CHAPTER XXXVI
THE RISING OF THE DOUGLASES
It was upon the Earl's own charger, Black Darnaway, that Sholto rodesouthward to raise to their chief's assistance the greatest andcompactest clan that ever, even in Scotland, had done the bidding ofone man.
The young man's heart was high and hopeful within him. The King'sguardians dared not, so he told himself, let aught befall the puissantDouglases in the Castle of Edinburgh, without trial and under cover ofthe most courteous hospitality.
"Try the Earl of Douglas!" so Sholto thought within him. He laughed atthe notion. "Why, Earl William could by a word bring a hundredthousand men of Galloway and the Marches to make a fitting jury."
So he meditated, his thoughts running fast and fiery to the beating ofBlack Darnaway's feet as he climbed the heathery slopes which ledtowards Douglasdale. Day was breaking as he rode down to the town ofLanark yet asleep and smokeless in the caller airs of the morn. At thegates of this frontier town he delivered his first summons offeudality. For the burghers of Lanark were liegemen of the Douglasesof Douglasdale, and were (though not with much good-will) bound tofurnish service at call.
Sholto had some difficulty in making himself heard athwart theponderous wooden gates, bossed with leather and studded with iron. Atfirst he shouted angrily to the silences, but presently nearer andnearer came a bellow as of a brazen bull, thunderous and far echoing.
"Fower o' the clock and a braw, braw morning."
It was Grice Elshioner, watchman of the town of Lanark, evidencing tothe magistrates and lieges thereof that he was earning his threeshillings in the week--a handsome wage in these hard times, and onewell able to provide belly-timber for himself and also for the wifeand weans who, dwelling in a close off the High-street, were called byhis name.
Sholto thundered again upon the rugged portal.
"Open there! Open, I say, in the name of the Earl of Douglas!"
"Fower o' the morning! Lord, what's a' the steer? In the name o' theYerl o' Douglas! But wha kens that it isna the English? Na, na, GriceElshioner opens not to every night-raking loon that likes to cry thename o' the Yerl o' Douglas ower oor toon wa'!"
And Grice the valorous would have taken him off with a fresh,sleep-dispelling bellow had it not been that he heard himself summonedin a voice that brooked no delay.
"Open, varlet of a watchman, or by Saint Bride I will have youswinging in half an hour from the bars of your own portcullis. I whospeak am Sholto MacKim, captain of the Earl's guard. Every liegeman inthe town must arm, mount, and ride this instant to Edinburgh. I giveyou fair warning. You hear my words, I will not enter your rascaltown. But if so much as one be wanting at the muster, I swear in thename of my master that his house shall be burned with fire and razedto the ground, and his wife be a widow or ever the cock craw onanother Sabbath morn!"
And without waiting for a reply Sholto laid the reins upon the neck ofBlack Darnaway and rode on southward up Douglas Water to the home nestof the lordly race.
And behind him, with a wail in it, blared through the narrow streetsthe stormy voice of Grice Elshioner, watchman of Lanark, "Wauken ye,wauken ye, burgesses a'! The Douglas hath sent to bid ye mount andride."
The _birr_ of the war drum saluted Sholto's ears ere he had turned thecorner of the town parks. Then came the answering shouts of theburghers who thrust inquiring and indignant heads out of gable windowsand turret speering-holes.
"_Birr!_" continued the undaunted and insistent town drum.
"Harness your backs! Fill your bellies, and stand ready! The Douglashas need o' ye, lieges a'!" cried the sonorous voice of the watch.Sholto smiled as he listened.
"I have at least set them on the alert. They will join the Douglasdalemen as they pass by, or we will show them reason why. But they ofLanark are ill-set town-ward men, and of no true leal heart, save anit be to their own coffers. Yet will they march with us for fear ofthe harrying hand and the burning roof tree."
The sun rose fair on the battlements of Douglas Castle as Sholto rodeup to the level mead, whereon a little company of men was exercising.He could hear the words of command cried gruffly in the broad Gallowayspeech. Landless Jock was drilling his spearmen, and as the shiningtriple line of points dropped to the "ready to receive," the oldknight and former captain of the Earl's guard came forward a littleway to welcome his successor with what grace was at his command.
"Eh, siree, and what has brocht sic a braw young knight and grandfrequenter o' courts sae far as Douglas Castle? Could ye no even letpuir Landless Jock hae the tilt-yaird here to exercise his handfu' in,and keep his auld banes a wee while frae the rust and the greenmould?"
But even as the crusty old soldier spoke these words, the whiteanxiety in Sholto's face struck through his half-humorous complaint,and the words died on his lips in a perturbed "What is't--what is'tava, laddie?"
Sholto told him in the fewest words.
"The Yerl and Dawvid in the power o' their hoose's enemies. BlessedSaint Anthony, and here was I flighterin' and ragin' aboot mynaethings. Here, lads, blaw the horn and cry the slogan. Fetch thehorses frae the stall and stand ready in your war gear within tenminutes by the knock. Aye, faith, will we raise Douglasdale! Gang yourways to Gallowa'--there shall not a man bide at hame this day. Certes,we wull that! Ca' in the by-gaun at Lanark--aye, lad, and, gin therascals are no willing or no ready, we will hang the provost andmagistrates at their ain door-cheeks to learn them to bide frae thecried assembly o' their liege lord!"
Sholto had done enough in Douglasdale. He turned north again on a yetmore important errand. It was forenoon full and broad when he haltedbefore the little town of Strathaven, upon which the Castle ofAvondale looks down. It seemed of the greatest moment that theAvondale Douglases should know that which had befallen their cousin.For no suspicion of treachery within the house and name of Douglasitself touched with a shade of shadow the mind of Sholto MacKim.
He thundered at the town-ward port of the castle (to which a steepascent led up from a narrow vennel), where presently the outer guardsoon crowded about him, listening to his story and already fingeringbowstring and examining rope-matches preparatory to the expected marchupon Edinburgh.
"I have not time to waste, comrades; I would see my lords," saidSholto. "I must see them instantly."
And even as he spoke there on the steps before him appeared the dark,handsome face and tall but slightly stooping figure of William Douglasof Avondale. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, and hisserious thought-weighted brow bent upon the concourse about Sholto.
With a push of his elbows this way and that, the young captain of theEarl's guard opened a road through the press.
In short, emphatic sentences he told his tale, and at the name ofprisonment and treachery to his cousins the countenance of WilliamDouglas grew stern and hard. His face twitched as if the news camevery near to him. He did not answer for a moment, but stood biting hislips and glooming upon Sholto, as though the young man had been aprisoner waiting sentence of pit or gallows for evil doing.
"I must see James concerning this ill news," he said when Sholto hadfinished telling him of the Black Bull's Head at the Chancellor'sbanquet-table.
He turned to go within.
"My lord," said Sholto, "will you give me another horse, and letDarnaway rest in your stables? I must instantly ride south again toraise Galloway."
"Order out all the horses which are ready caparisoned," commandedWilliam of Avondale, "and do you, Captain Sholto, take your choice ofthem."
He went within forthwith and there ensued a pause filled with thesnorting and prancing of steeds, as, mettlesome with oats and hay,they issued from their stalls, or with the grass yet dewy about theirnoses were led in from the field. Darnaway took his leave of Sholtowith a backward neigh of regret, as if to say he was not yet tired ofgoing on his master's service.
Then presently on the terrace above appeared lazy Lord James, busilybuckling the straps of his body-armour and talking hotly the whilewith his brothe
r William.
"I care not even whether our father--" he cried aloud ere, with arestraining hand upon his wrist, his elder brother could succeed instopping him.
"Hush, James," he said, "at least be mindful of those that standaround."
"I care not, I tell you, William," cried the headstrong youth,squaring his shoulders as he was wont to do before a fight. "I tellyou that you and I are no traitors to our name, and who meddles withour coz, Will of Thrieve, hath us to reckon with!"
William of Avondale said nothing, but held out his hand with a slow,determinate gesture. Said he, "An it were the father that begat us."Whereat, with all the impetuousness of his race and nature, Jamesdashed his palm into that of his brother.
"Whiles, William," he cried, "ye appear clerkish and overcautious, andI break out and miscall ye for no Douglas, when ye will not spend yoursiller like a man and are afraid of the honest pint stoup. But at theheart's heart ye are aye a Douglas--and though the silly gapingcommons like ye not so well as they like me, ye are the best o' us,for all that."
So it came to pass that within the space of half an hour the AvondaleDouglases had sent men to the four airts, young Hugh Douglas himselfriding west, while James stirred the folk of Avondale and Strathavon,and in all the courtyards and streets of the little feudal bourg therebegan the hum and buzz of the war assembly.
Lord William went with Sholto to see staunch Darnaway duly stabled,and to approve the horse which was to bear the messenger to the southwithout halt, now that his mission was accomplished in the west. Whenthey came out Sholto's riding harness had been transferred to a noblegrey steed large enough to carry even the burly James, let alone theslim captain of the archer guard of Thrieve.
In the court, ranked and ready, bridle to bridle were ranged theknights and squires in waiting about the Castle of Avondale, while outon a level green spot on the edge of the moor gathered the denserarray of the townfolk with spears and partisans.
In an hour the Avondale Douglases were ready to ride to the assistanceof their cousins. Alas, that Earl William would take no advice, forhad these and others gone in with him to the fatal town, there wouldhave been no Black Bull's Head on the Chancellor's dinner table in thebanqueting-hall of Edinburgh Castle.