THE YOUNG LORDS RIDE AWAY
This was the letter which, along with the Chancellor's invitations,
came to the hand of the Earl William as he rode forth to the
deer-hunting one morning from his Castle of Thrieve:
"My lord, if it be not that you have wholly forgotten me and your
promise, this comes to inform you that my uncle and I purpose to abide
at the Castle of Crichton for ten days before finally departing forth
of this land. It is known to me that the Chancellor, moved thereto by
One who desires much to see you, hath invited the Earl of Douglas to
come thither with what retinue is best beseeming so great a lord.
"But 'tis beyond hope that we should meet in this manner. My lord
hath, doubtless, ere this forgot all that was between us, and hath
already seen others fairer and more worthy of his courteous regard
than the Lady Sybilla. This is as well beseems a mighty lord, who
taketh up a cup full and setteth it down empty. But a woman hath
naught to do, save only to remember the things that have been, and to
think upon them. Grace be to you, my dear lord. And so for this time
and it may be for ever, fare you well!"
When the Earl had read this letter from the Lady Sybilla, he turned
himself in his saddle without delay and said to his hunt-master:
"Take back the hounds, we will not hunt the stag this day."
The messenger stood respectfully before him waiting to take back an
answer.
"Come you from the town of Edinburgh?" asked the Earl, quickly.
"Nay," said the youth, "let it please your greatness, I am a servant
of my Lord of Crichton, and come from his new castle in the Lothians."
"Doth the Chancellor abide there at this present?" asked the Earl.
"He came two noons ago with but one attendant, and bade us make ready
for a great company who were to arrive there this very day. Then he
gave me these two letters and set my head on the safe delivery of
them."
"Sholto," cried the young lord, "summon the guard and men-at-arms.
Take all that can be spared from the defence of the castle and make
ready to follow me. I ride immediately to visit the Chancellor of
Scotland at his castle in the Lothians."
It was Sholto's duty to obey, but his heart sank within him, both at
the thought of the Earl thus venturing among his enemies, and also
because he must needs leave behind him Maud Lindesay, on whose wilful
and wayward beauty his heart was set.
"My lord," he stammered, "permit me one word. Were it not better to
wait till a following of knights and gentlemen beseeming the Earl of
Douglas should be brought together to accompany you on so perilous a
journey?"
"Do as I bid you, Sir Captain," was the Earl's short rejoinder; "you
have my orders."
"O that the Abbot were here--" thought Sholto, as he moved heavily to
do his master's will; "he might reason with the Earl with some hope of
success."
On his way to summon the guard Sholto met Maud Lindesay going out to
twine gowans with the Maid on the meadows about the Mains of Kelton.
For, as Margaret Douglas complained, "All ours on the isle were
trodden down by the men who came to the tourney, and they have not
grown up again."
"Whither away so gloomy, Sir Knight?" cried Maud, all her winsome face
alight with pleasure in the bright day, and because of the excellent
joy of living.
"On a most gloomy errand, indeed," said Sholto. "My lord rides with a
small company into the very stronghold of his enemy, and will hear no
word from any!"
"And do you go with him?" cried Maud, her bright colour leaving her
face.
"Not only I, but all that can be spared of the men-at-arms and of the
archer guard," answered Sholto.
Maud Lindesay turned about and took the little girl's hand.
"Margaret," she said, "let us go to my lady. Perhaps she will be able
to keep my Lord William at home."
So they went back to the chamber of my Lady of Douglas. Now the
Countess had never been of great influence with her son, even during
her husband's lifetime, and had certainly none with him since. Still
it was possible that William Douglas might, for a time at least,
listen to advice and delay his setting out till a suitable retinue
could be brought together to protect him. Maud and Margaret found the
Lady of Douglas busily embroidering a vestment of silk and gold for
the Abbot of Sweetheart. She laid aside her work and listened with
gentle patience to the hasty tale told by Maud Lindesay.
"I will speak with William," she answered, with a certain hopelessness
in her voice, "but I know well he will go his own gait for aught that
his mother can say. He is his father's son, and the men of the house
of Douglas, they come and they go, recking no will but their own. And
even so will my son William."
"But he is taking David with him also!" cried Margaret. "I met him
even now on the stair, wild in haste to put on his shirt of mail and
the sword with the golden hilt which the ambassador of France gave
him."
A quick flush coloured the pale countenance of the Lady Countess.
"Nay, but one is surely enough to meet the Chancellor. David shall not
go. He is but a lad and knows nothing of these things."
For this boy was ever his mother's favourite, far more than either her
elder son or her little daughter, whom indeed she left entirely to the
care and companionship of Maud Lindesay.
My Lady of Douglas went slowly downstairs. The Earl, with Sholto by
his side, was ordering the accoutrement of the mounted men-at-arms in
the courtyard.
"William," she called, in a soft voice which would not have reached
him, busied as he was with his work, but that little Margaret raised
her childish treble and called out: "William, our mother desires to
speak with you. Do you not hear her?"
The Earl turned about, and, seeing his mother, came quickly to her and
stood bareheaded before her.
"You are not going to run into danger, William?" she said, still
softly.
"Nay, mother mine," he answered, smiling, "do not fear, I do but ride
to visit the Chancellor Crichton in his castle, and also to bid
farewell to the French ambassador, who abode here as our guest."
A sudden light shone in upon the mind of Maud Lindesay.
"'Tis all that French minx!" she whispered in Sholto's ear, "she hath
bewitched him. No one need try to stop him now."
His mother went on, with an added anxiety in her voice.
"But you will not take my little David with you? You will leave me one
son here to comfort me in my loneliness and old age?"
The Earl seemed about to yield, being, indeed, careless whether David
went with him or no.
"Mother," cried David, coming running forth from the castle, "you must
not persuade William to make me stay at home. I shall never be a man
if I am kept among women. There is Sholto MacKim, he is little older
than I, and already he hath won the archery prize and the sword-play,
and hath fought in a tourney and been knighted--while I have done
nothing except pull gowans with Maud Lindesay and play chuckie stones
with Margaret there."
And at that moment Sholto wished that this fate had been his, and the
honours David's. He told himself that he would willingly have given up
his very knighthood that he might abide near that dainty form and
witching face. He tortured himself with the thought that Maud would
listen to others as she had listened to him; that she would practise
on others that heart-breaking slow droop and quick uplift of the
eyelashes which he knew so well. Who might not be at hand to aid her
to blow out her lamp when the guards were set of new in the corridors
of Thrieve?
"Mother," the Earl answered, "David speaks good sense. He will never
make a man or a Douglas if he is to bide here within this warded isle.
He must venture forth into the world of men and women, and taste a
man's pleasures and chance a man's dangers like the rest."
"But are you certain that you will bring him safe back again to me?"
said his mother, wistfully. "Remember, he is so young and eke so
reckless."
"Nay," cried David, eagerly, "I am no younger than my cousin James was
when he fought the strongest man in Scotland, and I warrant I could
ride a course as well as Hughie Douglas of Avondale, though William
chose him for the tourney and left me to bite my thumbs at home."
The lady sighed and looked at her sons, one of them but a youth and
the other no more than a boy.
"Was there ever a Douglas yet who would take any advice but from his
own desire?" she said, looking down at them like a douce barn-door fowl
who by chance has reared a pair of eaglets. "Lads, ye are over strong
for your mother. But I will not sleep nor eat aright till I have my
David back again, and can see him riding his horse homeward through
the ford."