CHAPTER III.

COUR CHEVERNEY

So to Cour Cheverney we went, the fat-faced goodman with the pouting lips and the unsteady Florentine eyes leading the way. The fields, how fine they smelt--hawthorn, red and white, single-flower and double-flower, on every tree! The hedgerows--as in the Galloway of my childhood, there are hedgerows in Touraine--full of red pimpernel and blue hyacinth, and with the yellow broom they named the kings after peeping over everywhere, while stone-chats and other small birds went swaying on the thin fishing-rod branches.

Ah, it was greatly good! Better still, to see the white convent walls that had held me so long sink behind the tall trees, which shut in also Sister Eulalie and her bread-and-water. To Cour Cheverney--yes, we were going. At the risk of I know not what dread penalty, I had looked across at the tall tower, a cliff of mason-work, higher than Thrieve by a score of feet, though not so massive and square in shape, from the perilous top of the gardener’s ladder.

Now I was to see it nearer at hand. The Abbot Laurence, in the pride of his ambassadorial office, rode beside the Mother Superior, while the Sieur Paul smiled over his shoulder at them both. It may be well understood that I was on the other side of Laurence on my pony, Varlet. Now Varlet was specially wicked and restive, because he had been most insufficiently exercised by Monsieur the Almoner of the Convent. For the Abbé Barré, our good father-confessor, was not a little afraid of Varlet’s hoofs and teeth. But as for me, I had no fear, and I specially wished to know all that Larry had to tell, before we arrived at Cour Cheverney. For I did not know how we might be lodged there, nor what chance there would be of my having speech with my ancient playmate in that great place.

“Tell me first how all goes at home,” I bade him; “they have settled you as abbot comfortably at Sweetheart Abbey--so much I know. None shall vex you there. So at least I bade them, and so Cousin Will promised!”

For I, too, could make myself great upon occasion.

“Oh, well enough,” he said, a little indifferently. Then, recollecting who had given him his preferment, he added quickly, “And indeed I am grateful, since no better may be. But the sword, and not the psalm-book, was my proper calling.”

“Time was when you were of the contrary opinion,” I said; “tell me--for once I will confess you--who is she?”

But he denied. There was nothing and no one.

“Nevertheless,” said he, “a man may sometimes lift his eyes and see the moon!”

“Yes,” I retorted on him, fast as words can follow words, “true, but only a baby will cry for it!”

“Then I am, I fear me, a gross pagan,” he said as swiftly, “for I worship her!”

“That is bad,” I said, “and most inconsistent in a man who must spend his life in swaddling and wet-nursing twoscore such sturdy Endymions as the fathers of Dulce Cor. How do you manage it? The Slave of the Lamp could not serve them all!”

“Oh, easily enough,” Laurence made answer. “I am (let us say) Abbot of Sweetheart. So far, well--but again better, I might have been the captain of a company, a soldier with men-at-arms under him, like Sholto, my brother--Sir Sholto, if you please, with his little regiment of five children! Still there remains to me the abbey of Sweetheart. From chapel to refectory, from dormitory to pantler’s cellarage, I conceive it as a barracks. The soldiers therein observe the Order of Citeaux, and, indeed, not St. Bernard himself could be firmer and stricter--in all, that is, which concerns the keeping of that Rule by others. But for myself--well, there are monks who, as it were, are eunuchs for the Kingdom’s sake. But for myself--no! I am only one set in authority over monks. You complain of bread-and-water at St. Brigida’s, but at Sweetheart, my dear lady, I can do more and better, and no man raise his voice to pipe a ‘What dost thou?’”

I changed the subject, for the grey towers of Cour Cheverney grew nearer apace.

“And what of William and James--and the lads? Are they at Thrieve? Tell me!”

For I could not bring myself to speak of my Cousin William as Earl of Douglas--at least not yet, still less as my husband!

Laurence gave a little hitch to his mule’s bridle. Of white leathern thongs it was, curiously plaited. Then he bent over to the side away from me, as if something there claimed his attention. Ever since his arrival he had had these strange habits. I had not observed them in him before; but perhaps that was because I was growing older, and so noticed more. So I thought, at any rate.

Then Larry pointed to the soaring keep and the grey flanking towers of the Cour Cheverney.[2]

“Yonder,” he said, with a little bitter smile which I understood not then; “they are both yonder, my Lord William and my Lord James. Do you think that a young wooer, hot upon his love-making, and the brother, the friend of the bridegroom, he who is to stand by and see his joy, will be far away when the bride is brought home?”

Then a sudden terror seized me.

“I will not be married like this, here and now,” I cried; “signed for, taken from custody, guarded, delivered, and the note acquitted--I, Margaret Douglas, that am Princess of Galloway, and but eighteen years of age!”

And without a word more I set spurs in Varlet, and turned him about towards the woods. The king was at Amboise--Charles, the King of France, I mean. He would do me justice. He would make me a maid of honour in his court. That would be easy. There was great need of such. I had heard the Bald Cat say so more than once--Sister Eulalie too!

Then what a dance I led that cavalcade. I laugh now when I think of it. Off his saddle Larry could have caught me easily, having the gift of the fleet foot. Ay, I will wager if he had been in training, and in his hose and jerkin, he could have winded even Varlet over a long course. But, as it was, he sat there girning impotently on a churchman’s mule. He was full of the good beef and wine of Devorgilla’s abbey--though indeed neither showed in his profile, fine as that of a graven statue. Worst of all, he was swathed in bandages ecclesiastical, cope and soutane and mantle, or whatever these half-men please to call them.

As for me, I made a good start, and went through the cavalcade like an arrow from a bow.

Inwardly laughing, I could hear the din of pursuit thin out and grow silent behind me, as I urged Varlet onward faster and always faster. It is easy to get away from a lot of monks and a few knights and esquires heavily clad in armour--that is, with a good horse between one’s knees and a well-pointed spur of silver on either heel.

Amboise it was I was bound for--nothing less. I did not know the way to Amboise very exactly, but I had heard that it lay away to the west, down the valley, and someone had told me that by hard riding one could reach it by nightfall. The king would be glad to see me--of that I made no doubt. And in so much, at least, I made no mistake.

But as I galloped on my spirits rose at leaving Will of Avondale, my cousin, behind, together with the hateful thought of being dragged from a convent only to be married. I was not really dragged, but no matter--that was the way I liked to think about it then.

And I thought also, that if I could only have gone back to play with Larry about the braes of Boreland, crossing over in a boat from the Thrieve when it pleased us, I should have been perfectly happy. I did not want to be married, at least not so soon, and have done with girlhood before I had ever tasted it, and--and--well, not to have my own choosing of a husband, as Maud Lindsay had when she married Sholto. Even if I could have had the pick of the Avondale brothers, all set out in a row--William, James, Archibald, Hugh, and little John--that would not have seemed so bad. At least, it would have been fun to see them. Then I might not have run off like this. But to marry a sober-sides like William Douglas, whom everyone (of the Douglas faction) said was the best and wisest person in the world, and who looked as if he stuffed himself with smithy filings, wore buckram next his skin, and went to bed in complete armour with his head pillowed on the family tree! _Ciel!_ How I gritted my teeth, set my heels into Varlet, and longed for the towers of Amboise to rise above the dwarf aspens and pollard poplars by the brook-sides, which seam all sweet Touraine as the Garden of France slopes gently to the Loire--like some gracious woman lying asleep, and smiling in a pleasant dream.

[Illustration: “I AM HAPPY, MOST HAPPY TO SERVE YOU, MOST NOBLE YOUNG LADY!”]

But the valley, which at first had been but as a dimple on a smooth fair skin, deepened into a lirk between two hills, narrowed into a gorge, and then--in a moment I came upon the little river (called the Cosson), which for a long distance runs a race with the Loire ere it decides to join forces with it. Had I mounted the brae again and kept the crown of the land, I had gotten easily enough to Amboise (though the way was far), but in my ears I seemed to hear the shouting of the enemy behind me--of my pursuers, I mean. And there, on the other hand, was the water lying green and deep beneath me.

Howsomever I was on the point of riding Varlet at it on the chance that he could swim (and, indeed, the feat itself is no great matter), when all of a sudden there burst a young man out of some green bracken and elderberry bushes by the bank of the river.

He was a tall, ruddy youth of weight and brawn, with eyes constantly laughing, and as he advanced methought I caught a glimpse of something white--the flutter of a neckerchief or a kilted petticoat belike--in the thicket out of which he came.

He ran alongside Varlet for a step or two, calling names to him (speaking all the while like one who has a way with horses and women). Then with a short, sharp grasp at the bridle, he brought him up all panting upon the very brink of the river.

Then the splendid young man took off his bonnet, which was of blue, light and clear, and had a white band and tassel. A white plume of some foreign bird was set in the side.

“I am happy, most happy to serve you, most noble young lady!” he said in French that was a little tashed with disuse, yet which had obviously proved sufficient for its owner’s purposes, as witness that flutter of jupe among the bracken. But as for me, I answered him in Scots. For I knew him at the first glint. They do not breed such acreages of flesh and bone, nor yet cover them with such milk-white skin, in the land of France.

“Jamie lad, my guid cozin,” I cried, “gang back an’ finish oot your half-cut rig! Or ye will keep a grudge again’ puir wee Marget a’ the days o’ your life!”

He stood still, fastened with embarrassment, and then threw up his hands with a long whistle.

“The Fair Maid o’ Galloway!” he said, as if stiff-stricken. “Certes, lass, but ye are grown indeed--and bonny as the day. Gie your kinsman a kiss for stopping that reckless galloper o’ yours at the peril o’ his neck!”

But though at another time--well--I had been glad enough to kiss Larry (and he not my cousin, but a plain blacksmith’s son), I refused him.

“Na, na, Jamie Douglas,” I cried daffingly. “Gang back yonder where ye cam frae. Ye will conquest mair than the braw French tongue, I am thinkin’! Fish and cranes and wild fowl bide in the marshes, I hae heard, and I ken ye were aye a braw sportsman. But as for the cozinly kiss--let me gie ye ae advice. And that is: Never ye mix the white wine and the black, lad! They gang na weel thegither, Jamie, my coz!”

And with that I turned and left him, standing “finger in his mouth,” as we say in Scotland. I even heard him mutter, “The besom! Hath she learned the like o’ that in a convent of nuns?”

Then because James never wasted anything (his one virtue!) I judge that he took my advice. For he went slowly back towards the thicket whence he had come, with his head bent meditatively to the ground.

But ere he went out of sight, I stood up in my stirrups and called out to him, “Tell me, cozin, where left you William?”

“What William?” said he, growling rather than speaking over his shoulder.

“Why,” cried I, “since when was there more than one William--Will Douglas, that was once Will of Avondale, and--my affianced husband?”

I fancy I made him wince at that, even as Larry had done. And I meant to. I always knew which men of those who came near me--that is, three out of four--would not like to hear of my marrying anyone else. And so, in spite of flags of truce fluttering from among elder thickets, I knew very well it was with James.

“How should I ken where he bides,” he growled. “I have not a string tied to our Will’s tail!”

“No, nor to your own!” I called back to him; “you rake the country overmuch, James!”

In which I had him at a vantage, for he answered me no more, seeming (as we say both in Scots and French) sore “fashed” with me for my free handling of his peccadilloes.

But I turned my horse’s head, and would have ridden after him.

“Where is Will?” I cried. “Tell me--or”--

I pointed with my hand to the boskage, turning at the same time my horse’s head.

“You are a shameless little vixen,” he cried (I am not sure that he did not say “villain”). “I know not where Will is--he is not at Cour Cheverney, but where he may be found, by St. Brice, I know not--making himself musty over parchments, and chilling of his blood by drinking cold well-water, I warrant him.”

“Ah, James,” I answered him, as I turned away to meet Larry, who, meantime, was in a perfect fume of anger, and the Sieur Paul, wholly out of breath, “I am not sure that elderberry wine, taken in quantity and by the wayside, is so muckle better for the health. It sours upon the stomach, my good Cozin James!”