CHAPTER XXXIII.

ARKINHOLM

“After that we chaunted no more wild songs, but lay still all the night till the greying of the day. Once we heard, as it were, the sound of a great voice on the heights cursing us, in words that carried far.

“We knew it for the voice of Malise M‘Kim, and looked at Magdalen. But she seemed in a kind of daze, as if she kenned not that or anything.

“It was in the earliest morning that they attacked. We were posted on a little hill, the top of it plain and clear, but the sloping sides overgrown and cumbered over with whin and broom. From the east the light had begun to ooze up grey and chill. It was no ground for the manœuvring of horses. Knowing our weakness in numbers, we had chosen it accordingly. So with _her_ in the midst, and I know not what strange thoughts in our hearts, we waited.

“It was about the third hour when they came at us on all sides with a rush and much crying, shrill as are the east-country winds in Angus and the Lowdens. Our archers, all Border men, had good cover to shoot from, and thick and fast they sent their arrows into the swarm. Then arose shouts of encouragement and cries of pain.

“‘Aim at the horses of the knights!’ cried Hughie, who saw a chance.

“And so for a time they did, and brought many to the ground. So we held to it while the east pearled and we could see the faces of our neighbours.

“At first it seemed as if Hughie’s good advice might turn the day; because the horses of the Angus men and of the Guard Royal, refusing the hill and stung by the shafts from the long bows and the quarrels of the crossbowmen, turned tail from the attack. It was not the knights or mounted men who put us down at Arkinholm, but the lithe and swarming footmen who came leaping with pikes and leathern jacks to the hand-in-hand encounter.

“So blind were we on the hill-top that we set up a cheer, looking across the level straths and holms of the Esk water upon the retreating horsemen, and giving little attention to a great company of men on foot armed with pikes and swords who came to take us in the rear, by the way that is called the Way of the Sea.

“It was, indeed, Magdalen who first gave the warning that they were close upon us. Malise M‘Kim led them, and at the same moment, from every quarter of the heaven, the assailants swarmed about. They pushed through the green bracken of the brae-foot, up the side that looks toward the hill called Burnswark. They ascended swiftly, clambering through the tangle of birchen scrub and scroggy thorn. They leaped the prickled hedges of gorse, and raced across the last thirty yards of turf, men falling at every step, stricken by the bolts from our bows or transfixed by the clothyards shot by the men from the Marches. Another moment and they were upon us.

“Then a great misfortune befell. Our archers, who were men unskilled with the sword, and loving not at all to fight hand to hand, broke and fled down the hill, some flinging themselves headlong into the Esk, and some trying the wildernesses towards the swamps of Lochar.

“But all was not yet lost. As quickly as we fell, so quickly we closed the ranks. The gaps filled, and we Douglases of the Black stood steady shoulder to shoulder. Could I have been sure that _she_ was safe behind me, and would be content to bide there, I had even known a sort of gladness. For ever since I was a boy I have loved the crash of steel on steel. But in leaving my charger tethered, I had foregone some part of my advantage. For, like Sholto there, I am ever best when the lances are in rest and the visors down. But at Arkinholm that could not be. We were too few, and, if anything, our position must fight for us. Save Hughie’s prayer that He might keep the lass, we prayed no prayers to God. Hard had we lived, we Douglases of the Black, we would die hard, asking no favours, making no whining at the last, but taking without complaining that which was served out.

“And we gat it. Ah, lads, we gat it that day! Yet strange are the ways of Fate. Here lie I with many wounds truly and a broken head, but still--alive, who alone deserved to die--the sin being mine own--the fault, the condemnation. There is, I wot, more at the back of God’s justice than the priests dream of. Perhaps it had been better if I had died.

“But at Arkinholm fierce and always fiercer waxed the fight. Ten times we sent them reeling down the hill, spite of Malise and his sons. The sun rose. It looked on a trampled swelter of whins, on grass meadows delved in the soft places as with spades. Black patches there were here and there on the green turf, almost a wall of them in front of our array. These were dead men.

“But still there was no break. We stood shoulder to shoulder about the little clump of trees on the uttermost top. Beneath, far as we could see, swarmed the hosts of the enemy. They debouched out of little ravines on the sides of barren hills. They appeared like so many wild fowl out of the marshes of Lochar. Over the ridge out of the vale of Annan water they climbed. There seemed to be no end to their coming.

“‘Lads, we are sped!’ cried Archie, after a while. He was not of a sounding witty speech like Hughie, but his heart was staunch, and (as they all did) he held his faith to the end.

“It was in a little breathing space when the foe stood still to gather strength and let their reserves come up. Ten-o’-the-knock it was, and we had been at it since three-and-a-bittock of the morning, hard as drums a-beating.

“We stood together a little apart, we four Douglases. None whom we had there could we trust--we who a year ago could have whistled up two thousand men, all belted knights with squires at their heels.

“‘Hearken to me,’ said Archie the silent (Earl of Murray he was, and a good man!), ‘we are to die. So much is clear, good lads all! Counter me, any of you, if you can make other of it!’

“But none answered, for indeed no better was to be made.

“‘So,’ he said, ‘you agree. Then the best we can do is to die like Douglases, for our house and our honour--what is left of it!’

“That was the one thing of bitter that he said, and then in a moment he made it up again, as was ever our fashion in quarrels between ourselves.

“‘See, lads,’ he continued, ‘you, Hughie--and you, little John--neither Murray, nor Ormond, nor Balveny shall see us any more. Our sweethearts shall not kiss us, nor we them. We shall never walk with them at morn or e’en, nor pluck the pink and the gillyflower to set in their waist-belts. But as for James, he is the head of the house--the Earl of Douglas. Moreover, he hath what we have not--another with him here. Well, give good ear--his beast is in the thicket there in the midst of the array. Let the charger be saddled and prepared. Let him ride light. Let him take the lass up behind him with her arms about his waist, that his hand may be free for the fighting, which shall be brisk. Then we, that are his brethren, will see him safe through the thickest of it. We there shall die. So much is sure. We may as well die doing the best for the house. When they come again, will you help me to save the chief? What say you, Hughie?’

“‘Ay to that!’ quoth Hughie.

“‘And ay!’ quoth little John.

“But I cried out that we should all die together. But Magdalen--she who had followed me there--said no word. For though (as you shall speedily know) she cared naught for her own life, she desired that I should be spared to win through.

“It was not, perhaps, the kindest wish--but that is the way of women.

“So they four overbore me, and the beast was saddled to be ready.

“Then Archie spoke to the Douglas men who were with me.

“‘The enemy will come again, and that speedily,’ he said. ‘We four will drive straight into the thickest of them, if so be we can save the chief. Bide you here. Give us five minutes’ grace to hold the pursuers in check. Then scatter, and every man for himself! Your best chances are the marches of Solway and the hags of Lochar. Will you do it?’

“‘Can we no’ thresh them yet, think ye, Maister Airchie?’ cried one from the ranks in the broad accent of Douglasdale.

“‘Nay,’ answered Archie, ‘it but behoves us to die like men. Yet will ye give us five minutes? Remember, it is for the chief.’

“‘Ay, ten--twenty, an ye will! Never fear! The dam-dyke will haud!’ cried the man from the Upper Ward--John Steel of Muirkirk the name of him. ‘If it pleasure the yerl, we will dee as we stand, every man o’ us, married an’ single, for the honour o’ the Douglas and the luve o’ the auld name!’

“And at this I was grievously ashamed--I who had thought so little of that of which these poor men thought so mickle.

“And it befell even so. For though the battle was thick and insolent about us, so long as consciousness and the knowledge of one man from another remained to me, the last stand of the Douglases on the broomy knowe of Arkinholm had not been broken. The dam-dyke was still holding when I came away.

“But for me, the end came so swiftly that, save for the heady din of arms, the crowding turmoil of the fight, I have but little to tell that is of any clearness.

“One thing, however, I remember, before I mounted--that is, little John leading my horse up to me ready saddled. For on all our campaigns together he would let none other perform the office, ever since the time that he had been my esquire.

“‘James,’ he whispered, ‘Airchie (I speak it as about to die) never liked ye ava, an’ Hughie no’ mickle. But I aye loved ye, Jamie--sairly I loved ye. So mind, if ye win awa’, that theirs is the greater deed! It is easy to die for them ye luve, brither mine. But juist for honour and that--no’ so easy! So gin ye leeve, dinna forget Hughie, Jamie--nor yet misjudge Airchie. For me, I ken ye will whiles gie a thocht to little John.’

“I had no more than time to take him by the hand for a moment--little said, I lifted myself into the saddle. Hughie and Archie set Her on the pillion behind me. I took sword in hand, and we waited.

“We had no long time to put off. They came soon, with stormy cryings and shouts, lashing all about us like waves about a sea-rock--as Ailsa or the Bass.

“‘There lies our way!’ said Archie, who had, what I have lacked, the general’s eye, ‘yonder, where they are spread out on account of the swamps. Take the left, where the gravel bank is more compact, that it may better bear the feet of the beast.’

“Then he distributed his men.

“‘In front with me, Hughie. Lead the horse, little John--that is, till it is time to let him have his head and the spur in his flank!’

“He reached up a hand.

“‘Fare ye well, Jamie!’ he said shortly, his eyes turned away from me.

“The other was kinder, though just as brief.

“‘Dinna forget Hughie’s prayer, gin ye win awa’!’ said Hugh of Ormond.

“But as for little John he said nothing, having already made his good-byes.

“And behind from the pillion I could feel arms that clasped me.

* * * * * * *

“We started, slowly at first, for we wished to let the assailants win near to the foot of the knowe, just far enough away to get the charger to his pace on the open holms. And then to it with a will!

“They came shouting on. We four abode silent, and behind us on the ridge the Douglases waited, few and desperate--those who were set to die for their house.

“We four went down the hill, Hughie on one side, Archie at the other, little John guiding the beast as carefully as if he had been foresman at a ploughing.

“Presently out of a little clump of alder and birch we emerged. As we descended, the wood had partly hidden us, but now, across a couple of hundred yards of green turf without an obstacle, all suddenly we fronted the enemy. They saw us, and shouted. The die was in the casting. All of us gripped our weapons.

“‘Stand wide for the axe-play!’ cried Hughie, and spat upon his hands.

“The rest of us had swords, save little John, who, for the nonce, trusted to a dagger, having to guide the beast and keep out of the way of my strokes.

“And so we drave at them.

“The crash came as quickly as ‘two’ comes after ‘one.’ We shore through them as doth a scythe through a harvest rig. But they were more and ever more, as it seemed behind and before us.

“Archie was the first to go down. We came on Malise M‘Kim and his sons (ay, your folk, Sholto, and they did the right! Never will I say other!). Malise struck at me with his lochaber, but Archie gat between and received the stroke. He fell, cloven. Then Hughie, left sole, with his axe hacked a way through the first engagement.

“But Malise had seen and known. It was enough. He turned, he and his sons with him. All on foot they were, one only in armour, a slight lad in black whom I knew not.

“‘This way,’ the smith cried; ‘kill--that is he on horseback! If ye let him escape, I will slay you with my hand.’

“So they turned to follow, all the seven of them. More there were also with them, many more. But them I considered not.

“Doubly laden as he was, and the way difficult, my good beast could make little progress. Moreover, the end was not far off. Malise came like a thunderbolt with the rush of an angry bull. Poor Hughie turned to guard himself, but went down, his helmet (the same the armourer had made him) cracked in twain like a nut. But the blow and the recovery had delayed Malise a moment. Little John and I reached better ground--out of the thickest turmoil of battle. Only Malise followed. All else were clear behind. He would have slain me easily, for I was sore wounded already in the unequal fray--half a dozen M‘Kims hammering about us like laddies at a wasps’ byke. My sword was broken in my hand. For I had given and taken great strokes.

“Yet once again mine enemy was upon me. I heard a scream. A weight shifted from the pillion to my shoulders. The blow of Malise the smith fell, but not first of all on me. Magdalen had done yet one thing the more for me. With her hand she had turned aside the point of the pike. It passed through her body into mine. So I did not die. But these all died for me--my brothers died, and She also!

“I know not how she fell. I knew no more. I mind only little John as he cut the lightened charger over the thigh to make him gallop, and turned upon the swarm of his foes with a smile on his face. Of Magdalen I saw no more. The beast had leaped across her body in his stride as he turned his head towards Thrieve and safety!”

* * * * * * *

The end of the narrative of the putting down of the Douglases at Arkinholm on the water of Esk, as told on his sickbed by James, ninth earl.