A DAUNTING SUMMONS
Not far before them had ridden the Earl and the Lady Sybilla. Behind
these two came the Marshal de Retz and the fat Lord of Avondale. They
were telling each other tales of the wars of La Pucelle, the latter
laughing and shaking shoulders, but at the end of every side-splitting
legend the Frenchman would glance over his shoulder at Maud Lindesay
and the little maiden Margaret.
As Sholto passed them on his return he stood aside, poised at the
salute, looking meanwhile with awe on the great and notable French
soldier. Yet at the first glimpse of his unvisored face there fell
upon the young man a dislike so fierce and instinctive that he grasped
his bow and fumbled in his quiver for an arrow, in order to send it
through the unlaced joints of the Marshal's gorget, which for ease's
sake his squire had undone when they left the field.
Sholto MacKim was at the fords waiting the chance of crossing and the
pleasure of the surly keeper of the bridge, Elson A'Cormack, who sat
in his wheelhouse, grunting curses on all who passed that way.
"Foul feet, slow bellies, fushionless and slack ye are to run my
lord's errands! But quick enow to return home upon your trampling
clattering ruck of horses, and every rascal of you expecting to ride
over my bridge of good pine planking instead of washing the dirt from
your hoofs in honest Dee water."
The long files of horsemen threaded their way across the green plain
of the isle towards the open space in front of Thrieve Castle, the
points of their spears shining high in the air, and the shafts so
thick underneath that, seen from a distance, they made a network of
slender lines reticulated against the brightness of the sun.
The great island strength of the Douglases was then in its highest
state of perfection as a fortress and of dignity as a residence.
Archibald the Grim, who built the keep, could not have foreseen the
wondrous beauty and strength to which Thrieve would attain under his
successors. This night of the wappenshaw the lofty grey walls were
hung with gaily coloured tapestries draped from the overhanging
gallery of wood which ran round the top of the castle. From the four
corners of the roof flew the banners of four provinces which owned the
sway of the mighty house,--Galloway, Annandale, Lanark, and the
Marches,--while from the centre, on a flagstaff taller than any, flew
their standard royal, for so it might be called, the heart and stars
of the Douglases' more than royal house.
While the outer walls thus blazed with colour, the woods around gave
back the constant reverberation of cannon, as with hand guns and
artillery of weight the garrison greeted the return of the Earl and
his guests. The green castle island from end to end was planted thick
with tents and gay with pavilions of many hues and various design,
their walls covered with intricate devices, and each flying the
colours of its owner, while on poles without dangled shields and
harness of various kinds, ready for the younger squires to clean and
oil for the use of their masters on the remaining days of the
tournament.
Sholto waited at the bridge-head, impatient of the press, and eager to
be left alone with his own thoughts, that he might con over and over
the words and looks of his heart's idol, and suck all the sweet pain
he could out of her very hardheartedness. Suddenly tossed backwards
like a ball from lip to lip, according to the universal and, indeed,
obligatory custom of the time, there reached him the "passing of the
word." He heard his own name repeated over and over in fifty voices
and tones, waxing louder as the "word" neared him.
"Sholto MacKim--Sholto MacKim, son of Malise, the armourer, wanted to
speak with the Earl. Sholto MacKim. Sholto--"
A great nolt of a Moray Highlandman, with a mouth like a gash, shouted
it in his very ear.
Surprised and somewhat anxious at heart, Sholto cast over in his mind
all the deeds, good and evil, which might procure him the honour of an
interview with Earl William Douglas, but could think of nothing except
his having involuntarily played the spy at the young lord's meeting
with the lady in the wood. It was therefore with some natural
trepidation that the young man obeyed the summons.
"At any rate," he meditated with a slight return of complacency, as he
butted and shoved his way castle-wards, "he can scarcely mean to have
my head. For he was all day with my father at his elbow, and at the
worst I shall have another chance of seeing"--he did not call the
beloved by her Christian name even to himself, so he compromised by
adding somewhat lamely--"_her_."
Thus Sholto, putting speed in his heels and swinging along over the
trampled sward with the easy tireless trot of a sleuthhound, threaded
his way among the groups of villein prickers and swearing men-at-arms
who cumbered the main approaches of the castle.
He found the Earl walking swiftly up and down a little raised platform
which extended round three sides of Thrieve, outside the main
defences, but yet within the nether moat, the sluggish water of which
it over-looked on its inner side.
Earl William was manifestly discomposed and excited by the events of
the day, and especially by the fact that the Lady Sybilla seemed
utterly unconscious of ever having set eyes upon him before, appearing
entirely oblivious of having received him in a pavilion of
rose-coloured silk under the shelter of a grove of tall pines. The
young lord instinctively recoiled from any communication with his
master armourer, whose grave and impassive face revealed nothing which
might be passing in his mind. Then the Earl's thoughts turned upon
Sholto, who had been the first to observe his beauteous companion of
the Carlinwark woods.
Earl William was even younger than Sholto, but the cares and dignities
of a great position had rendered him far less boyish in manner and
carriage than the son of Malise MacKim.
His head, now released from his helm, rose out from the richly
ornamented collar of his armour with the grace of a flower and the
strength of a tree rooted among rocks. He had already laid aside his
gorget, and when Sholto was announced, the Earl's ancient retainer,
old Landless Jock of Abernethy, was bringing him a cap of soft velvet
which he threw on the back of his head with an air of supreme
carelessness. Then he rose and walked up and down, carrying his armour
as if it had been a mere feather weight, whereas it was tilting
harness of double plate and designed only for wearing on horseback.
Sholto marked in the young lord a boyish eagerness equal to his own.
Indeed, his impatient manner recalled his late feelings, as he had
stood on the bridge and desired to be left alone with his thoughts of
Maud Lindesay.
Sholto stood still and quiet on the topmost step of the ascent from
the moat-bridge waiting for the Earl to signify his will.