The Black Douglas Part 31

"No, my David," said the Earl, turning for a moment from the door where he had been again listening, "you shall not stay! You are the hope of our house. My mother would fret to death if aught happened to you. This is not a matter which concerns you. Go, I bid you. On me it lies, and if I must pay the reckoning, why at least only I drank the wine."

"I will not;" cried the boy; "I tell you I will bide where my brother bides and his fate shall be mine."

Then Sholto, well nigh frantic with apprehension and disappointment, went to the window and leaned out, gripping the sill with his hands.

"They will not leave the castle," he whispered as loud as he dared; "the Earl will not escape while the Lady Sybilla remains a prisoner within."

"G.o.d in heaven!" cried a stern voice from below which made Sholto start, "we shall be broken first and last upon that woman. Would to G.o.d I had slain her with my hand! Tell the Earl that if he will not come to those that wait for him underneath the tower, I, Malise MacKim, will come and fetch him like a child in my arms, even as I did from under the pine trees at Loch Roan."

And as he spoke the strain of the rope and its swaying over the window-sill proclaimed that the mighty form of the master armourer was even then on the way upwards towards the dungeon of his chief.

"Go back, I command you, Malise MacKim," he said, "go back instantly.

I have made up my mind. I will not escape from the Castle of Edinburgh this night."

But Malise answered not a word, only pulled more desperately on the rope, till the sound of his labouring breath and grasping palms could be heard from side to side of the chamber.

The Earl leaned further out.

"Malise," he said, calm and clear, "you see this knife. I would not have your blood on my hands. You have been a good and faithful servant to our house. But, by the oath of a Douglas, if you come one foot farther, I will cut the rope and you shall be dashed in pieces beneath."

The master armourer stopped--not with any fear of death upon him, but lest a stroke of his master's dirk should destroy their well-arranged mode of escape.

"O Earl William, my dear lord, hear me," he said in a gasping voice, still hanging perilously between earth and heaven. "If I have indeed been a faithful servant, I beseech you come with me--for the sake of the house of Douglas and of your mother, a widow and alone."

"Go down, Malise MacKim," said the Earl, more gently; "I will speak with you only at the rope's foot."

So very unwillingly Malise went back.

"Now," said the Earl, "hearken--this will I do and no other. I will remain here and abide that which shall befall me, as is the will of G.o.d. I am bound by a tie that I cannot break. What life is to another, honour and his word must be to a Douglas. But I send your son Sholto to you. I bid him ride fast to Galloway and bring all that are faithful with speed here to Edinburgh. Go also into Douglasdale and tell my cousin William of Avondale--and if he is too late to save, I know well he will avenge me."

"O William Douglas, if indeed ye will neither fleech nor drive, I pray you for the sake of the great house to send your brother David, that the Douglases of the Black be not cut off root and branch. Remember, your mother is sore set on the lad."

"I will not go," cried David, as he heard this; "by the saints I will stand by my brother's shoulder, though I be but a boy! I will not go so much as a step, and if by force ye stir me I will cry for the guard!"

By this time the young David was leaning half out of the window, and almost shouting out his words down to the unseen Douglases beneath.

"Go, Sholto," said the Earl, setting his hand on his squire's shoulder. "You alone can ride to Galloway without drawing rein. Go swiftly and bring back every true lad that can whang bow, or gar sword-iron whistle. The Douglas must drie the Douglas weird. I would have made you a great man, Sir Sholto, but if you get a new master, he will surely do that which I had not time to perform."

"Come, Sholto," said his father, "there is a horse at the outer port.

I fear the Crichton's men are warned. As it is we shall have to fight for it."

Sholto still hesitated, divided between obedience and grief.

"Sholto MacKim," said the Earl, "if indeed you owe me aught of love or service, go and do that thing which I have laid upon you. Bear a courteous greeting from me to your sweetheart Maud, and a kiss to our Maid Margaret. And now haste you and begone!"

Sholto bent a moment on his knee and kissed the hand of his young master. His voice was choked with sobs. The Earl patted him on the shoulder. "Dinna greet, laddie," he said, in the kindly country speech which comes so meltingly to all Galloway folk in times of distress, gentle and simple alike, "dinna greet. If one Douglas fall in the breach, there stands ever a better behind him."

"But never one like you, my lord, my lord!" said Sholto.

The Earl raised him gently, led him to the window, and himself steadied the rope by which his squire was to descend.

"Go!" he said; "honour keeps the Douglas here, and his brother bides with him--since not otherwise it may be. But the honour of obedience sends Sholto MacKim to the work that is given him!"

Then, after the captain of his guard had gone out into the dark and disappeared down the rope, the Earl only waited till the tension slackened before stooping and cutting the cord at the point of juncture with the iron ring.

"And now, Davie lad," he said, setting an arm about his brother's neck, "there are but you and me for it, and I think a bit prayer would not harm either of us."

So the two young lads, being about to die, kneeled down together before the cross of Him who was betrayed with a kiss.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

THE LION AT BAY

The morning had broken broad and clear from the east when the door of the prison-house was opened, and a seneschal appeared. He saluted the brothers, and in a shaking voice summoned them to come forth and be tried for offences of treason and rebellion against the King and his ministers.

William of Douglas waved a hand to him, but answered nothing to the summons. He wasted no words upon one who merely did as he was bidden.

All night the brothers had sat looking out on the city humming sleeplessly beneath them, till the light slowly dawned over the Forth and away to the eastward Berwick Law stood dwarfed and clear. At first they had sat apart, but as the hours stole on David came a little nearer and his hand sought that of his brother, clasped it, and abode as it had been contented. The elder brother returned the pressure.

"David," he said, "if perish we must, at least you and I will show them how Douglases can die."

So when they rose to follow the seneschal who summoned them, as they left the chamber of detention and the clanking guard fell in behind them, Earl William put his hand affectionately on his young brother's shoulder and kept it there. In this wise they came into the great hall wherein yester-even the banquet of treachery had been served. The dais had been removed to the upper end of the room, and upon it in the furred robes of judges of the realm, there sat on either side of the empty throne Crichton the Chancellor and Sir Alexander Livingston.

Behind were crowded groups of knights, pages, men-at-arms, and all the hangers-on of a court. But of men of dignity and place only the Marshal de Retz, amba.s.sador of the King of France, was present.

He sat alone on a high seat ranged crosswise upon the dais. The floor in the centre of the hall was kept clear for the entrance of the brothers of Douglas.

Crichton and Livingston looked uneasily at each other as the feet of the guard conducting the prisoners were heard in the corridor without, and with a quick, apprehensive wave of his hand Crichton motioned the armed men of his guard closer about him, and gave their leader directions in a hushed voice behind his palm.

The seneschal who had summoned them strode in first, and then after a sufficient interval entered the young Lords of Douglas, William and David his brother. The elder still kept one hand affectionately on the shoulder of the younger. His other was set as usual in the silken belt which he wore about his waist, and he walked carelessly, with a high air and an easy step, like one that goes in expectantly to a pleasant entertainment.

But as soon as the brothers perceived in whose presence they were, an air of pride came over their faces and stiffened their figures into the sterner aspect of warriors who stand on the field of battle.

Some three paces before the steps of the dais on which sat the self-const.i.tuted judges was arranged a barrier of strong wooden posts tipped with iron, and two soldiers with drawn swords were on guard at either end.

The Douglases stood silent, haughtily awaiting the first words of accusation. And the face of young David was to the full as haughty and contemptuous as that of Earl William himself.

It was the Chancellor who spoke first, in his high rasping creak.

"William, Earl of Douglas, and you David, called the Master of Douglas," he began, "you are summoned hither by the King's authority to answer for many crimes of treason against his royal person--for rebellion also and the arming of forces against his authority--for high speeches and studied contempt of those who represent his sovereign Majesty in this realm, for treasonable alliances with rebel lords, and above all for swearing allegiance to another monarch, even to the King of France. What have you to say to these charges?"

The Earl of Douglas swept his eyes across the dais from side to side with a slow contempt which made the Chancellor writhe in his chair.

Then after a long pause he deigned to reply, but rather like a king who grants a favour than like one accused before judges in whose hands is the power of life and death.

"I see," said he, "two knights before me on a high seat, one the King's tutor, the other his purse-bearer. I have yet to learn who const.i.tuted them judges of any cause whatsoever, still less of aught that concerns William Douglas, Duke of Touraine, Earl of Douglas, hereditary Lieutenant-Governor of the realm of Scotland."