MISTRESS MAUD LINDESAY
The sports of the first day of the great wappenshaw were over. The
Lord James Douglas, second son of the Gross One, had won the single
tourneying by unhorsing all his opponents without even breaking a
lance. For the second time Sholto MacKim wore on his cap the golden
buckle of archery, and took his way happily homeward, much uplifted
that the somewhat fraudulent eyes of Mistress Maud Lindesay had smiled
upon him whilst the French lady was fastening it there.
The knightly part of the great muster had already gone back to their
tents and lodgings. The commonalty were mostly stringing away through
the vales and hill passes to their homes, no longer in ordered
companies, but in bands of two or three. Disputes and misunderstandings
arose here and there between men of different provinces. The Galloway
men called "Annandale thieves" at those border lads who came at the
summons of the hereditary Warden of the Marches. The borderers replied
by loud bleatings, which signified that they held the Galwegians of no
better understanding than their native sheep.
It was a strange and varied company which rode home to Thrieve to
receive the hospitality of the young Earl of Douglas and Duke of
Touraine. The castle itself, being no more than a military fortress,
containing in addition to the soldiers' quarters only the apartments
designed for the family (and scant enough even of those) could not, of
course, accommodate so great a company.
But as was the custom at all great houses, though more in England and
France than in poverty-stricken Scotland, the Earl of Douglas had in
store an abundant supply of tents, some of them woven of arras and
ornamented with cloth of gold, others of humbler but equally
serviceable material.
His mother, the Countess of Douglas, who knew nothing of the
occurrences of the night of the great storm, nor guessed at the
suspicions of witchcraft and diablerie which made a hell of the breast
of Malise, the master armourer, received her son's guests with
distinguished courtesy. Malise himself had gone to find the Abbot, so
soon as ever he set eyes on the companion of the Marshal de Retz, that
they might consult together--only, however, to discover that the
gentle churchman had quitted the field immediately after he had
obtained the consent of his nephew to the possession of the new
chorister, to whom he had taken so sudden and violent a fancy.
The hoofs of the whole cavalcade were erelong sounding hollow and dull
upon the wooden bridge, which the Earl's father had erected from the
left bank to the southernmost corner of the Isle of Thrieve, a bridge
which a single charge of powder, or even a few strokes of a wood-man's
axe, had been sufficient to remove and disable, but which nevertheless
enabled the castle-dwellers to avoid the extreme inconvenience of
passing through the ford at all states of the river.
Sholto MacKim, throwing all the consciousness of a shining success
into the stiffness of the neck which upheld the slight additional
weight of the Earl's gold buckle in his cap, found himself, not wholly
by accident, in the neighbourhood of his heart's beloved, Maud
Lindesay. For, like a valiant seneschal, she had kept her place all
day close beside the Fair Maid of Galloway.
And now the little girl was more than ever eager to keep near to her
friend, for the ambassador of the King of France had bent one look
upon her, so strange and searching that Margaret, though not naturally
timid, had cried aloud involuntarily and clasped her friend's hand
with a grasp which she refused to loosen, till Sholto had promised to
walk by the side of her pony and allow her to net her trembling
fingers into the thick of his clustering curls.
For the armourer's son was, in those simple days, an ancient ally and
playmate of the little noble damsel, and he dreamed, and not without
some excuse, that in an age when every man's strong arm and brave
heart constituted his fortune, the time might come when he might even
himself to Maud Lindesay, baron's daughter though she were. For both
his father and himself were already high in favour with their master
the Earl, who could create knighthoods and dispose lordships as easily
as (and much more effectually and finally than) the King himself.
The emissaries of the Chancellor and Sir Alexander Livingston did not
accompany the others back to the castle after the short and haughty
answer which they had received, but with their followers returned the
way they had come to their several headquarters, giving, as was
natural between foes so bitter, a wide berth to each other on their
northward journeys to Edinburgh and Stirling.
"What think you of this day's doings, Mistress Lindesay?" asked Sholto
as he swung along beside the train with little Margaret Douglas's hand
still clutching the thick curls at the back of his neck.
The maid of honour tossed her shapely head, and, with a little pretty
upward curl of the lip, exclaimed: "'Twas as stupid a tourney as ever
I saw. There was not a single handsome knight nor yet one beautiful
lady on the field this day."
"What of James of Avondale when knights are being judged?" said
Sholto, with a kind of gloomy satisfaction, boyish and characteristic;
"he at least looked often enough in your direction to prove that he
did not agree with you about the lack of the beautiful lady."
At this Maud Lindesay elevated her pretty nostrils yet further into
the air. "James of Avondale, indeed--" she said, "he is not to be
compared either for dignity or strength with the Earl himself, nor yet
with many others whom I know of lesser estate."
"Sholto MacKim," cried the clear piping voice of the little Margaret,
"how in the world am I to keep hold of your hair if you shake and jerk
your head about like that? If you do not keep still I will send for
that pretty boy over there in the scarlet vest, or ask my cousin James
to ride with me. And he will, too, I know--for he likes bravely to be
beside my dear, sweet Maud Lindesay."
After this Sholto held his head erect and forth-looking, as if he had
been under the inspection of the Earl and were doubtful of his weapons
passing muster.
There came a subtle and roguish smile into the eyes of Mistress Maud
Lindesay as she observed the stiffening of Sholto's bearing.
"Who were those others of humbler estate?" he queried, sending his
words straight out of his lips like pellets from a pop-gun, being in
fear lest he should unsettle the hand of the small tyrant upon his
hair.
"Your brother Laurence for one," replied the minx, for no other
purpose than to see the flush of disappointment tinge his brow with
sudden red.
"I wish my brother Laurence were in--" he began. But the girl
interrupted him.
"Hush," she said, holding up her finger, "do not swear, especially at
a son of the holy church. Ha, ha! A fit clerk and a reverend will they
make of Laurence MacKim! I have heard of your ploys and ongoings, both
of you. Think not I am to be taken in by your meekness and pretence of
dutiful service. You go athwart the country making love to poor
maidens, and then, when you have won their hearts, you leave them
lamenting."
And she affected to heave a deep sigh.
"Ah, Maudie," said the little girl, reproachfully, "now you are being
bad. I know it by your voice. Do not be unkind to my Sholto, for his
hair is so pleasant to touch. I wish you could feel it. And, besides,
when you are wicked to him, you make him jerk, and if he does it often
I shall have to send him away."
The Maid of Galloway was indeed entirely correct. For Maud Lindesay,
accustomed all her life to the homage of many men, and having been
brought up in a great castle in an age when chivalrous respect to
women had not yet given place to the licence of the Revival of
Letters, practised irritation like a fine art. She was brimful of the
superfluity of naughtiness, yet withal as innocent and playful as a
kitten.
But Sholto, both from a feeling that he belonged to an inferior rank,
and also being exceedingly conscious of his youth, chose to be
bitterly offended.
"You mistake me greatly, Mistress Lindesay," he said in an uneven
schoolboy's voice, to which he tried in vain to add a touch of worldly
coldness; "I do not make love to every girl I meet, nor yet do I love
them and leave them as you say. You have been most gravely
misinformed."
"Nay," tripped the maid of honour, with arch quickness of reply, "I
said not that you were naturally equipped for such amorous quests. I
meant to designate your brother Laurence. 'Tis pity he is to be a
clerk. Though one day doubtless he will make a very proper and
consolatory father confessor--"
Sholto walked on in silence, his eyes fixed before him, and in such
high dudgeon that he pretended to be unconscious of what the girl had
been saying. Then the little Margaret began to prattle in her pretty
way, and the youth answered "yes" and "no" sulkily and at random, his
thoughts being alternately on the doing of some great deed to make his
mistress repent her cruelty, and on a leap into the castle pool, in
whose unsunned deeps he might find oblivion from all the flouts of
hard-hearted beauty.
Maud kept her eyes upon him, a smile of satisfaction on her lips so
long as he was not looking at her. She liked to play her fish as
satisfactorily as she could before grassing it at her feet.
"Besides, it will do him good," she said to herself. "He hath lately
won the gold badge of archery, and, like all men, is apt to think
overmuch of himself at such times. Moreover, I can always make it up
to him after--if I like, that is."
But as often as Sholto dropped a little behind, keeping pace with Maid
Margaret's slower palfrey so that Maud was sure he looked at her, the
pretty coquette cast down her eyes in affected humility and sorrow.
Whereupon immediately Sholto felt his resentment begin to melt like
snow off a dike top when the sun of April is shining.
But neither of them uttered another word till they reached the
drawbridge which crossed the nether moat and conducted to the noble
gateway of Thrieve. Then, at the foot of the stairway to the hall,
Sholto, having swung the little maid from her pony, after a moment of
sullen hesitation went across to assist Mistress Maud Lindesay out of
her saddle.
As he lifted the girl down his heart thundered tumultuously in his
breast, for he had never so touched her before. Her lashes rested
modestly on her cheek--long, black, and upcurled a little at the ends.
As her foot touched the ground, she raised them a moment, and looked
at him with one swift flash of violet eyes made darker by the
seclusion from which she had released them. Then in another moment she
had dropped them again, detaching them from his with a mighty
affectation of confusion.
"Please, Sholto, I am sorry. I did not mean it." She spoke like a
child that is sorry for a fault and is fearful of being chidden.
And even though knowing full well by bitter experience all her
naughtiness and hypocrisy, Sholto, gulping his heart well down into
his throat, could not do otherwise than forgive a thing so pretty and
so full of the innocent artifices which make mown hay of the hearts of
men.
With a touch of his lips upon the hand of Margaret the Maid in token
of fealty, Sholto MacKim turned on his heel and went away towards the
fords of Thrieve, muttering to himself, "No, she does not mean it, I
do believe. But I have ever heard that of all women she who never
means it is the most dangerous."
And this is a dict which no wise man can gainsay.