LAURENCE SINGS A HYMN
Laurence turned and beheld his brother. In another instant the two
young men had clinched and were rolling on the ground, wrestling and
striking according to their ability. Sholto might easily have had the
best of the fray, but for the temper aroused by Laurence's recent
degradation, for the elder brother was taller by an inch, and of a
frame of body more lithe and supple. Moreover, the accuracy of Sholto
MacKim's shape and the severe training of the smithy had not left a
superfluous ounce of flesh on him anywhere.
In a minute the brothers had become the centre of a riotous, laughing
throng of varlets--archers seeking their corps, and young squires sent
by their lords to find out the exact positions allotted to each
contingent by the provost of the camp. For as the wappenshaw was to be
of three days' duration in all its nobler parts, a wilderness of tents
had already begun to arise under the scattered white thorns of the
great Boreland Croft which stretched up from the river.
These laughed and jested after their kind, encouraging the youths to
fight it out, and naming Laurence the brock or badger from his
stoutness, and the slim Sholto the whitterick or, as one might say,
weasel.
"At him, Whitterick--grip him! Grip him! Now you have him at the
pinch! Well pulled, Brock! 'Tis a certainty for Brock--good Brock!
Well done--well done! Ah, would you? Hands off that dagger! Let
fisticuffs settle it! The Whitterick hath it--the Whitterick!"
And thus ran the comment. Sholto being cumbered with his armour,
Laurence might in time have gotten the upper grip. But at this moment
a diversion occurred which completely altered the character of the
conflict. A stout, reddish young man came up, holding in his hand a
staff painted with twining stripes of white and red, which showed him
to be the marshal of that part of the camp which pertained to the Earl
of Angus. He looked on for a moment from the skirts of the crowd, and
then elbowed his way self-importantly into the centre, till he stood
immediately above Laurence and Sholto.
"What means this hubbub, I say? Quit your hold there and come with me;
my Lord of Angus will settle this dispute."
He had come up just when the young men were in the final grips, when
Sholto had at last gotten his will of his brother's head, and was, as
the saying is, giving him "Dutch spice" in no very knightly fashion.
The Angus marshal, seeing this, seized Sholto by the collar of his
mailed shirt, and drawing him suddenly back, caused him to lose hold
of his brother, who as quickly rose to his feet. The red man began to
beat Sholto about the headpiece right heartily with his staff, which
exercise made a great ringing noise, though naturally, the skull cap
being the work of Malise MacKim, little harm ensued to the head
enclosed therein.
But Master Laurence was instantly on fire.
"Here, Foxy-face," he cried, "let my brother a-be! What business is it
of yours if two gentlemen have a difference? Go back to your Angus
kernes and ragged craw-bogle Highland folk!"
Meanwhile Sholto had recovered from his surprise, and the crowd of
varlets was melting apace, thinking the Angus marshal some one of
consequence. But the brothers MacKim were not the lads to take beating
with a stick meekly, and the provost, who indeed had nothing to do
with the Galloway part of the encampment, had far better have confined
his officiousness to his own quarters.
"Take him on the right, Sholto," cried Laurence, "and I will have at
him from this side." The Red Angus drew his sword and threatened
forthwith to slay the lads if they came near him. But with a spring
like that of a grey Grimalkin of the woods, Sholto leapt within his
guard ere he had time to draw back his arm for thrust or parry, and at
the same moment Laurence, snatching the red and white staff out of his
hand, dealt him so sturdy a clout between the shoulders that, though
he was of weight equal to both of his opponents taken together, he was
knocked breathless at the first blow and went down beneath the impetus
of Sholto's attack.
Laurence coolly disengaged his brother, and began to thrash the Angus
man with his own staff upon all exposed parts, till the dry wood
broke. Then he threw the pieces at his head, and the two brothers went
off arm in arm to find a woody covert in which to repair damages
against the weapon-showing, and the inspection of their lord and his
keen-eyed master armourer.
As soon as they had discovered such a sequestered holt, Laurence, who
had frequent experience of such rough-and-tumble encounters, stripped
off his doublet of purple velvet, and, turning the sleeve inside out,
he showed his brother that it was lined with a rough-surfaced felt
cloth almost of the nature of teasle. This being rubbed briskly upon
any dusty garment or fouled armour proved most excellent for restoring
its pristine gloss and beauty. The young men, being as it were born to
the trade and knowing that their armament must meet their father's
inexorable eye, as he passed along their lines with the Earl, rubbed
and polished their best, and when after half an hour's sharp work each
examined the other, not a speck or stain was left to tell of the
various casual incidents of the morning. Two bright, fresh-coloured
youths emerged from their thicket, immaculately clad, and with
countenances of such cherubic innocence, that my lord the Abbot
William of the great Cistercian Abbey of Dulce Cor, looking upon them
as with bare bowed heads they knelt reverently on one knee to ask his
blessing, said to his train, "They look for all the world like young
angels! It is a shame and a sin that two such fair innocents should be
compelled to join in aught ruder than the chanting of psalms in holy
service."
Whereat one of his company, who had been witness to their treatment of
the Angus provost and also of Laurence's encounter with the knight of
the black armour, was seized incontinently with a fit of coughing
which almost choked him.
"Bless you, my sons," said the Abbot, "I will speak to my nephew, the
Earl, concerning you. Your faces plead for you. Evil cannot dwell in
such fair bodies. What are your names?"
The younger knelt with his fingers joined and his eyes meekly on the
grass, while Sholto, who had risen, stood quietly by with his steel
cap in his hand.
"Laurence MacKim," answered the younger, modestly, without venturing
to raise his eyes from the ground, "and this is my brother Sholto."
"Can you sing, pretty boy?" said the Abbot to Laurence.
"We have never been taught," answered downright Sholto. But his
brother, feeling that he was losing chances, broke in:
"I can sing, if it please your holiness."
"And what can you sing, sweet lad?" asked the Abbot, smiling with
expectation and setting his hand to his best ear to assist his
increasing deafness.
"Shut your fool's mouth!" said Sholto under his breath to his brother.
"Shut your own! 'Tis ugly as a rat-trap at any rate!" responded
Laurence in the same key. Then aloud to the Abbot he said, "An it
please you, sir, I can sing 'O Mary Quean!'"
The Abbot smiled, well pleased.
"Ah, exceeding proper, a song to the honour of the Queen of Heaven (he
devoutly crossed himself at the name),--I knew that I could not be
mistaken in you."
"Your pardon, most reverend," interjected Sholto, anxiously, "please
you to excuse my brother; his voice hath just broken and he cannot
sing at present." Then, under his breath, he added, "Laurie MacKim,
you God-forgotten fool, if you sing that song you will get us both
stripped in a thrice and whipped on the bare back for insolence to the
Earl's uncle!"
"Go to," said his brother, "I _will_ sing. The old cook is monstrous
deaf at any rate."
"Sing," said the Abbot, "I would hear you gladly. So fair a face must
be accompanied by the pipe of a nightingale. Besides, we sorely need a
tenor for the choir at Sweetheart."
So, encouraged in this fashion, the daring Laurence began:
_"Nae priests aboot me shall be seen
To mumble prayers baith morn and e'en,
I'll swap them a' for Mary Quean!
I'll bid nae mess for me be sung,
Dies ille, dies iræ,
Nor clanking bells for me be rung,
Sic semper solet fieri!
I'll gang my ways to Mary Quean."_
"Ah, very good, very good, truly," said the Abbot, thrusting his hand
into his pouch beneath his gown, "here are two gold nobles for thee,
sweet lad, and another for your brother, whose countenance methinks is
somewhat less sweet. You have sung well to the praise of our Lady!
What did you say your name was? Of a surety, we must have you at
Sweetheart. And you have the Latin, too, as I heard in the hymn. It is
a thing most marvellous. Verily, the very unction of grace must have
visited you in your cradle!"
Laurence held down his head with all his native modesty, but the more
open Sholto grew red in the face, hearing behind him the tittering and
shoulder-shaking of the priests and lay servants in the Abbot's train,
and being sure that they would inform their master as soon as he
passed on concerning the true import of Master Laurence's song. He was
muttering in a rapid recitative, "Oh, wait--wait, Laurie MacKim, till
I get you on the Carlinwark shore. A sore back and a stiff skinful of
bones shalt thou have, and not an inch of hide on thee that is not
black and blue. Amen!" he added, stopping his maledictions quickly,
for at that moment the Abbot came somewhat abruptly to the end of his
speech.
The great churchman rode away on his fair white mule, with a smile and
a backward wave of his hand.
"I will speak to my nephew concerning you this very day, my child," he
cried.
And the countenance of that most gentle youth kept its sweet innocence
and angelic grace to the last, but that of Sholto was more dark and
frowning than ever.