SHOLTO CAPTURES A PRISONER OF DISTINCTION
He found that the noise came from the chamber occupied by the little
Lady Margaret. When he arrived at the door it stood open to the wall.
The child was sitting up on her bed, clothed in the white garmentry of
the night. Bending over her, with her arms round the heaving shoulders
of the little girl, Sholto saw Maud Lindesay, clad in a dark, hooded
mantle thrown with the appearance of haste about her. The door of the
next chamber also stood wide, and from the coverlets cast on the floor
it was obvious that its occupant had left it hastily in order to fly
to her friend's assistance.
At the sound of hasty footsteps Maud Lindesay turned about, and was
instantly stricken pale and astonished by the sight of the young man
with his sword bare. She cried aloud with a stern and defiant
countenance, "Sholto MacKim, what do you here?"
And before he had time to answer, the little girl looked at him out of
her friend's arms and called out: "O Sholto, Sholto, I am so glad you
are come. I woke to find such a terrible thing looking at me out of
the night. It was shaped like a great wolf, but it was rough of hide,
and had upon it a head like a man's. I was so terrified that at first
I could not cry out. But when it came nearer, and gazed at me, then I
cried. Do not go away, Sholto. I am so glad, so glad that you are
here."
Maud Lindesay had again turned towards Margaret.
"Hush," she said soothingly, "it was a dream. You were frighted by a
vision, by a nightmare, by a succubus of the night. There is no beast
within the castle."
"But I saw it plainly," the maid cried. "It opened the door as if it
had hands--I saw it stand there by the bed and look at me--oh, so
terribly! I saw its teeth glisten and heard them snap together!"
"Little one, be still, it was but a dream," said Sholto, untruthfully;
"nevertheless I will go and search the rest of the castle."
And with these words he went along the corridor, finding the men whom
he had summoned by means of his captain's silver call clustered upon
the landing of the turret stair which communicated with the third
floor. As he glanced along the oak-panelled corridor, it seemed to
Sholto that he discerned a figure vanishing at the further end.
Instantly he resolved on searching, and summoning his men to follow,
he led the way down the passage, sword in hand. As he went he snatched
the lamp from its pin on the wall, and held it in his left high above
his head.
At the further end of the corridor was the door of a little chamber,
and it seemed to Sholto that the shape he had seen must have
disappeared at this point.
He knocked loudly on the door with the hilt of his sword, and cried,
"If any be within, open--in the name of the Earl!"
No voice replied, and Sholto boldly set his foot against the lower
panelling, and drove the door back to the wall with a clang.
Then at sight of a something dark, wrapped in a cloak, standing
motionless against the window, the young captain of the guard elevated
his lamp, and let the flicker of the light fall on the erect figure
and haughty face of a young man, who, with his hand on his hip, stood
considering the rude advance of his pursuers with a calm and
questioning gaze.
It was the Earl of Douglas himself.
Sholto stood petrified at sight of him, and for a long minute could in
no wise recover his self-control nor regain any use of his tongue.
"Well," said the Earl, haughtily, "whence this unseemly uproar? What
do you here, Sholto?"
Then the spirit of his father came upon the young captain of the
guard. He knew that he had only done his duty in its strictness, and
he boldly answered the Earl: "Nay, my lord, were it not for courtesy,
I have more right to ask you that question. Your sister hath been
frighted, and at sound of her terror all we who were dispersed
throughout the castle rushed to the spot. As I came down the stairs
from the roof at speed, I saw something like to a great wolf about to
descend the turret before me. With my sword I struck at it, and to all
appearance wounded it. It vanished, and after searching the castle I
can find neither wolf nor dog. But I saw, as it seemed, a figure enter
this room, and upon opening it I find--the Earl of Douglas. That is
all I know, and I leave the matter in my lord's own hands."
The haughty look gradually disappeared from the face of the Earl as
Sholto spoke.
Smilingly he dismissed the guard with a word, saying that he would
inquire into the cause of the disturbance in person, and then turned
to Sholto.
"You are right," he said, "you have entirely done your duty and
justified my appointment."
He paused, looked this way and that along the corridor, and continued:
"It chanced that in the tower without I could not sleep, and feeling
uneasy concerning my guests, I entered the castle by the private door
and staircase which leads into the apartment corresponding to this on
the floor beneath. I was assuring myself that you were doing your duty
when, being disturbed by the sudden hubbub, and judging it needless
that the men-at-arms should know of my presence in the castle, I came
in hither till the matter should have blown over. And so, but for your
good conscience and the keenness of your vision, the matter would have
ended."
Sholto bowed coldly.
"But, my lord," he said, ignoring the Earl's explanation, "the matter
grows more mysterious than ever. Your sister, the little Lady
Margaret, hath been grievously frighted by an appearance like a great
beast which (so she affirms) opened the door of her chamber and looked
within."
"She but dreamed," said the Earl, carelessly; "such visions come from
supping late."
"But, with all respect, your lordship," continued Sholto, "I also saw
the appearance even as I ran down the stairs from the roof at the
noise of her crying."
"You were startled--excited, and but thought you saw."
Sholto reversed his sword, which he had held with the point towards
the ground while he was speaking with his lord the Earl.
Holding the blade midway with much deference, he presented the hilt to
William Douglas.
"Will you examine the point of this sword?" he said.
The Earl came a step nearer to him and Sholto advanced the steel till
it was immediately beneath the lamp. There was blood upon the last
inch or so of the blade. The Earl suddenly became violently agitated.
"This is indeed passing strange. There is no hound within the castle
nor has there been for years. Even the presence of a lap-dog will fret
my mother, so in my father's time they were every one removed to the
kennels at the further end of the isle of Thrieve, whence even their
howling cannot be heard. But let us proceed to the Lady Margaret, and
on our way examine the place where you saw the apparition."
Sholto stood aside for the Earl to pass, but with a wave of his hand
the latter said courteously, "Nay, but do you lead the way, captain of
the guard."
They passed the door of the chamber where lay the Lady Sybilla. The
niece of the ambassador must have been a heavy sleeper, for there was
no sound within. Opposite was the chamber of the Earl's mother. She
also appeared to be undisturbed, but the increasing deafness of the
Countess offered a complete explanation of her tranquillity.
Next the two young men came to the door of the marshal's chamber. As
they were about to pass, it opened silently, and a man-servant with a
closely cropped obsequious head appeared within. He unclosed the door
no further than would permit of his exit, and then he shut it again
behind him, and stood holding the latch in his hand.
"His Excellency, being overfatigued, hath need of a little strong
spirit," he said, with a curious gobbling movement of his throat as if
he himself had been either thirsty or in deadly and overmastering
fear.
The Earl ordered Sholto to wake the cellarer and bid him bring the
ambassador of France that which he required. He himself would go
onward to his sister's chamber. Sholto somewhat sullenly obeyed, for
his heart was hot and angry within him. He thought that he began to
see clearly the motive of the Earl's presence in the castle. The youth
was himself so deeply and hopelessly in love with Mistress Maud
Lindesay that he could not understand any other of his sex being
insensible to the charm of her beauty and myriad winsome graces.
As he went down the stairs he recalled a thousand circumstances to
mind which now seemed capable of but one explanation. It was evident
that the Earl William came to visit some one by means of the private
staircase under cloud of night. Nay, more, Maud Lindesay and he might
be already privately married, and the matter kept secret on account of
the pride of his family, who devised another match for him. For though
the daughter of a knight, Maud Lindesay was assuredly no fit mate for
the head of the more than regal house of Douglas. He remembered how on
Sundays and saints' days Earl William always rode to and from the kirk
with his sister on one side and Maud Lindesay on the other. That the
young Earl was by no means insensible to beauty, Sholto knew well,
and he remembered his words to his own father, when he had asked to be
allowed to accompany him on his Flanders mare, that such attendance
was not seemly when a man was going a-courting.
As is always the case, he grew more and more confirmed in his ill
humour, so soon as the eye of jealousy began to view everything in the
light of prepossession.
Sholto awaked the cellarer out of his crib, who, presently, with
snorts of disdain and much jangling of steel keys, drew half a tankard
from a keg of spirit in the cellar on the dungeon floor and handed it
grudgingly to the captain of the guard.
"The Frenchman wants it, does he?" he growled. "Had the messenger been
old Landless Jock, I had known down whose Scottish throat it had gone,
but this one is surely too young for such tricks. See that you spill
it not by the way, Master Sholto," he called out after him, as that
youth betook himself up to the chamber of the ambassador of France.
At the shut portal he paused and knocked. His hand was on the pin to
enter with the tankard as was the custom. But the door opened no more
than an inch or two, and the dark face of the cropped servitor
appeared in the crevice.
"In a moment, sir," he said, and again vanished within, while a strong
animal odour disengaged itself almost like something tangible from the
chinks of the doorway.
Sholto stood in astonishment with the _eau de vie_ in his hand, till
presently the door was opened again very quickly. The form of the
servitor was seen, and with a swift edging motion he came out, drawing
the door behind him as before. He held a bar of iron in his hand like
the fastening of a window, and a little breath of heat told the
smith's son that though black it was still warm from the fire.
"Take this iron," he said abruptly, "and bring it to me fully heated.
I am finishing a little device which his Excellency needs for the
combat of the morrow."
The captain of the guard was nettled at the man's tone. Also he
desired much to know what his master was doing on the floor above.
"Heat it at your own nose, fellow," he said rudely; "I am captain of
the castle-guard, and must attend to my own business. Take the spirit
out of my hand if you do not want it thrown in your face."
The swarthy, bullet-headed man glared at him with eyes like burning
coals, but Sholto cared no jot for his anger. Forthwith he turned his
back upon him, glad at heart to have found some one to quarrel with,
and hoping that the ambassador's squire might prove courageous and
challenge him to fight on the morrow.
But the man only replied: "I am Henriet, servant of the marshal. I bid
you remember that I shall make you live to regret these words."