CHAPTER XXXV.

THE EAGLES ARE GATHERED TOGETHER

It seemed strange that after these things we yet lived--yea, and breakfasted, and dined, and supped. It was as if we had within the castle of Thrieve one dead. Up in the chamber lay James Douglas--tended, ministered to, watched, the strength coming back slowly to his great frame and the manly beauty to his countenance.

Yet to each of us the man was dead. I think there were none who saw him but in their hearts despised him--Sholto, who had seen him ride forth as champion of Scotland against France, the bravest of the brave; Maud and I, who had seen him come home through the gloaming, red from the battlefield, tragic and desperate.

But the soul of the man was in none of these--grown small instead, cradled contentedly in luxury and the gratifying of self.

Yet even so, and knowing all these things, there was nevertheless something of the salt of humour and kindly intent about James of Douglas which kept any one of us from altogether hating him. Of all at Thrieve I was perhaps the most pitiful, though I spent least time beside his bed.

He mended fast--his clear, well-exercised flesh healing and throwing off disease with the same large careless ease with which he did everything. But there were yet many storm-clouds on the horizon. The enemies of the house of Douglas, the false and fickle friends and waiting indifferents alike hastened to take up arms by thousands for the cause of the king after the fatal day of Arkinholm, so that a few months found him at the head of such an army as no Scottish monarch had ever led against a subject.

And to oppose that array which marched up the long strath of Clyde, struck to the right over by Leadhills, and so down the windings of the Mennoch to Sanquhar and finally Dumfries, what appertained to the Douglas?

Only that one tall castle of Thrieve, the strongest in Scotland, certainly for weight and mass of masonry, the strongest for position also, set on its island with the Dee water deep all about it, and such a labyrinth of fosses and ramparts, outworks and guarding towers as was possessed by no castle in the northland. Indeed, it is little likely that out of France there was any in the world that would match it.

Then the island itself, though counted impregnable, was alive with cattle, all the herds safely lodged behind stone walls, every horn and hoof under cover, and yet with twenty acres of excellent pasturage wherefrom to draw their fodder. The country-folk, too, were for us, and it was little likely that for a long time the king would be able to make his blockade of Thrieve perfect, especially to the south.

“The castle could stand a siege of two years,” Sholto said, with pride in his voice, “and there are many things which may happen in Scotland within two years.”

Our garrison, small though it was in numbers, was composed of such men as the Douglases had never yet brought to battle--no raw levies, but the Douglas Guard itself--each man enlisted and drilled by the captain himself, loyal to the name and the place, faithful to the noble traditions of the Douglases of the Black, to their mighty castle of Thrieve, both of which they believed destined to an eternity of safety and renown.

Yet all told, we counted only five hundred men as against the growing thousands of the king. And this of Sholto’s set purpose. Indeed, he was daily pestered with offers of service by stout young fellows of the neighbouring parishes who heard of the advent of royal troops, and who desired to fight for the Douglases.

It was yet early on the morning of the tenth of July, when the watchers on the topmost towers of Thrieve saw the sunshine on the pennants and guidons of the King of Scots his army. They were yet far away to the north-east, following the ridge of heights called Clairbrand, which, under the guidance of some expert person (of a surety Malise M‘Kim and his sons), they had kept all the way from Dumfries, thus escaping the swamps and marshy wildernesses of bog and peat-hag which extended to the south of Thrieve.

In an hour the vanguard was clearly to be seen, keeping closely to the highest ground and throwing out skirmishers in order to feel for any possible enemy.

James Douglas was by this time able to sit up a little each day. And in spite of the galling of his green wounds, at the first sight of the glitter of the spear-heads, the fighting spirit, which indeed he never lacked, returned upon him.

“Bring me forth my war-gear,” he cried. “I will go to the fords of Glenlochar and counter them there. Quick, Andro! Quick, John--the black armour with the silver work of Damascus in which I fought the Frenchman at Stirling!”

But on the pretence of searching for the arms, Andro the Penman ran quickly up to Sholto, who was on the topmost tower, watching the progress of the king’s host.

“Sir Sholto,” he gasped hastily, “my lord is up on his feet, demanding arms and armour that he may lead a force to block the fords of Glenlochar against the king!”

Sholto descended precipitately to the chamber, where he found James already trussing his points, and swearing because there was no squire at hand to aid a man in his own house!

“My lord earl,” said Sholto, bowing gravely, “this is not a venture for you that are still sore wounded. Moreover, we cannot fight in the open. There they are too many for us. There be ten thousand men in sight--in Castle Thrieve are just five hundred--and quite enough, too, seeing that each of them hath a mouth that must be filled twice a day with porridge and beef and broth. Get to bed, my lord earl, and trust to me. The castle can be kept without the fords of Glenlochar. We would only throw away our men uselessly in such sallies. Let me be your assistant to disrobe!”

And he proceeded to put him back into his great carven bed of oak as if he had been a child. And James submitted, murmuring only, with that saving humour which did not forsake him in the darkest hours--nay, which was most clearly apparent then, “’Tis pretty, i’ faith, to suckle and put to bed-a-bye a ninth Earl of Douglas in his own castle of Thrieve! Pray, who counts himself the master here?”

“I know not who counts,” said Sholto; “I _am_ the Captain of Thrieve!”

And James of Douglas actually laughed, either at the conceit or at Sholto’s grim-set mouth, I know not which.

Maud and I went and stood with Sholto on the balcony that ran round the top of the castle. Here were none but ourselves and the four sentinels placed as usual. All beneath was quiet, as everything from January to December had perforce to be quiet where Sholto commanded. It was a clear summer day with a north-blowing wind. We could see distinctly each company of spearmen, each group of knights and men-at-arms. Even the colour of their standards we could faintly distinguish, though they were too far off to note the various devices upon them.

Soon the tents and pavilions began to be pitched by the camp followers and sutlers. A white forest, crowned with a multitude of flapping devices, arose on the ridges, between the crossing of the road which leads to the Kirk of Michael and that turning to the left towards the fords of Lochar. These lines, following the crown of the country to the north and east, were well-nigh five miles in length, from the ridge of Carlinwark to the little hill that overlooks the woodlands of Balmaghie, a hill which in after times and under a new name was to cost us so dear.

But meantime by the Three Thorns and just out of sight of the castle there arose in the westering sun of afternoon the silken pavilions of the court. For the King of Scots, murderer and traitor as he was, had come to conduct in person the siege of the last remaining strength of his rebel vassal, and so finish with some _éclat_ the work which had been begun in dishonour and treachery at Edinburgh and Stirling.

Now, since I that have writ so far am but a woman, and at that time, indeed, little more than a girl, therefore unskilled in the art of war, in blockade, breach, and escalade, I judge it right to insert in this place the descriptions of another, who saw that we could not from the ramparts of Thrieve--that is, the preparations which were made by the king’s engineers to reduce our famous fortalice.

Now there was at the time, under the shade of the Three Thorns of Carlinwark, and looking with curious eyes at the opening up of the long-abandoned armourer’s smithy and the white cottage all overgrown with untended creeping plants, a certain young man, in the plain dark dress of an esquire, to whom, as it soon appeared, the king had taken a fancy. He had remarked him as he rode by his favourites, Crichton and the two recreant Douglases by his side.

“What is your name, sir?” he asked him. “You have not the look of a soldier.” (It was at half a mile from Dumfries, after one has crossed over Devogill’s bridge, going westward, that the king noticed the young man.)

“Your Majesty,” said the youth, “choose you out a captain or a man of war. Let me try a bout with him at his own weapons, and (save it be Malise M‘Kim, the smith) I will stand by the result, soldier or no!”

The king laughed.

“You do shrewdly well to make the exception,” he cried. “But I have some skill myself in the lighter weapons. We might do worse than fall to. You are of slender build. The broad-axe is not for gentlemen. You can, I think, speak French”--

“Like a clerk!” said one of his favourites sneeringly--Douglas younger of Dalkeith he was, he whom they called the Master of Morton.

“Ah,” said King James, “mayhap Latin too, and all too like a clerk, Morton! But what care I, so long as he will help me against yonder Earl of Douglas, who defies and keeps the realm in a turmoil.”

“That he doth!” said young Morton, with a fury somewhat affected. “I would I had him by the thrapple!”

“His estates, you mean!” commented the youth in black, giving back the sneer. “I warrant you that you would think twice before you stood up to James Douglas with the steel points bare!”

“Ha, well said, young sirrah,” cried the king, who in truth loved to see his favourites put down; “that took you fair in the wind, Morton. And true it is. Myself saw him fight with the French Champion at Stirling when I was a lad, and a better lance was never pushed than that which James of Douglas held that day!”

“Save that of Sir Sholto M‘Kim!” said the young man, “he who is now Captain of Thrieve!”

At this the king’s brow darkened somewhat.

“What know you of Sholto M‘Kim?” he demanded. “Is it that you are a spy, or disloyal, thus to praise one in arms against his king? Canst tell me why is it that he, sole among all that family, is not with the king’s colours? He follows his lord, and so stands to lose his head with him!”

“Nay,” answered the young man in black, with gentle persistence, “he also hath his private griefs against James Douglas, and would gladly meet him point to point. But he stands for his mistress, the châtelaine of Thrieve, the Lady Margaret, whom it was your Majesty’s will and pleasure to cause marry with James Douglas, being his brothers widow. She was committed to Sholto M‘Kim as a child, and now he would gladly die for her sake, though he is a man with young children.”

“But the Countess Margaret is also in rebellion!” cried young Morton.

“What, the estates again, Morton!” laughed the king, turning sharp upon him. “The corn must be cut before you butter the bread, my lad!”

Then he mused some time upon the young man in black.

“From whom had you these things?” he demanded. “You do not speak like one of this neighbourhood. These are no countryside manners. Whence come you?”

“My name I cannot tell, at this present,” the young man answered, “but Malise M‘Kim and his sons will vouch for me that I am no spy. Your Archbishop of Sant Andro’s or my Lord of Dunkeld will do the same that I am no runaway priest. And for the rest, I have been much abroad--in France more than once. I have ridden in the lists at Paris and Amboise. I have been at Rome. But, being all the loyaler a Scot for these things, if it please you to employ me without a name, I shall e’en render your Majesty such service that he will give me a name--be it the meanest in his kingdom. For as Malise the smith will tell you, I have a blood-feud against James of Douglas, and for that I have come with a squire and twenty well-trained men-at-arms to the king’s muster.”

“I’ faith,” cried the king, “clerk or English renegade, or what not, you speak right well. A blood-feud against James Douglas! Why, man, such appear to have been rife about here. He must have been a man of parts, this same James Douglas, And a good drinker, too, they tell me. ’Tis a pity, but _Doom’s dues maun be paid_, they say. Yet I would it had been another than Earl James who has to pay them. His brother, of whom they prate so mickle, was but a wizened pippin to him!”

At this the young man in black looked up with a glance like the point of a spear.

“Ah, you knew him,” he said softly; “you entertained him at Stirling, did you not? I think some such report came to my ears, though I was far away and in retreat at the time!”

The fiery face of the king grew purple. There came a red light also into his eyes, lurid and angry almost as the birth-mark on his cheek.

“You are either a very bold, or, on the other hand, a very foolish and ignorant young man,” he said, “thus to play with your neck-jointings. Did you ever hear of the Gallows Slot of Thrieve?”

The youth bowed.

“I have heard of it, your Majesty.”

“Then,” quoth the king fiercely, “I advise you to keep a guard upon your tongue, or in that very spot your head may chance to go one way while that slender body of yours goes another!”

“Your Majesty,” the young man answered quietly, “I am indeed little fit for a court, where nothing is heard from morn till night but that which shall be pleasing to the king. Call on my Lord of Morton, and my Lord Crichton, and my Lord Huntly, and the Laird of Drum for such-like; they will supply you. All that I ask is permission to stand in the forefront of the battle with the men I have fetched to the muster. And at the end, if I live and avenge my feud, let His Majesty call me by what name he will, so it be neither Gordon nor Hamilton; for I love neither traitors nor false swearers!”

Half a score of swords leaped from their scabbards at the words, and the young man in black, as perhaps he had counted on, found himself with a ring of adversaries--handsome Hamiltons and Gordons, possibly gay, but for the time being certainly exceeding wrathful.

“Hold there,” cried the king, holding up his hand, palm outward. “I forbid you to fight--anon--anon! This is neither time nor place. I, James Stewart, am of this young man’s faction” (here he cocked his bonnet), “and if any of you bauld young men object to a plain word for a plain thing” (here he laid his hand upon his sword hilt), “well, he shall have yet another adversary to reckon with! Your whittles in their sheaths, gentlemen!”

Amid half-concealed growls and murmurs they obeyed.

“French lick-the-dish! Monkish runagate! Scented civet-cat! Nameless lown!”

These were a few of the choicest of their epithets for the youth in whom their jealousy feared a new favourite. The last came to the king’s ear, who happened to be in a mood to run counter to those who for ordinary dandled and daintied him with their tongues, half to his pleasure and half to his contempt.

“‘Nameless lown!’ said ye, George of Douglas?” he cried aloud. “I tell you, Angus, my man, your own name is in no such good odour this day in Scotland that ye can afford to cast dirt on others. And as for this young man--faith, an he wants a name, for any odd reason of his own, such as may happen to any gentleman--why, he shall have mine own! And I, the king, desire the man to stand forth from among you who hath aught to say against that!”