you have cast the glamour over
William Douglas, the boy. The lust of the flesh abideth no more for
ever in this frail tabernacle. I bid thee, let the lad go, for he is
dear to me as mine own soul. Let him go, I say, ere I curse thee with
the curse of God the Almighty!"
The lady continued to smile, standing meantime slender and fair before
them, her bosom heaving a little with emotion, and her hair rippling
in red gold confusion down her back.
"Certainly, my lord Earl came not upon compulsion. He is free to
return with you, if he yet be under tutors and governors, or afraid of
the master's stripes. Go, Earl William, I made a mistake; I thought
you had been a man. But since I was wrong I bid you get back to the
monk's chapter house, to clerkly copies and childish toys."
Then black and sullen anger glared from the eyes of the Douglas.
"Get hence," he cried. "Hence, both of you--you, Uncle William, ere I
forget your holy office and your kinsmanship; you, Malise, that I may
settle with to-morrow ere the sun sets. I swear it by my word as a
Douglas. I will never forgive either of you for this night's work!"
The fair white hand was laid upon his wrist.
"Nay," said the lady, "do not quarrel with those you love for my poor
sake. I am indeed little worth the trouble. Go back with them in
peace, and forget her who but sat by your side an hour neither doing
you harm nor thinking it."
"Nay," he cried, "that will I not. I will show them that I am old
enough to choose my company for myself. Who is my uncle that he
should dictate to me that am an earl of Douglas and a peer of France,
or my servant that he should come forth to spy upon his master?"
"Then," she whispered, smiling, "you will indeed abide with me?"
He gave her his hand.
"I will abide with you till death! Body and soul, I am yours alone!"
"By the holy cross of our Lord, that shall you not!" cried Malise;
"not though you hang me high as Haman for this ere the morrow's morn!"
And with these words he sprang forward and caught his master by the
wrist. With one strong pull of his mighty arm he dragged him within
the circle which the Abbot had marked out with the sword's point.
The lady seemed to change colour. For at that moment a gust of wind
caused the lamps to flicker, and the outlines of her white-robed
figure appeared to waver like an image cast in water.
"I adjure and command you, in the name of God the One and Omnipotent,
to depart to your own place, spirit or devil or whatever you may be!"
The voice of the Abbot rose high above the roaring of the bursting
storm without. The lady seemed to reach an arm across the circle as if
even yet to take hold of the young man. The Abbot thrust forward his
crucifix.
And then the bolt of God fell. The whole pavilion was illuminated with
a flash of light so intense and white that it appeared to blind and
burn up all about. The lady was seen no more. The silken covering
blazed up. Malise plunged outward into the darkness of the storm,
carrying his young master lightly as a child in his arms, while the
Abbot kept his feet behind him like a boat in a ship's wake. The
thunder roared overhead like the sea bellowing in a cave's mouth, and
the great pines bent their heads away from the mighty wind, straining
and creaking and lashing each other in their blind fury.
Malise and the Abbot seemed to hear about them the plunging of
riderless horses as they stumbled downwards through the night, their
path lit by lightning flashes, green and lilac and keenest blue, and
bearing between them the senseless form of William Earl of Douglas.