THE BOWER BY YON BURNSIDE
And ever as he gazed at her the Earl of Douglas grew more and more in
love with the Lady Sybilla. There was no covert side through which a
burn plunged downward from the steep side of Moorfoot, but they
wandered it alone together. Early and late they might have been met,
he with his face turned upon her, and she looking straight forward
with the same inscrutable calm. And all who saw left them alone as
they took their way to gather flowers like children, or, as it might
be, stood still and silent like a pair of lovers under the evening
star. For in these summer days and nights bloomed untiringly the brief
passion-flower of William Douglas's life.
Meanwhile Sholto gritted his teeth in impotent rage, but had nothing
to do save change guard and keep a wary eye upon the Chancellor, who
went about rubbing his hands and glancing sidelong as the copses
closed behind the Earl of Douglas and the Lady Sybilla. As for the
ambassador of France, he was, as was usual with him, much occupied in
his own chamber with his servants Poitou and Henriet, and save when
dinner was served in hall appeared little at the festivities.
Sholto wished at times for the presence of his father; but at others,
when he saw William Douglas and Sybilla return with a light on their
faces, and their eyes large and vague, he bethought him of Maud
Lindesay, and was glad that, for a little at least, the sun of love
should shine upon his lord.
It was in the gracious fulness of the early autumn, when the sheaves
were set up in many a park and little warded holt about the Moorfoot
braes, that William Douglas and Sybilla de Thouars stood together upon
a crest of hill, crowned with dwarf birch and thick foliaged alder--a
place in the retirement of whose sylvan bower they had already spent
many tranced hours.
The Lady Sybilla sat down on a worn grey rock which thrust itself
through the green turf. William Douglas stood beside her pulling a
blade of bracken to pieces. The girl had been wearing a broad flat cap
of velvet, which in the coolness of the twilight she had removed and
now swung gently to and fro in her hand as she looked to the north,
where small as a toy and backed by the orange glow of sunset, the
Castle of Edinburgh could be seen black upon its wind-swept ridge. The
girl was speaking slowly and softly.
"Nay, Earl Douglas," she said, "marriage must not be named to Sybilla
de Thouars, certainly never by an Earl of Douglas and Duke of
Touraine. He must wed for riches and fair provinces. His house is
regal already. He is better born than the King, more powerful also.
The daughter of a Breton squire, of a forlorn and deserted mother, the
kinswoman of Gilles de Retz of Machecoul and Champtocé, is not for
him."
"A Douglas makes many sacrifices," said the young man with
earnestness; "but this is not demanded of him. Four generations of us
have wedded for power. It is surely time that one did so for love."
The girl reached him her hand, saying softly: "Ah, William, would that
it had been so. Too late I begin to think on those things which might
have been, had Sybilla de Thouars been born under a more fortunate
star. As it is I can only go on--a terror to myself and a bane to
others."
The young man, absorbed in his own thoughts, did not hear her words.
"The world itself were little to give in order that in exchange I
might possess you," he answered.
The girl laughed a strange laugh, and drew back her hand from his.
"Possess me, well--but marry me--no. Honest men and honourable like
Earl Douglas do not wed with the niece of Gilles de Retz. I had
thought my heart within me to be as flint in the chalk, yet now I pray
you on my knees to leave me. Take your thirty lances and your young
brother and ride home. Then, safe in your island fortress of Thrieve,
blot out of your heart all memory that ever you found pleasure in a
creature so miserable as Sybilla de Thouars."
"But," said the young Earl, passionately, "tell me why so, my lady. I
do not understand. What obstacle can there be? You tell me that you
love me, that you are not betrothed. Your kinsman is an honourable
man, a marshal and an ambassador of France, a cousin of the Duke of
Brittany, a reigning sovereign. Moreover, am not I the Douglas? I am
responsible to no man. William Douglas may wed whom he will--king's
daughter or beggar wench. Why should he not join with the honourable
daughter of an honourable house, and the one woman he has ever loved?"
The girl let her velvet cap fall on the ground, and sank her face
between her hands. Her whole body was shaken with emotion.
"Go--go," she cried, starting to her feet and standing before him,
"call out your lances and ride home this night. Never look more upon
the face of such a thing as Sybilla de Thouars. I bid you! I warn you!
I command you! I thought I had been of stone, but now when I see you,
and hear your words, I cannot do that which is laid upon me to do."
William of Douglas smiled.
"I cannot go," he said simply, "I love you. Moreover, I will not go--I
am Earl of Douglas."
The girl clasped her hands helplessly.
"Not if I tell you that I have deceived you, led you on?" she said.
"Not if I swear that I am the slave of a power so terrible that there
are no words in any language to tell the least of the things I have
suffered?"
The Earl shook his head. The girl suddenly stamped her foot in anger.
"Go--go, I tell you," she cried; "stay not a day in this accursed
place, wherein no true word is spoken and no loyal deed done, save
those which come forth from your own true heart."
"Nay," said William Douglas, with his eyes on hers, "it is too late,
Sybil. I have kissed the red of your lips. Your head hath lain on my
breast. My whole soul is yours. I cannot now go back, even if I would.
The boy I have been, I can be no more for ever."
The girl rose from the stone on which she had been sitting. There was
a new smile in her eyes. She held out her hands to the youth who
stood so erect and proud before her. "Well, at the worst, William
Douglas," she said, "you may never live to wear a white head, but at
least you shall touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
taste the fruitage and smell the blossoms thereof more than a hundred
greybeards. I had not thought that earth held anywhere such a man, or
that aught but blackness and darkness remained this side of hell for
one so desolate as I. I have bid you leave me. I have told you that
which, were it known, would cost me my life. But since you will not
go,--since you are strong enough to stand unblenching in the face of
doom,--you shall not lose all without a price."
She opened her arms wide, and her eyes were glorious.
"I love you," she said, her lips thrilling towards him, "I love you,
love you, as I never thought to love any man upon this earth."