CHAPTER XLIII.

IN THE NIGHT SEASON, ONE COMETH UP

As to us who were confined in Archibald the Grim, these events passed literally over our heads, and left us no whit the wiser. Indeed, till the door of our prison-house was opened we knew nothing certainly, and he who brought us forth was the same Young Man in Black, sometime Abbot of Sweetheart, Laurence M‘Kim.

And through all the sad destruction which the bombardment had wrought upon Thrieve--the down-trampled southerly garden which had once been for a joy to me, my solace in many lonely years, the misty glory of a too brief dream, I could not help rejoicing that it was finished--this life I had not chosen to live, but which had been thrust upon me from my birth. I do not say that afterwards it had not seemed natural. The love of Maud and the devotion of Sholto had made it even simple and tolerable. Yet even now, when I am old and have known many women, I judge there are but few such upon the earth who in their youth have had an experience stranger than mine.

There is this to be added--I knew no other. For the loves of Maud and Sholto seemed to me even as those of a father and mother to the children of a house--something in the nature of things, inevitable, existing from the beginning, continuing unto the end.

But for myself I expected no such love to come into my life. Was I not Princess of Galloway--Countess of Douglas, what you will! To the end I was fated to be a tennis ball that flies this way and that between the players. So, being born to a principality desired of men, it seemed natural to me.

So that being done with, I was glad to be quit of Thrieve--of the hideous confinement in the dungeon of Archibald the Grim, of the blind waiting, of the thunder of the rending shock, and the terror of great darkness. But it seemed still better to me (whatever might hereafter befall me) that I should never more see the face of James Douglas--never hear his voice, so smooth, so insinuating when he would--at other times, with the rasp of command in it! Therefore, because I desired to forget, said Maud Lindsay, it is certain that I never truly loved him.

At anyrate, it was done with, princessdoms and splendid prison-houses. And James Douglas, too, was done with. From the time he set foot on the little English ship in the Dutchman’s Lake at Kirkcudbright, I knew that I should see my husband’s face no more. It was not his way, with all his faults, to return to take a second place where once he had reigned supreme.

Then it was that, leaving Sholto to recover from his wounds under the care of Maud, in an untouched southerly corner of ruined Thrieve (a guard of king’s men being also in possession to see all safe in the interests of James Stewart), I was taken northward with the royal army.

Laurence M‘Kim, to whom the king, in fulfilment of his promise, had accorded his own name, together with the forfeited estates of Balveny, which had belonged to that Little John who died so well at Arkinholm, wished to send me for shelter to the good sisters of Sweetheart. But of this the king, who had his own purposes to serve, and his own interests to consolidate, would hear nothing. A Countess of Douglas within the bounds of Galloway might, he said, easily become a standard of revolt.

In vain I besought James Stewart, even on my knees, to permit me to abide in some place where I should hear no more the storms of war, nor know the ill hearts of men.

“Let me be always with Maud and Sholto,” I said. “I will be a serving-maid to their bairns, if you will. But as you love God, let me no more be tossed about, a cork on the waves of man’s ambition! I have suffered enough. Now let me have peace!”

“They tell me,” he answered not unkindly, “that you had over long time peace, and thought no great things thereof. Yet it may be that they lie!”

“They do lie and in their throats!” I cried; “only let me abide in peace with those who do love me, and I shall ask no more. At least _I_ have never conspired against you!”

He shook his head not ill-naturedly.

“Of that I am none so sure, little lady,” he answered; “you are a Douglas, every inch of you, and it were ill for a Stewart to trust to one of that breed. Mayhap, however, a tacked-on Stewart may have better fortune with you than one true born!”

What he meant I had no notion of then, nor yet for long afterwards. So in spite of my prayers, they brought me by slow stages to Stirling, that fatal town. At every burgh the triumph of the royal arms was received with shoutings and processioning, with lurid torches flaring in the darkness by night, and parti-coloured flannel petticoats strung across the miry roadway by day.

I even recognised some of the latter. James and I had laughed at them, sitting together, hand in each other’s hand, those times when, with a great retinue, he and I had made our well-nigh progresses. It was all the same. Those who had shouted for the great Earl of the South in his day, now shouted just as loud for the King of the North. And the goodwives were as ready to hang out their gay kerchiefs and petticoats for one as for the other. For which small blame to them.

Little difference they kenned ’twixt earl and king. Both alike claimed lodging for their men. Neither paid a groat for bed or board. And if the honest burghers gat off with that, they might count themselves lucky. For soldiers are soldiers all the world over, wherever there is a pike to carry or a town to sack, and the fear of the king, and still more of Malise M‘Kim’s red eye, had held them somewhat severely in check at Thrieve. Moreover, there was not a silver pound of treasure in the castle, nor, saving Maud and myself, a woman within the four walls, both which lackings must notoriously have galled these honest fellows.

Laurence would have been glad to abide with his brother Sholto, but this also the king had no mind for. His mind was all set on the making of great and even greater guns, of the sort which in such brief space had brought Thrieve to the ground. He dreamed of the conquest of England, of the battering down of all the Border fortresses as far as York, of humbling the King of England as he had already done my Lord of Douglas. “If the earl had escaped,” he said, “why, so much the better; he will carry the news of Mollance Meg and her works!”

And for this he saw in Laurence the brain and skill of plan, in Malise and the other M‘Kims the instruments ready to his hand.

But it came to pass that, though the malady of the Armourer Smith grew rapidly upon him, the king would by no means permit either Malise or any of his family to leave his company, but carried him and his great cannon, with shoutings and honour, through the towns of Dumfries, Lanark, and, lastly, Renfrew, together with its pendicle, the little insignificant village of Glasgow, seated on a knoll, all broom and gorse, above a fine, clear river, the which possesses a kirk of a size most disproportioned to the needs of the mean fisher-folk who dwell there.

So when we came to Stirling, and saw the castle and palace, magnificent upon their ridge, right royal and comely we found them after the raft of pig-styes we had passed through of late. For Thrieve, surrounded with a river which cleansed all things and said no word, had given me a distaste for the rubbish heaps and cabbage leaves of the Scots burghs, with their other disconveniences yet more grievous, such as only a new flood of Noë would be able thoroughly to sweep away.

So, as I say, we came to Stirling. And yet my head, being no little mazed, it came about I scarce knew it for the royal town. Sometimes I seemed to be in Edinburgh, and more often at Amboise--sometimes in a mere city of faërie. For, with the long final stage and the chill (it was a winter’s day, grey and hard), and the king being determined to sleep at home that night, come what would, I was wearied far past my ordinary, and fain to rest, had it been in no better than a hay-loft.

So we rode within the court of the palace by eight of the clock, and, messengers having been sent on before, there was a great banquet ready in the hall. But as for me, though the king came in person to invite me, and showed himself most desirous to forget the past, I pleaded that I was wearied out of all bearing, and so gat leave to betake me at once to my chamber, which was on the ground floor, and opened on a court.

For, indeed, the heart was sick within me with yearning for Maud to comfort me, and with all that had passed during these terrible last days. So, having partaken of no sustenance, though Laurence knocked repeatedly with certain dainties for the sustaining of my strength and the tempting of my appetite, I would not open to him; the desire to eat was clean gone from me. So, without even entering into parley, I threw me on the bed and slept.

* * * * * * *

I know not what hour of the night it might have been, nor yet whether I slept or waked. But deep in the heart of night, when even the soul of man turns to water within him as when a spirit passes by, and that of woman is afraid at the cheep of the mouse behind the wainscot, I awaked or seemed to awake in my bed.

I had cast me down as I was, stretched out in my great cloak of voyage; and lo! when I awoke, the candle I had brought with me was burned down to a sort of broad yellow flickering in the socket. Nevertheless, the chamber being situate where it was, on the ground floor, the room was indistinctly lit with the illuminated torches of the masquers and mummers without who had come to wait upon the king in the great courtyard, while opposite my own lodging a cresset full of pine-knots, well rosined, burned in an iron basket. For many such conveniences, which even at Thrieve were never heard of, had been brought from France and Italy to the new palace of the king.

The chamber, therefore, where I lay was by no means dark. Or at least, so it seemed in my dream or vision of the night (I take it not upon me to say which it was).

But at the foot of my bed, between me and the window, plain as I see the paper I write upon, I saw William Douglas, who had been my husband. Of that I would take mine oath upon my dying bed.

He stood and looked down upon me--much as he used to do, but, as I thought, more tenderly--as it had been, more like to Laurence. It was, however, difficult to see his face, for his back was toward the lights without.

Then (always in my dream of the night) he said to me, “Margaret!”

And when I could not move my tongue to answer--not for fear, because it all appeared natural and naught out of place or to be affrayed of--he said again and in a more gentle tone, “Margaret!”

At the same time he came close up to me, and placed his hand upon my shoulder.

Whereat I rose up slowly, and not being yet rightly awake, sat on the bedside and regarded him. He seemed strangely kind. But still, being against my will compelled to remain silent, I said nothing, sitting tongue-tied and awkward before him.

Then he (or else that which stood there in his place, being permitted) took me by the hand and said, “Rise, Margaret, there is somewhat in the garden without, which it behoves you to look upon!”

So at these words I rose up and stood before him, and the revellers tossing torches in the air without, for the first time caused the light to shine on his face. It was gentle and grave as ever, but sweeter, and as if proven by a lifetime of adversity. Ah, if only he had looked at me like that in the woods of Cour Cheverney.

Then came the word to me suddenly. I was not afraid, then--no, nor yet at the ending of all.

“Are you indeed my husband whom the king slew treacherously?” I asked of him.

He put out his hand--or the semblance of a hand, still gently, and as it were with deprecation.

“It is past! Let it pass!” he said. “James the king is king in this realm to-day--not the best sort of king--but yet, perhaps, better for this folk than William of Douglas would have been. Have no fear of James Stewart, King of Scots!”

“But he is a murderer!”

“There are many ways of slaying--but one death!” said the figure which had come to me in my dream; “James Stewart is a rough, violent man, but not, in his heart of hearts, evil. Let that which he hath done be forgot!”

“How can I know that you speak truth?” I moaned. “There are, say the priests, spirits evil and spirits good--dreams that warn and instruct, and dreams that lead only to destruction. How can I be sure?”

“By this sign,” he said. “Bide a moment: wait for the man that hath been your husband, and for the sign he will bring in his arms.”

And in a moment he was not. Yet there remained, as it were, a kind of bluish haze, like moonshine striking slantwise through a skylight, in the place where he had stood.

I remained fixed in amazement. Yet it was of a chilly sort, and wholly without fear. Rather a certain reverence descended upon me, and I waited not unwillingly. And in a little, with a bright, shining light, he returned, carrying a child in his arms. And, lo! I did not need to be told. It was my babe, the babe who had been laid in holy ground in the kirk acre of Balmaghie, God and the monks of Sweetheart giving him good rest! But grown and glorified, and like the angels of heaven for beauty!

This time none spoke; but the babe smiled upon me, and held out its little arms.

“Mine!” I cried, and again “Mine!” Then I started forward to take him to my bosom.

At that, like the clapping of hands, all vanished, and I was alone, save that I heard a Voice from High Above (not that of William Douglas), which said, like a master correcting a child’s faulty lesson, “_Mine also!_”

And this was the end of my dream. For when I came to myself, lo, I was by the tall window! The chamber was empty, lit only by the uncertain flicker of the cresset dying down on the opposite wall. I was broad awake. Yet, if I had been asleep, I have no cognisance of how or when I awaked. The dream and the reality seemed one.

* * * * * * *

Then it came to me to do what He, my visitant, had said--to go into the enclosure on which my window opened. It was not the great wide court where the guards tramp to and fro all night, calling the hour and clanking iron heels, but an inner court or garden--close in the midst of the castle.

With difficulty I opened the window, which appeared strangely glued and long disused. It was a tall window like those I had been accustomed to in France. And so with only two steps I found myself on the short grass, grey and stiff with the November frost. Above, the trees were black and bald against the sky, reaching out their branches like withered hands clutching whole clusters of the stars.

On the hill of Ballingeich, near by, they had lighted a bonfire in honour of the king’s return. It had flamed, mounted, lowered, and now, like the cresset, was burning red and low. But on the frosty grass of the little courtyard it made a ruddy reflection which served somewhat to guide me.

I went out, scarce knowing what I did, save that I had been called in a dream. The enclosure was but a grass plot with ancient trees planted all about, mostly close to the walls. But as I went across the short grass, my foot caught on a mound, heaped like a grave, but not new-made. For the grass grew thick upon it, though not so spiky and strong as elsewhere.

There was no stone at head or foot. But, as in the dream, my heart knew all. Someone had scribbled on the wall under the dying cresset these words:

“SO PERISH ALLE TRAITOURS!”

But there was for me no need for that assurance. The man who was the truest of the true--so true that he trusted his house’s enemy against the warnings of his own (and died for the mistake)--lay at my feet.

My husband, William of Douglas! I knew him at last! There were none like him--there could be none--loyal, silent, faithful, always speaking good and always fearless of evil. In this place he lay treacherously slain by the hand of his sovereign, after the salt eaten, the banquet spread, the loving hand about the neck, as is the wont of brother with brother.

And it seemed to me that if I could but have recalled the past and the years that had overflown, I would never any more have misjudged him, but understood and helped him in his great aims.

That he had never loved me as it is the right of every woman to be loved, being wedded, seemed to matter but little now. I should have drawn him--so I told myself--taken him, held him--given him, home-returning, the comfort of mutual understanding, of love, touched him to humaner purposes, to the issues which some name passionate, but which also are divine.

Ah, but--I could not. It was too late. It was not so written, and the High Wall of Destiny who shall overleap?

Yet the heart within me was wae to think what he, the greatest of the race, had missed. William Douglas had known the vast unsatisfied loneliness of inheriting a matchless name. He had proved the still greater loneliness of companying perforce with ignoble men. The jar and fret of statecraft, the shaping of little means to great purposes--the triumph, partly assured, yet more and better seen in prospect--these and these alone had been his, before treachery, rank and foul, cut him off.

But these things which he had missed--the love of woman, the prattle of children--sons to bear his name, daughters held among the honourable of the earth! Ah, how much more and greater they were! Better still--the sweet serenities of the hearthstone, the tears at parting, more in the throat than in the eyes, the glad laughters and claspings of homecoming, when, after toil accomplished, he should return bringing his sheaves with him.

And as I thought upon these things, I threw me on my face, vehemently kissing the cold turf, frost spangled, under which I judged his head to lie.

“I would have given you all these,” I moaned, “all these and more, had you but asked me. But you would not--you would not!”

* * * * * * *

Long I lay thus, knowing nothing and thinking nothing, insensate as the dust beneath. Then into my heart there stole a conviction, that was all the surer because it came to me this time without spoken word or angelic dream.

I knew (I know not how, but of a certainty I knew) how in that country where the children grow up without sin (God’s nursery, mayhap!) the babe that had been born to me was growing up in the care and tendance of that all-princely spirit, making ready to be another and more humane William Douglas, not unworthy of him who, through infinite misunderstandings and shortcomings, had yet been my true husband.

So, much comforted, rising up, went within. And after that, even as the Solway tides erase a name writ upon the sands, that of James Douglas came no more into my heart as the name of a man I had loved.