THE RISING OF THE DOUGLASES
It was upon the Earl's own charger, Black Darnaway, that Sholto rode
southward to raise to their chief's assistance the greatest and
compactest clan that ever, even in Scotland, had done the bidding of
one man.
The young man's heart was high and hopeful within him. The King's
guardians dared not, so he told himself, let aught befall the puissant
Douglases in the Castle of Edinburgh, without trial and under cover of
the most courteous hospitality.
"Try the Earl of Douglas!" so Sholto thought within him. He laughed at
the notion. "Why, Earl William could by a word bring a hundred
thousand men of Galloway and the Marches to make a fitting jury."
So he meditated, his thoughts running fast and fiery to the beating of
Black Darnaway's feet as he climbed the heathery slopes which led
towards Douglasdale. Day was breaking as he rode down to the town of
Lanark yet asleep and smokeless in the caller airs of the morn. At the
gates of this frontier town he delivered his first summons of
feudality. For the burghers of Lanark were liegemen of the Douglases
of Douglasdale, and were (though not with much good-will) bound to
furnish service at call.
Sholto had some difficulty in making himself heard athwart the
ponderous wooden gates, bossed with leather and studded with iron. At
first he shouted angrily to the silences, but presently nearer and
nearer came a bellow as of a brazen bull, thunderous and far echoing.
"Fower o' the clock and a braw, braw morning."
It was Grice Elshioner, watchman of the town of Lanark, evidencing to
the magistrates and lieges thereof that he was earning his three
shillings in the week--a handsome wage in these hard times, and one
well able to provide belly-timber for himself and also for the wife
and weans who, dwelling in a close off the High-street, were called by
his name.
Sholto thundered again upon the rugged portal.
"Open there! Open, I say, in the name of the Earl of Douglas!"
"Fower o' the morning! Lord, what's a' the steer? In the name o' the
Yerl o' Douglas! But wha kens that it isna the English? Na, na, Grice
Elshioner opens not to every night-raking loon that likes to cry the
name o' the Yerl o' Douglas ower oor toon wa'!"
And Grice the valorous would have taken him off with a fresh,
sleep-dispelling bellow had it not been that he heard himself summoned
in a voice that brooked no delay.
"Open, varlet of a watchman, or by Saint Bride I will have you
swinging in half an hour from the bars of your own portcullis. I who
speak am Sholto MacKim, captain of the Earl's guard. Every liegeman in
the town must arm, mount, and ride this instant to Edinburgh. I give
you fair warning. You hear my words, I will not enter your rascal
town. But if so much as one be wanting at the muster, I swear in the
name of my master that his house shall be burned with fire and razed
to the ground, and his wife be a widow or ever the cock craw on
another Sabbath morn!"
And without waiting for a reply Sholto laid the reins upon the neck of
Black Darnaway and rode on southward up Douglas Water to the home nest
of the lordly race.
And behind him, with a wail in it, blared through the narrow streets
the stormy voice of Grice Elshioner, watchman of Lanark, "Wauken ye,
wauken ye, burgesses a'! The Douglas hath sent to bid ye mount and
ride."
The _birr_ of the war drum saluted Sholto's ears ere he had turned the
corner of the town parks. Then came the answering shouts of the
burghers who thrust inquiring and indignant heads out of gable windows
and turret speering-holes.
"_Birr!_" continued the undaunted and insistent town drum.
"Harness your backs! Fill your bellies, and stand ready! The Douglas
has need o' ye, lieges a'!" cried the sonorous voice of the watch.
Sholto smiled as he listened.
"I have at least set them on the alert. They will join the Douglasdale
men as they pass by, or we will show them reason why. But they of
Lanark are ill-set town-ward men, and of no true leal heart, save an
it be to their own coffers. Yet will they march with us for fear of
the harrying hand and the burning roof tree."
The sun rose fair on the battlements of Douglas Castle as Sholto rode
up to the level mead, whereon a little company of men was exercising.
He could hear the words of command cried gruffly in the broad Galloway
speech. Landless Jock was drilling his spearmen, and as the shining
triple line of points dropped to the "ready to receive," the old
knight and former captain of the Earl's guard came forward a little
way to welcome his successor with what grace was at his command.
"Eh, siree, and what has brocht sic a braw young knight and grand
frequenter o' courts sae far as Douglas Castle? Could ye no even let
puir Landless Jock hae the tilt-yaird here to exercise his handfu' in,
and keep his auld banes a wee while frae the rust and the green
mould?"
But even as the crusty old soldier spoke these words, the white
anxiety in Sholto's face struck through his half-humorous complaint,
and the words died on his lips in a perturbed "What is't--what is't
ava, laddie?"
Sholto told him in the fewest words.
"The Yerl and Dawvid in the power o' their hoose's enemies. Blessed
Saint Anthony, and here was I flighterin' and ragin' aboot my
naethings. Here, lads, blaw the horn and cry the slogan. Fetch the
horses frae the stall and stand ready in your war gear within ten
minutes by the knock. Aye, faith, will we raise Douglasdale! Gang your
ways to Gallowa'--there shall not a man bide at hame this day. Certes,
we wull that! Ca' in the by-gaun at Lanark--aye, lad, and, gin the
rascals are no willing or no ready, we will hang the provost and
magistrates at their ain door-cheeks to learn them to bide frae the
cried assembly o' their liege lord!"
Sholto had done enough in Douglasdale. He turned north again on a yet
more important errand. It was forenoon full and broad when he halted
before the little town of Strathaven, upon which the Castle of
Avondale looks down. It seemed of the greatest moment that the
Avondale Douglases should know that which had befallen their cousin.
For no suspicion of treachery within the house and name of Douglas
itself touched with a shade of shadow the mind of Sholto MacKim.
He thundered at the town-ward port of the castle (to which a steep
ascent led up from a narrow vennel), where presently the outer guard
soon crowded about him, listening to his story and already fingering
bowstring and examining rope-matches preparatory to the expected march
upon Edinburgh.
"I have not time to waste, comrades; I would see my lords," said
Sholto. "I must see them instantly."
And even as he spoke there on the steps before him appeared the dark,
handsome face and tall but slightly stooping figure of William Douglas
of Avondale. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, and his
serious thought-weighted brow bent upon the concourse about Sholto.
With a push of his elbows this way and that, the young captain of the
Earl's guard opened a road through the press.
In short, emphatic sentences he told his tale, and at the name of
prisonment and treachery to his cousins the countenance of William
Douglas grew stern and hard. His face twitched as if the news came
very near to him. He did not answer for a moment, but stood biting his
lips and glooming upon Sholto, as though the young man had been a
prisoner waiting sentence of pit or gallows for evil doing.
"I must see James concerning this ill news," he said when Sholto had
finished telling him of the Black Bull's Head at the Chancellor's
banquet-table.
He turned to go within.
"My lord," said Sholto, "will you give me another horse, and let
Darnaway rest in your stables? I must instantly ride south again to
raise Galloway."
"Order out all the horses which are ready caparisoned," commanded
William of Avondale, "and do you, Captain Sholto, take your choice of
them."
He went within forthwith and there ensued a pause filled with the
snorting and prancing of steeds, as, mettlesome with oats and hay,
they issued from their stalls, or with the grass yet dewy about their
noses were led in from the field. Darnaway took his leave of Sholto
with a backward neigh of regret, as if to say he was not yet tired of
going on his master's service.
Then presently on the terrace above appeared lazy Lord James, busily
buckling the straps of his body-armour and talking hotly the while
with his brother William.
"I care not even whether our father--" he cried aloud ere, with a
restraining hand upon his wrist, his elder brother could succeed in
stopping him.
"Hush, James," he said, "at least be mindful of those that stand
around."
"I care not, I tell you, William," cried the headstrong youth,
squaring his shoulders as he was wont to do before a fight. "I tell
you that you and I are no traitors to our name, and who meddles with
our coz, Will of Thrieve, hath us to reckon with!"
William of Avondale said nothing, but held out his hand with a slow,
determinate gesture. Said he, "An it were the father that begat us."
Whereat, with all the impetuousness of his race and nature, James
dashed his palm into that of his brother.
"Whiles, William," he cried, "ye appear clerkish and overcautious, and
I break out and miscall ye for no Douglas, when ye will not spend your
siller like a man and are afraid of the honest pint stoup. But at the
heart's heart ye are aye a Douglas--and though the silly gaping
commons like ye not so well as they like me, ye are the best o' us,
for all that."
So it came to pass that within the space of half an hour the Avondale
Douglases had sent men to the four airts, young Hugh Douglas himself
riding west, while James stirred the folk of Avondale and Strathavon,
and in all the courtyards and streets of the little feudal bourg there
began the hum and buzz of the war assembly.
Lord William went with Sholto to see staunch Darnaway duly stabled,
and to approve the horse which was to bear the messenger to the south
without halt, now that his mission was accomplished in the west. When
they came out Sholto's riding harness had been transferred to a noble
grey steed large enough to carry even the burly James, let alone the
slim captain of the archer guard of Thrieve.
In the court, ranked and ready, bridle to bridle were ranged the
knights and squires in waiting about the Castle of Avondale, while out
on a level green spot on the edge of the moor gathered the denser
array of the townfolk with spears and partisans.
In an hour the Avondale Douglases were ready to ride to the assistance
of their cousins. Alas, that Earl William would take no advice, for
had these and others gone in with him to the fatal town, there would
have been no Black Bull's Head on the Chancellor's dinner table in the
banqueting-hall of Edinburgh Castle.