CHAPTER XLV.

THE PEACE OF ZIMRI

At last there came for me a certain glad day when the ploughs on all the open straths were blithely upturning the fallow, and the whole world was filled with the swirling of white gulls and the smell of fresh red earth--a heartsome day it was and a heartsome thing its morning hours brought me.

For several weeks Laurence had appeared and disappeared at intervals, saying no more than that he was upon the king’s business. And I, thinking in my heart that he might have told me more, and doubtless somedeal nettled at his silence, had held my tongue and refrained from questioning him--which (I confess) was far from being my habit.

But this one day, by the grace of the Lady Agneta, he entered into my chamber, and with a serious face asked me to come to the door, for there were certain poor persons there, begging for my assistance. But I believed him not. For at this time it was his delight to take me in and cheat me into believing absurdities, rejoicing thereat afterwards, like a very schoolboy. The which was foolish of him, yet nevertheless a cheerful, likeable trait after all, speaking of a light heart and easeful within.

So for a while I would not go forth, fearing ridicule. Because in his eye, for all his grave mien, there abode a certain lurking twinkle which aforetime had betrayed his evil intents to me more than once. But at long and last I did go to the little wicket-gate of the convent. Laurence threw it wide open.

And there, before my eyes stood Maud, my Maud, with all the five children about her, and behind, halting a little upon a staff and greatly paler than was his wont, I saw Sholto! I kissed them all--yes, even Sholto, who blushed and stammered that he was not worthy--that I was his liege lady and--other things which I forget.

Whereat, so glad was I, that I kissed him again, having ever a greedy tooth for kissing and nothing to wear it on of late.

Which observing, Laurence looked so fain that I drew myself apart with Maud, and bade her tell me all there was to tell of her journey, and where she meant to abide. Then it came out that Master Laurence had interceded with the king for the pardon of Sholto. And he, anticipating in the future a need of such knights, as he had said before, was easy to be entreated. So he had given the little tower called the Larg of Kenmore upon Tayside to Sholto to dwell in, and (said he) “If your Lady Margaret is waxen weary of her nunneries and mummeries, let her also go thither and keep the bairnies’ frocks in order. It will be better work than a Douglas hath set hand to in this realm for some while!”

So, adieus being said, through the pleasant fields and fringing woods we betook us to Kenmore, Maud keeping close to Sholto that she might watch his face, causing him to get off and rest as often as she discovered a trace of fatigue. In time, however, we reached our goal, and lo! this thoughtful Laurence of ours had the house all fitted and arranged. (It was, as to its building, a small farm-fortalice, not a great castle like Thrieve.) And whenever I had been ill-natured with him, he had hugged himself, thinking, “Ah, wait, Mistress Margaret, till that which is coming, comes! Then will you not be sorry for these hard speeches and averted eyes!”

And I was sorry, but not so sorry as he thought or expected. Because I was glad that Laurence should have the heart within him to care so much of making others happy. The men I had dealt with hitherto had not the like much in mind--no, not even William Douglas.

The Larg of Kenmore was a place in which one might well be content to grow old. Also, none could wish for better and more loving company than that of Maud and Sholto. It had but one drawback: it was farther from the king’s palace at Stirling, and so, of consequence, we saw less of Laurence, or, at least, he came seldomer. Yet, abiding in the house, where his bed was made down every night and his platter laid for every meal, it was happiness of a better kind than when I saw him but for an hour or two at the nunnery overlooking the towers of Dunkeld.

Yet, because in the course of this history I have had much to tell of these still places, where the crying of a bird or a change in the wind is a subject for an hour’s converse, and the new moon seen over the right shoulder an occasion of festival, I shall say little about the Larg of Kenmore.

It was not by my choice that I spent so great part of my time in such quietnesses. I did not make my life--no, nor any part of it, saving perhaps when, in ignorance and perversity, having to choose between two brothers, like a woman I preferred the less worthy. But the rest of my life has been what men’s power and men’s ambitions have made it. God is over all. I doubt it not. He is great; but He seems to me so great that He interferes but little in the things of yesterday and to-day and to-morrow.

Yet, mayhap, I do not see fairly or judge aright. Had I been a common woman, without a groat, living in a better time, belike I had not had this to say, as I do say it from my heart; but with Galloway and the Borderlands, Ettrick Forest and Carrick, for my dower, I was, as I have said, little better than a hand-ball propelled by the players, William and James of Douglas, James Stewart the king, and Crichton the Chancellor.

And as for God, doubtless He watched from behind the window-lattice of His heaven; but, alas! He did nothing.

So at least I thought at the time. True, afterwards I came to see better of it when, despoiled, mine estate and quality made worth no man’s while, I tasted at last the grave and dulcet securities of poverty.

But was I not speaking of the Larg of Kenmore, round which the heather ringed itself, and at whose very doorstep the whaups and wild moor-fowl cried suddenly in, making the bairns laugh at their meals.

Sholto grew slowly better, his wounds healing, like those of a child, by the first intention. But one day there came, sudden as the inbursting of one of the granite bolts of Mons Meg--Malise himself!

I was in the little hardly won garden sitting by myself in a sheltered summer-house. I could see the house-door. It stood open, and in the dusk of the chamber on a couch lay Sholto, with Maud Lindsay cherishing him--sometimes with gentle touches that were not quite caresses, but more often with lifted finger and the same chidings and forbidding with which in time of sickness she entreated her children.

The bairns themselves were without the gate with Donald, the herd of the Larg, no doubt tumbling and wrestling among the heather like young dogs at play.

I heard the click of the yett, with which at night Donald barred in Sholto’s scanty stock of bestial--for there were still wolves a-many in the fastnesses of Kenmore. I sat frozen dumb with apprehension. There stood Malise M‘Kim, looking dourly at the little white house sleeping in the sun. Surely never grimmer wolf glared at sheepfold, than the brain-clouded smith of Carlinwark upon the Larg of Kenmore.

Before I could move or cry out, he advanced with half a dozen great strides across the yard and paused at the door, his bulk blocking the entrance. I think he could see his son lying on his couch, and at the sight his hand instinctively sought his dagger.

Had not this, his first-born son, separated himself from all his family? Had not he and he alone balked the M‘Kims of their revenge? For what purpose had Malise M‘Kim come hither, save that he might take a second and surer vengeance upon the son unfaithful who had stood in the breach till James Douglas escaped?

But the hand of Malise had not so much as reached the inlaid handle of his dagger before Maud stood in the doorway. As she came she snatched up the great household carving-knife from the top of the salt-box, where of habitude it lay. And now she met the armourer-smith in the doorway.

I could see her clearly--Maud--but what a Maud! A lioness defending her whelps, a she-wolf at the den’s mouth on the side of Briariach--these looked somewhat less fierce than she. She spoke no word. She only stood there, her arm a little drawn together as if to strike, her body half crouched for a spring, her fingers twitching on the haft. And this was Maud--my Maud, the mother who heard the babes their prayers in the gloaming, and every day taught them from Holy Writ lessons of love and sacrifice.

“Go back!” she cried, her voice hoarse as that of a man in passion. “Go back, Malise M‘Kim. You shall not lay hand on him till after you have slain me. And I will slay you first. God’s help, I will!”

The smith looked at her a little bewildered. Then he drew his hand across his broad, deeply scarred brow with the gesture which had become habitual to him. His eye, no longer lurid or dangerous, seemed rather trying to arrange facts he did not comprehend, to make something clear to himself.

“You are Sholto’s wife,” he said, looking at her; “yes--yes--I mind. He married young, over young. I passed the children on the moor.” (Here Maud drew a long breath of apprehension--divided between desire to run out to see that all was well with Marcelle, with the twins, with Ulric and little David, and the yet more pressing need of abiding where she was to defend her husband.)

But the attitude of the smith was reassuring, even humble.

He looked past Maud to where his son lay on his couch. He smiled a little wistfully at him.

“Speak for me, lad,” he said. “This Highland wife of thine takes me for a caird, a catheran, one that would rieve her of thee or carry away the bairns. Ye have a snod bit housie here, Sholto! Bid the mistress let your auld faither come his ways ben and rest him a while. For he has had a lang, lang road to travel, and never a friend to cheer him by the way!”

He looked so pitiful that Maud, impulsive at times, though mostly since her marriage demure as a puss, dropped the knife and caught the old man about the neck.

“Indeed and indeed,” she cried, “I am heart-sorry for my ill-bred temper. Yet am I of Highland blood, and I do not forget either good or evil! Come ben, our father, and speak peaceable things to us--for I feared--I feared”--

She did not continue the subject, and perhaps it was as well. For, as it soon appeared, one dangerous locker of the armourer’s mind was closed--for the time, at least.

Malise clapped her gently on the shoulder.

“Feared?”--he murmured caressingly, as to a child; “foolish lass, what was there to fear? Is not Sholto the eldest of my bairns? Are not you another? Wherefore should I hurt mine own? I have been at the Court and I am tired--tired of being grand--of having lackeys to wait on me, old Malise M‘Kim! And they told me lies--lies--lies! Indeed--they do naught else all day long that I can see--these courtiers that go attired in scarlet and blue, and wear devices upon their mantles. But I see through their lies!”

By this time he stood quite close to his son’s couch.

“Ah,” he said, touching the white cloth about his head, “what is this? Hast fallen, lad? Who hath dealt thee that dooms lounder on the crown? He that did it had some skill in cudgel play, I warrant him. For even when thou wast a lad, there were not many that could give thee better--let alone the breaking of thy head!”

The two stared at him in astonishment. Sholto was about to speak, but over his father’s shoulder Maud made a sign to her husband to be silent.

Was it possible he had wholly forgotten Thrieve and all that had been done there? It seemed like it.

The old man bent over his son. He had the aspect of one about to communicate a weighty secret.

“Sholto,” he said in a low voice, “I came because they told me that you dwelt in a little house among the heather, and underlay the king’s displeasure! Laurence told me so--but (this a whisper) Sholto, lad, they--are--teaching--him--to--lie--at--the--Court, like the others!”

Sholto shook his head, but took his father gently by the hand.

“Care naught for ‘says he’ or ‘says she,’” he answered soothingly, “Laurence is your own son. A M‘Kim does not lie!”

The smith responded nothing for a while, passing his other hand to and fro across his brow a little wearily.

“Ah,” he said at length, “my own son, is he? A M‘Kim is he? Why then does he call himself a Stewart? And why then does he compel me to help him to forge cannon for a murderer?”

“_For a murderer?_” cried Sholto and Maud simultaneously, in the greatness of their astonishment.

The old man tip-toed to the door and looked out. The heather spread twenty leagues. The moor birds cried. Then very carefully he shut it and came back to the side of Sholto’s couch.

“Listen,” he whispered, “they think I forget--that I am an old done man. But I do not forget. How should I forget that once I had a master--like to none the world hath seen! What of him? Who enticed him to his death? _One, James Stewart by name!_ Who sat down to dine with my master? _James Stewart!_ Who rose up with him and led him apart, his arm about his neck, as friend doth with friend when the heart is full and free! _Who but James Stewart?_”

He struck one hand hard into the palm of the other with a sound like the crack of a musket.

“But the jest’s cream is that in the king’s house they talk of naught but Thrieve and Mons Meg and a great victory gained over the Douglas! I keep a serious face, for I know that victory. The victory was gained by the traitor’s dagger in the little back-room where they put my Lady Margaret to sleep the night she came to Stirling. There they gained their great victory--these Stewarts, and he the chief of all, the murderer king who struck his friend to the heart, his hand yet warm from being about my master’s neck.”

Then with a pleased expression Maud nodded at Sholto. The armourer had forgotten all that had happened after the death of William Douglas. At that moment the sound of the voices of the children, as they raced homeward athwart the heather, came sharply in at the open window. Malise started up.

“What is that?” he demanded. “Hath the king sent for me? Am I to have no peace in this world?”

“They are but the voices of the bairns, father,” said Maud softly, caressing the old gnarled hand which lay on the smith’s knee, the fingers gathering themselves up, and again being thrust out tense and hard. “You shall have peace here with us, our father--so long as it pleases you to bide!”

“Peace--peace!” he repeated, with a hard intonation, as if something displeased him in the word. “Ah, Sholto, lad, you are here under the king’s displeasure, and it is well. But James Stewart shall have no peace! No!”

Then with extraordinary fierceness of energy, almost the snarl of a wild beast, he added these words, “_Had Zimri peace that slew his master?_”