CHAPTER XXXIX.

SHOLTO ALSO IS A M‘KIM

_Wherein Margaret Douglas again takes up the tale._

And in the meantime, how passed the days and weeks and months on the high bastions and in the higher keep of Thrieve?

I will try to tell.

Every morn Maud and I went up to the roof to see the muster of the king’s troops, which was like a pageant. There were trumpets that blew, and banners that waved, and knights and horses all covered with cloth of red and gold--a gallant sight, and one which Maud and I (being as much children as any) were never tired of watching, so long, that is, as Sholto assured us that there was no danger.

At times James Douglas would come up to the roof battlements; but, like one outcasted and desolate, he would abide in a place by himself, speaking with none, or only with the officers and soldiery of the garrison. Sometimes one of the children would run to take his hand and talk, of which he seemed glad.

When he met Sholto, the Captain of the Guard of Thrieve saluted gravely, and stood listening. Then, if the earl put a question, Sholto answered it in so many words; but if not, he would salute again, and betake himself to the outposts or to the dungeon of Archibald the Grim, which, with purposes of his own, he was wholly refitting, strengthening even the walls, doubling the thickness of the top in solid stone and lime, and providing for view and air by narrow slits, through which one could scarce thrust one’s hand edgewise.

One day, to try him, I asked Sholto if he meant to shut up the King of Scots in Archibald the Grim.

“Nay,” he answered me at once, “but some few things far more precious!”

One day, being in my ancient south-looking chamber, of which the fear had gradually grown away (though I admit that even then I liked not to sleep there), I heard the noise of voices beneath, on the balcony. The window was open, and I seated idly with my hands in my lap. I could not help but hear.

* * * * * * *

The men proved to be Sholto M‘Kim and James Douglas, my husband, who spoke on the platform of stone beneath my windows.

“What think you, Sir Sholto,” said the earl, “shall we hold it or no? They make no progress. Their trumpetings, their shooting of arrow flights, their cracking of pop-guns--what are these as against the solid walls of Thrieve and the strong virgin defences of the isle?”

For an instant Sholto did not answer, and I could clearly hear the soothing _hush_ of the Dee over its shallows at the bridge-end. Then he spoke.

“My lord,” he said, “we have seen, as you say, many useless marches and counter-marches! We have repelled feints of attack, and hearkened to many summonses to surrender in the name of our lord the king. Yet no man in the garrison is grievously hurt, while those of us who have been smitten owe their wounds mostly to their own recklessness. But there is one thing concerning which my mind is not easy.”

“And that?” said the earl, idly chipping little bits of the plaster and skimming them over the wall.

“It is,” said Sholto, “that in all these things we see naught of Malise M‘Kim, my father, nor yet of his sons, my brothers!”

“Oh, there is small need to concern oneself with that,” said the earl; “they have gone afield to raise more troops. Or mayhap, there lies a sorrow upon their minds to help in breaking down that which they have built up--I mean because the M‘Kims have been master armourers at Thrieve, in a manner of speaking, since the world began.”

Sholto gazed long at James Douglas. I could not see his face, but I knew well the way he would look. About this time his master was a constant surprise to him--his unconscious brutality of selfishness, the crassness of his judgment in all that concerned others--in especial, the fatal lightness of his mind, habiting a body so strong and so fair, joined to a nature so truly courageous as between man and man, yet so self-seeking and contracted towards women and God! All this joined in one person might well make Sholto M‘Kim marvel. True, I knew James Douglas over well. I had long gotten over my wondering.

“You think that my father will come back to you--that after a time he will forgive--let all be as it was?” Sholto stammered, scarce knowing what to say.

James Douglas moved uneasily, I knew exactly how. I could feel him, though see him I could not.

“No, not that,” he said; “so much no man could expect. But some token of forgiving--some kindly remembrance, some returning loyalty toward the house his father served--so much seems to me by no means unreasonable!”

Sholto nodded, with what of grim countenance I could guess. Even by leaning out I could see no more than the peak of the plain steel cap in which he made his rounds.

“No, it is not impossible,” he said slowly; “there is, however, one condition.”

“And what might that condition be?” cried James Douglas. (As he spoke I could hear the returning hope in his voice. It hurt him that men should not approve him.)

“_That he should see One Man lie dead!_”

I felt the question tremble on James Douglas’s lips. But it was not put. The prophet’s “Thou art the man!” was not an answer which he desired to hear from the lips of his truth-speaking Captain of the Guard.

Abruptly he turned on his heel and walked away. Sholto M‘Kim was left behind, leaning one elbow on the stone baluster and gazing pensively across the water-meadows towards the ridge of Carlinwark, where, through the pale purple of the gloaming, certain red bursts of flame sent a ruddy “skarrow” vibrating aloft to the lower clouds.

Long and carefully Sholto watched. The night grew rapidly darker--chiller also. The light in the east waxed more and more lurid. There came a noise of shouting on the breeze.

“That is my father!” said Sholto, aloud; “I must go and see what he is about!”

All the same he went his rounds with a little more than his usual care. Then he came up by the turret stairs, kissed the babes who were asleep in their cots, sat a while by Marcelle’s trundle-bed to talk over the events of the day as was his wont--how a new blazon had been seen in front of a troop which rode past the castle on the Balmaghie shore; how a certain bullock in the byres, Red Jock by name, had gotten an arrow wound in his heel, which she had helped to bind, in spite of the unthankful and ill-behaved kicking and plunging of the patient.

Then descending, Sholto said a quiet courtly word to me in the great hall, kissed Maud his wife, and (here all we knew at the time finishes) dressed himself in countryman’s garb, crossed the Dee water to the southward, where, among the marshes the enemy’s watch-huts were few and ill-tended--only some few folk of Solway moss abiding there, and even they having mostly removed themselves over to the Carlinwark on the chance of picking the king’s supper bones, and getting a peep at the works of Malise the smith over the palisades of the Three Thorns.

So Sholto, to whom all the bogs and marshes, with their green “quaas” slimy and mysterious, their humpy islands of crumbling peat, their blind leads of ink-black water, stagnant and oily, were familiar--who knew them as a man that rises in the night knows his way back to his bed--found little difficulty in outwitting and outstripping the guards to the south of the isle of Thrieve. An arrow whistled in his wake once or twice. A cur barked as he crossed its wind within a few yards of a Lochar men’s post, striding onward, contemptuous of such soldiering. Brief, in less than an hour, Sholto, his face blackened with grime which he knew where to seek on the rubbish heaps of the old smithy, stood among the crowd outside the barriers, elbowing and cursing with the best, while they watched the roaring of the flames and marvelled at the fierce pulling down of the ancient smithy for the sake of the beams.

But the shed over the great cannon balked his curiosity, through every crevice of which the flames seemed to dart from an interior filled to bursting with the glow of red-hot metal and the clank of hammers.

“I am the Captain of Thrieve--I must see,” growled Sholto. “I am a M‘Kim--God’s grace, see I will!”

And while the youths were still scrambling on the rigging of the smithy, and while the Young Man in Black (whose narrative has been entered before) was tearing at the palisades to keep up the fire, Sholto M‘Kim, unseen of any, stole along the dark waterside, and in a moment paused at the door of that Vulcan’s cavern of noise and heat and flame. A while he stood, stricken dumb and motionless with amazement.

Then, seeing that certain of his brothers were a-missing, and that there needed someone to deal stroke-and-stroke about with his father, something suddenly pricked in his heart. He thought of James Douglas as he had never done before. He muttered, “’Fore God, am not I also a M‘Kim? I will do my part!” And with that he rushed within, picked up a forehammer, and was at his ancient task, as of yore, in the unroofed smithy a little lower down by the waterside of Carlinwark.

He it was of whom the Young Man in Black caught a glimpse ere he returned from hearing the king order his Provost Marshal to impress a respect for kingcraft upon the insolent back of that “good soldier of my Lord of Angus”--the which (the fellow being a Douglas fighting against the head of his house) I trust the Provost Marshal achieved in due time and with a stout right arm.

And long ere the morning light, Sholto M‘Kim, with full information as to what the castle of Thrieve might expect when the monster cannon was completed, lay stretched out sound asleep beside his Maud. Yet when she waked, with the thought of her ailing babes on her mind, her husband said nothing to her of his night adventures--nothing, indeed, to any of us. But from that time forth, the strengthening of the dungeon place, called Archibald the Grim, and the due provisioning of it with light and food and air, were pushed forward with tenfold speed.

And though I was the first to know of Sholto’s night work, it was not till long afterwards that he told even me anything.

Nevertheless, from the cessation of the customary attacks upon the outworks of the isle, from the drawing away of men for purposes to us unseen, there fell an uneasy consciousness upon Thrieve that something serious was impending. The men no longer sang behind the fortifications, but conferred in whispers. And every night you might see a group of them on the castle roof, eagerly looking towards the red flicker in the sky which told of some notable work to our disadvantage going on behind the hill of Carlinwark.

We know now what that work was. It was the making of the carriage for the huge cannon, called afterward Mons Meg’s cradle, and the vast chariot whereon to drag her to a hill just beyond the fords of Glenlochar--a round hill, called at that time the Byne of Camp Douglas, because the shape of it was like an upturned basin--but afterwards, and to this day, “Knockcannon,” or the mount of the cannon.

At last one day we heard a great shouting and affray to the northward, and Sholto, looking out, made out a long procession keeping well in the rear of the line of tents upon the Clairbrand heights. But they could by no possibility keep themselves hidden at the fords of Lochar. For they were bound to cross that way, the water being deep above, and the castle too near and dangerous below. So that we on the topmost towers of Thrieve could see plainly, as it were, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men, convoying, with pain and travail, what seemed a great long cask or barrel across the shallows of the Dee.

Then it was that Sholto spoke, but in few words.

“It behoves that we keep good watch,” he said.

“They have made a great cannon at Carlinwark. I have seen it with these eyes. It may well be that before it the walls of the castle will be as paper. But as yet no man knows whether the shot will strike us, or whether the piece may not burst at the first discharge. But be these things as they may, I have caused make a place of refuge in the dungeon, which no cannon shot, an it were three times as huge, could possibly break into. Thither, my Lady Margaret, you will retire with Maud and the babes when I give the word. But there is yet enough of time. Much remains for them to do, and of warning, ere the danger arrives, there will be enough and to spare. They are now on a hill, and cannot be hid.”

“In any case, I shall remain with you, Sholto!” said Maud Lindsay.

“You will obey your husband, wife!” retorted Sholto, without heat.

At which Maud heaved a sigh, for she knew that she would indeed abide by the babes in obedience to her husband. He was, in any case, a difficult person to disobey, this same Sir Sholto M‘Kim.