CHAPTER XXXVII.

WHOM GOD HATH TOUCHED

Never was Scottish siege so picturesque as this all in the broad summer weather--the wide, pleasant strath of Dee glowing under the August sun, and the knights of the king’s court riding forth every morning decked as for a tourney.

Nevertheless, day followed day, and Malise fretted in his smithy, or used words in the broadest Galloway to the king himself--which, had they been understood of the monarch, might have damaged the good intent there was between king and smith. For they were both fiery by nature, and Malise cared just as little for what James Stewart thought as James Stewart did for what was the opinion of his new ally and master armourer.

But as for the effect of all they let loose upon the castle--the great bolts that were shot from the slings and catapults, the crackings of the new powder engines, and the firing of tow-headed arrows, sent blazing across the river--the besiegers might all just as well have blown their noses or sneezed once or twice in the direction of Thrieve, for all the progress they made in the taking of it.

For Sholto, having had his times to make ready, had used them as none knew better than he how to do. He had fortified the whole area of the island with a wall, adding at the weaker places one wall behind another, and leaving a trench between, which at pleasure he could fill with water. More than that, all the ground opposite, on the other side of the river of Dee, had been cleared of cover and made bare as the palm of one’s hand. So that at any moment Sholto, holding as it was the short inner lines, and having the breadth of the water of Dee on all sides of him, could, by drawing his men together, stop any rush that was made closer to the water’s side. So that the defenders, firing from perfect cover, and with rests for their bronze culverins and little iron fusils, did infinite damage to the king’s men without receiving so much as a single scratch themselves.

The king, following the advice of his chief nobles, was all for the slow advancement of the works by parallels and cross trenches to the waterside--and then, a dash through and a rush with ladders for the escalade!

But when my father heard this he was very angry, or rather, in a state betwixt laughter and anger.

“Why, let them,” he cried (and you might have heard him on Cairnsmore), “let them gather all the bairns from the burgh schools of Scotland, all the lads the monks are teaching to put frocks about their hurdies, also all the cow-herds and all the swine-herds and all the goose-herds. For these are exceedingly expert in the use of the ‘billit-gun,’ that deadly weapon made of the bark of the bore tree. Then with wads of tow, well chewed, let them practise upon the fortress of Thrieve! After that, like Jericho, the walls thereof may have a better chance of falling down. But as to this folly of the king’s, there are no words which he will understand to tell him how foolish it is! Nevertheless, I will try. But, ah!--if I could speak to him in the Gallowa’! Then he wad think but little o’ himsel’!”

So Malise M‘Kim went to the king.

It was, they say, a stormy time. For the king, a man of wrath from his youth up, could listen peaceably to no man. And as for Malise, my father--well, by this time the world kens Malise the smith even better than James of the Fiery Face.

“I tell you, King of Scots,” said Malise, clasping his hands tightly about the axe-pike he had been in act to make--broad-bladed, and was beaked like a falcon--“I tell you plainly that you may take up your tents and kitchen cullenders, remove your blazons and shields hung on spear-shafts. Stands Thrieve ever a whit the less staunch for these? Months you have been here, and never the nearer by a yard. Also James of Douglas is on foot again! My son Herries, who hath the long sight, saw him yesterday (no further gone) directing the archers to mark down your cannoniers upon the brae opposite the ford to the south, and in ten minutes there was not a man upright upon his legs among the little pivot guns, also the oxen that drew them were all dead too.”

“Good, my master armourer,” said the king; “there is matter in what you say, as well as some insolence, which for this time I pardon in you seeing whom ye have been serving all your life--!”

“Bide there, King James,” cried Malise. “I have, it is true, a death quarrel with the man yonder--James of Douglas. But I was born under another Douglas--ay, in the year of Otterburn--he at whose funeral they led Percy captive. Under six earls have I served. Good men and true men were they all--bucklers to their king, barriers against England. These have I served all my life, and now at the end this man hath cut me off from mine own loyalty as with a deadly blow! But, hark ye, King of Scots, my quarrel is with the _man_ and not with the house of Douglas, though in my rage I may have said other of it. Nevertheless, I will aid you to bring yonder castle to the ground, and the man in it to the rope’s-end or the edge of the sword for that which he hath wrought to me and mine. Almost at Arkinholm my right arm had saved you the trouble, but someone--I remember not well who--came between me and my vengeance--!”

The old smith drew his hand slowly over his face, as if to clear his brain from some encompassing cloud--possibly the same reek of hate and vengeance which had so nearly turned another brain--as I read in the chronicle which hath been written by the Lady Margaret herself.

There was--I saw it not always, but chiefly when he sat brooding and thinking over his wrongs--a certain glowing madness or capacity for madness in my father, ordinarily covered up, indeed, but ready to break forth at the least mention of the name of James Douglas. As to his daughter, it was otherwise. For he would start up suddenly from his chair, or perhaps from a day-dream on a cool hearth in the smithy, his back against the wall and his head deep sunk in his beard.

“Where is Magdalen?” was ever his cry; “good wife, where is our Magdalen? I bid you tell me! ’Tis some time since she went out. She bides over late on the hills!”

But there was none to answer as to where Magdalen might be found.

Meanwhile, all unwitting of this, the king and his suite stood watching. James Stewart, having a certain curious sympathy for the sorrow of the smith, quieted those behind him with a turn of the hand--the which, perhaps because it was the same that had treacherously slain his best friend and greatest subject, was not to be regarded without a certain awe.

“Why, master armourer,” said the king, more gently, “’tis very well in a proven man of war like Malise of Carlinwark and Mollance to commend us young men to return to our wives’ petticoat tails and the surcots and pearled veils of our sweethearts. He hath done his day’s darg. Six great lords hath he served--better, perhaps, than they served the Crown--!”

At this Malise interrupted once more.

“Yet did not your gran’ther, young man, bestow one of his daughters upon an Earl Douglas, and never thought himself or her the worse? Nay, by what other means doth the crown of the Bruces sit upon your own head, James Stewart, an the first o’ your race had not fand it pinned to the bolsters of a bride-bed?”

The king frowned and then laughed.

“True,” he said, “true indeed!--And so did we all come from Eve the wife of a gardener, who had never a bolster at all, nor pillow whereon to lay her head. Yet for the life of me, master armourer, I cannot see that such talk as thine brings down the walls of Thrieve any faster than our poor arbalests and bombards!”

Before answering, the smith passed his hand across his brow as if to clear his mind. In these latter days this had become a fashion with him. He seemed to get bogged in his own words, and then after a while to return with a sudden start to the gloomy vengeance to which he had vowed his days.

“Give me till to-morrow, my lord the king,” he said, with more gentleness. “I have somewhat in my head here if only I can disentangle it. Ravelled it is, and knotted, but it will lead us somewhither. But first I would speak with my seven sons--nay” (he added quickly, correcting himself), “with six only--Sholto, the best of all, is over yonder! Yet” (he added), “it is strange; I have tried, and I cannot curse Sholto!”

He turned gently about, a milder mood being upon him.

“Your Majesty and gentlemen,” he said, “I pray your pardon if one to whom God has left more brawn than brain, more weight than wit, more choler than courtesy, hath used words to hurt your gentrice. It was far from his intent. But by long usage, old Malise M‘Kim is grown rough as his own smith’s apron. Yet if he can hammer out the thought that is in his head, yon high tower of Thrieve shall fall! And, if God leave strength to this right arm and enough good hemp with the realm of Scots, James Douglas shall die a dog’s death--for what he hath done--for what he hath done--_what was it that he did?_ I forget, gentlemen! Truly, I forget. But it was something he shall die for--yes, die for! I am an old man, and everything goes from me. But to-morrow we M‘Kims shall have this thought of mine hammered out and welded and tempered--ready to be put before your Majesty. By the head of my little wench Magdalen, it shall be so! She was so beautiful, gentlemen, and innocent--and sat long upon my knees with her arms about my neck. But she is dead, gentlemen. She is dead, and the angels took her. I am an old man, a very old man, gentlemen all--I pray you forgive me!”

And saluting with his bonnet brought as low as the knee in the palm of his right hand, which was the courteous fashion of the ancient time, Malise of the Strong Thews, my good father, withdrew him, his great hand upon the shoulder of Herries, his son, not for support, but rather as one might walk with a staff.

And they say that the king gently laid his finger on his own brow, saying, “Be gentle in speech with him, my lords. God hath touched the old man, or his trouble of mind, mayhap. He is strong as Samson. His bodily strength is not abated. Only at times, as ye see, there is a lack. Therefore provoke him not. For whoso doth, it is at his own peril. His wife shall be a widow, his soul go to its own place, and that without benefit of clergy--of which, to my ripe knowledge, the feck of you stand in sore need!”