CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE MACKIMS COME TO THRIEVE
Sholto MacKim stood watching awhile as the white palfrey disappearedwith its rider into the purple twilight of the woods which barred theway to the Solway. Then with a violent effort of will he recalledhimself and looked about for his horse. The tired beast was gentlycropping the lush dewy herbage on the green slope which led downwardsto his native cottage. Sholto took the grey by the bridle and walkedtowards his mother's door, pondering on the last words of the LadySybilla. A voice at once strenuous and familiar broke upon his ear.
"Shoo wi' you, impident randies that ye are, shoo! Saw I ever the likeaboot ony decent hoose? Thae hens will drive me oot o' my mind!Sholto, lad, what's wrang? Is't your faither? Dinna tell me it's yourfaither."
"It is more bitter than that, mither mine."
"No the Earl--surely no the Earl himsel'--the laddie that I haenursed--the laddie that was to Barbara Halliburton as her ain dearson!"
"Mother, it is the Earl and young David too. They are dead, betrayedinto the hands of their enemies, cruelly and treacherously slain!"
Then the keening cry smote the air as Barbara MacKim sank on her kneesand lifted up her hands to heaven.
"Oh, the bonny laddies--the twa bonny, bonny laddies! Mair than my ainbairns I loved them. When their ain mother wasna able for mortalweakness to rear him, William Douglas drew his life frae me. What for,Sholto, are ye standin' there to tell the tale? What for couldna yehave died wi' him? Ae mither's milk slockened ye baith. The same armscradled ye. I bade ye keep your lord safe wi' your body and your soul.And there ye daur to stand, skin-hale and bane unbroken, before yourmither. Get hence--ye are nae son o' Barbara MacKim. Let me never lookon your face again, gin ye bringna back the pride o' the warld, thegladness o' the auld withered heart o' her ye ca' your mither!"
"Mother," said Sholto, "my lord was not dead when I left him--he sentme to raise the country to his rescue."
"And what for then are ye standin' there clavering, and your lord indanger among his foes?" cried his mother, angrily.
"Dear mother, I have something more to tell ye--"
"Aye, I ken, ye needna break the news. It is that Malise, my man, isdead--that Laurence, wha ran frae the Abbey to gang wi' him to thewars, is nae mair. Aweel they are worthily spent, since they died fortheir chief! Ye say that ye were sent to raise the clan--then whatseek ye at the Carlinwark? To Thrieve, man, to Thrieve; as hard as yecan ride! To Castle Thrieve!"
"Mother," said Sholto, still more gently, "hearken but a moment.Thirty thousand men are on their way to Edinburgh. Three days andnights have I ridden without sleep. Douglasdale is awake. The UpperWard is already at the gates of the city. To a man, Galloway is onthe march. The border is aflame. But it is all too late already, Ihave had news of the end. Before ever a man could reach within miles,the fatal axe had fallen, and my lords, for whom each one of us wouldgladly have died with smiles upon our faces, lay headless in thecourtyard of Edinburgh Castle."
"And if the laddies were alive when ye rode awa', wha brocht the newsfaster than my Sholto could ride--tell me that?"
"I came not directly to Galloway, mother. First I raised the west fromStrathaven to Ayr. Thence I carried the news to Dumfries and along theborder side. But to-day I have seen the Lady Sybilla on her way totake ship for France. From her I heard the news that all I had donewas too late."
"That foreigneerin' randy! Wad ye believe the like o' her? Yon womanthat they named 'Queen o' Beauty' at the tournay by the Fords o'Lochar!--Certes, I wadna believe her on oath, no if she swore on theblessed banes o' Saint Andro himsel'. To the castle, man, or I'll kiltmy coats and be there afore you to shame ye!"
"I go, mother," said Sholto, trying vainly to stem the torrent ofdenunciation which poured upon him; "I came only to see that all waswell with you."
"And what for should a' be weel wi' me? What can be ill wi' me, if itbe not to gang on leevin' when the noblest young men in the warld--thelad that was suckled at my bosom, lies cauld in the clay. Awa wi' ye,Sholto MacKim, and come na back till ye hae rowed every traitor in thesame bloody windin' sheet!"
The foster mother of the Douglases sank on the ground in the dusk,leaning against the wall of her house. She held her face in her handsand sobbed aloud, "O Willie, Willie Douglas, mair than ony o' my ain Iloed ye. Bonny were ye as a bairn. Bonny were ye as a laddie. Bonnyabune a' as a noble young man and the desire o' maidens' e'en. Butnane o' them a' loed ye like poor auld Barbara, that wad hae gien herlife to pleasure ye. And noo she canna even steek thae black, blacke'en, nor wind the corpse-claith aboot yon comely limbs--sae straightand bonny as they were--I hae straiked and kissed sae oft and oft. Owae's me--wae's me! What will I do withoot my bonny laddies!"
It was with the sound of his mother's lament still in his ears thatSholto rode sadly over the hill to Thrieve. The way is short and easy,and it was not long before the captain of the guard looked down uponthe lights of the castle gleaming through the gathering gloom. Butinstead of being, as was its wont, lighted from highest battlement toflanking tower, only one or two lamps could be discerned shining outof that vast cliff of masonry.
But, on the other hand, lights were to be seen wandering this way andthat over the long Isle of Thrieve, following the outlines of itswinding shores, shining from the sterns of boats upon the pools of theDee water, weaving intricately among the broomy braes on either sideof the ford, and even streaming out across the water meadows ofBalmaghie.
Sholto was so full of his own sorrow and the certain truth of theterrible news he must bring home to the Lady of Douglas and those twowhom he loved, Maud Lindesay and her fair maid, that he paid littleheed to these wandering lanterns and distant flaring torches.
He was pausing at the bridge head to wait the lowering of thedraw-chains, when out of the covert above him there dashed a desperatehorseman, who stayed neither for bridge nor ford, but rode straight atthe eastern castle pool where it was deepest. To the stirrup clunganother figure strange and terrible, seen in the uncertain light fromthe gate-house and in the pale beams of the rising moon.
The drawbridge clattered down, and sending his spurs home into theflanks of his tired steed, in a moment more Sholto was hard on thetrack of the first headlong horseman. Scarce a length separated themas they reached the outer guard of the castle. Abreast they reinedtheir horses in the quadrangle, and in a moment Sholto had recognisedin the rider his brother Laurence, pale as death, and the figure thathad clung to the stirrup as the horse took the water, was his father,Malise MacKim.
Thus in one moment came the three MacKims to the door-step of Thrieve.
The clatter and cry of their arrival brought a pour of torches fromevery side of the isle and from within the castle keep.
"Have you found them--where are they?" came from every side. ButLaurence seemed neither to hear nor see.
"Where is my lady?" he cried in a hoarse man's voice; and again,"Instantly I must see my lady."
Sholto stood aside, for he knew that these two brought later tidingsthan he. Presently he went over to his father, who was leaning pantingupon a stone post, and asked him what were the news. But Malise thrusthim back apparently without recognising him.
"My lady," he gasped, "I would see my lady!"
Then through the torches clustered about the steps of the castle camethe tall, erect figure of the Earl's mother, the Countess of Douglas.She stood with her head erect, looking down upon the MacKims and uponthe dropped heads and heaving shoulders of their horses. Above andaround the torches flared, and their reek blew thwartwise across thestrange scene.
"I am here," she said, speaking clearly and naturally; "what would yewith the Lady of Douglas?"
Thrice Laurence essayed to speak, but his ready tongue availed him notnow. He caught at his horse's bridle to steady him and turned weaklyto his father.
"Do you speak to my lady--I cannot!" he gasped.
A terrible figure was Malise MacKim, the strong man of Galloway, as hecame forward. Stain
ed with the black peat of the morasses, his armourcast off piecemeal that he might run the easier, his under-appareltorn almost from his great body, his hair matted with the blood whichstill oozed from an unwashed wound above his brow.
"My lady," he said hoarsely, his words whistling in his throat, "Ihave strange things to tell. Can you bear to hear them?"
"If you have found my daughter dead or dying, speak and fear not!"
"I have things more terrible than the death of many daughters to tellyou!"
"Speak and fear not--an it touch the lives of my sons, speak freely.The mother of the Douglases has learned the Douglas lesson."
"Then," said Malise, sinking his head upon his breast, "God help you,lady, your two sons are dead!"
"Is David dead also?" said the Lady of Douglas.
"He is dead," replied Malise.
The lady tottered a little as she stood on the topmost step of theascent to Thrieve. One or two of the torch-bearers ran to support her.But she commanded herself and waved them aside.
"God--He is the God," she said, looking upwards into the black night."In one day He has made me a woman solitary and without children. Sonsand daughter He has taken from me. But He shall not break my heart.No, not even He. Stand up, Malise MacKim, and tell me how these thingscame to pass."
And there in the blown reek of torches and the hush of the courtyardof Thrieve Malise told all the tale of the Black Dinner and the fatalmorning, of the short shrift and the matchless death, while around himstrong men sobbed and lifted up right hands to swear the eternalvengeance.
But alone and erect as a banner staff stood the mother of the dead.Her eyes were dry, her lips compressed, her nostrils a littledistended like those of a war-horse that sniffs the battle from afar.Outside the castle wall the news spread swiftly, and somewhere in thedarkness a voice set up the Celtic keen.
"Bid that woman hold her peace. I will hear the news and then we willcry the slogan. Say on, Malise!"
Then the smith told how his horse had broken down time and again, howhe had pressed on, running and resting, stripped almost naked that hemight keep up with his son, because that no ordinary charger couldlong carry his great weight.
Then when he had finished the Lady of Thrieve turned to Sholto--"Andyou, captain of the guard, what have you done, and wherefore left youyour master in his hour of need?"
Then succinctly and to the point Sholto spoke, his father and Laurenceassenting and confirming as he told of the Earl's commission and ofhow he had accomplished those things that were laid upon him.
"It is well," said the lady, calmly, "and now I also will tell yousomething that you do not know. My little daughter, whom ye call theFair Maid of Galloway, with her companion, Mistress Maud Lindesay,went out more than twelve hours agone to the holt by the ford togather hazelnuts, and no eye of man or woman hath seen them since."
And, even as she spoke, there passed a quick strange pang through theheart of Sholto. He remembered the warning of the Lady Sybilla. Had heonce more come too late?