S. R. Crockett

“ I blow you a kiss, so—and lo! you are no more William, sixth Earl of Douglas and proximate Duke of Touraine, but you are even as True Thomas, the Beloved of the Queen of the Fairies, and the slave of her spell!"
"I am indeed well content to be Thomas Rhymer," he answered, submitting himself to the wooing glamour of her eyes, "so be that you are the Lady of the milk-white hind!"
"A courtier indeed," she laughed; "you need not to seek your answer. You make a poor girl afraid. But see, yonder are the lights of my pavilion. ”

“ But the Lady Sybilla continued to smile—the same dreadful, mocking smile—and somehow Sholto, with his weapon bare and his arm nerved to the thrust, felt himself grow weak and helpless under the stillness and utter pitifulness of her look.
"You would kill me—kill me, you say—" the words came low and thrilling forth from lips which were as those of the dead whose chin has not yet been bound about with a napkin, "ah, would that you could! But you cannot. Steel will not slay, poison will not destroy, nor water drown Sybilla de Thouars till her work be done!" ”

“ And through the archway came two servitors in black habits, carrying between them on a huge platter of silver a black bull's head, ghastly and ominous even in death, with staring eyeballs and matted frontlet of ensanguined hair.
"Treachery!" instantly cried Sholto, and ere the men could approach he had drawn his sword and stood ready to do battle for his lord. For throughout all Scotland a bull's head served at table is the symbol of death.
The Earl did not move or speak. He watched the progress of the men in black, who staggered under their heavy burden. ”

“ Malise MacKim indulged in a low hoarse chuckle as he caught the words: "Eh, 'tis my Lord William! Save us, and me wanting my Ryssil gown that cost me ten silver shillings the ell, and no even so muckle as my white peaked cap upon my head."
Her husband glanced at the young Earl to see if he appreciated the savour of the jest. Then he looked away, turning the enjoyment over and over under his own tongue, and muttering: "Ah, well, 'tis not his fault. No man hath a sense of humour before he is forty years of his age—and, for that matter, 'tis all the riper at fifty." ”

“ Then, as the men-at-arms went shamefacedly to take the Earl by the arm, she suddenly threw herself across the platform, leaped lightly over the barrier, and fell into his arms.
"William, once I would have betrayed you," she said, "but now I love you. I will die with you—or by the great God I will live to avenge you."
"Hush, sweetheart," said William Douglas, touching her brow gently with his lips, and putting her into the arms of an officer of the court whom her uncle had sent to remove her. "Fear not for me! Death is swift and easy. I expected nothing else. That you love me is enough! ”

“ Light-hearted Sholto MacKim, the careless lad of the jousting day, the proud young captain of the Earl's guard, was dead with all his vanity. And in his place a man rode southward grim and determined, with vengeful angers a-smoulder in his bosom,—hunger, thirst, love, the joy of living and the fear of death all being swallowed up by deadly hatred of those who had betrayed his master. ”

“ Or he may well have been listening at some lattice of the Hotel de Pornic itself to the idiot clamour of his mother and of the ignorant rabble of Paris!"
"Your master loves the society of the young?" queried Laurence, mending carefully a string of his viol and keeping the end of the catgut in his mouth as he spoke.
"He doats on all young people," answered Gilles de Sillé, eagerly, the flicker of a smile running about his mouth like wild-fire over a swamp. "Why, when a youth of parts once takes service with my master, he never leaves it for any other, not even the King's!" ”

“ But the young and beautiful like you, my dearies, do not so die at Machecoul. No; rather as a dying candle flickers out—falls low, and rises again, so they die. As wine oozes drop by drop from the needle-punctured wine-skin—so shall you die, weeping, beseeching, drained to the white like a dripping calf in the shambles, yet at the same time reddened and shamed with the shame deadly and unnameable. Then La Meffraye, whom now you disdain to answer with a look, will wash her hands in your life's blood and laugh as your tears fall slowly upon the latchet of her shoon! ”

“ For still, say the country folk, when the leaves are greenest by the lakeside, when the white thorn is whitest and the sun drops most gloriously behind the purpling hills of the west, when the children sing like mavises on the clachan greens, you may chance to spy under the Three Thorns of Carlinwark a lady fairer than mortal eye hath seen. She will be sitting gracefully on a white palfrey and hearkening to the bairns singing by the watersides. And the tears fall down her cheeks as she listens, in the place where in the spring-time of the year young William Douglas first met the Lady Sybilla. ”

“ Then, as was the custom to do to ladies whom knights would honour, the Lord James and Sholto kneeled down and kissed the hand of Sybilla de Thouars. But Malise, not being a knight, took it only and settled it upon his great grizzled head, where it rested for a moment, lightly as upon some grey and ancient tower lies a flake of snow before it melts.
"I thank you for your overmuch courtesy," the girl said, casting her eyes on the ground with a new-born shyness most like that of a modest maid; "I thank you, indeed. You do me honour far above my desert. Still, after all, we work for one end. ”

“ The prisoners of the White Tower.
"Brava!" cried Gilles de Retz when Laurence had finished; "that is truly well sung indeed! You shall sing it alone in my chapel next feast day of the Holy Innocents."
He paused as if to consider his words.
"And now for this time go. But remember that this Castle of Machecoul is straiter than any prison cell, and better guarded than a fortress. It is surrounded with constant watchers, secret, invisible, implacable. Whoso tries to escape, dies. You are a bold lad, and, as I think, fear not much death for yourself. ”

“ I saw you kiss Maud's hand in the dark of the stairs. Aha! Master Sholto, what say you now?"
"Hold your tongue, David," cried his brother; "you might have seen him kiss yet more pleasantly, and yet do no harm. But, after all, you and I are Douglases and our star is in the zenith. We will fall together, if fall we must. Not a word more about it. David, I will race you to yonder dovecot for a golden lion." ”

“ Will you pardon me and bid me farewell, for the horses are being led from stall, and I cannot keep my lord waiting?"
"You are glad to go," she said reproachfully; "you will forget us whom you leave behind you here. Indeed, you care not even now, so that you are free to wander over the world and taste new pleasures. That is to be a man, indeed. Would that I had been born one!"
"Nay, Maud," said Sholto, trying to draw the girl again near him, because she kept him at arm's length by the unyielding strength of her wrist, "none shall ever come near my heart save Maud Lindesay alone! ”

“ Barran-Sathanas himself laughs at the jest. He would have no pleasure in your death. Soul and body you are his already. He desires only the blood and suffering of the innocent—of those on whom he has never set his mark. Nay, these three shall surely die, and in that bath of porphyry hollowed out under his altar I will lave me from head to foot in the Red Milk of innocence. I have no more need of you, Sybilla mine. You have done your work, and for your reward you can now depart to your own place. Out of my way, I say. Henriet, Poitou, quick! Remove this woman from before the altar! ”

“ Nevertheless Sholto MacKim was by nature of a stout heart, and he resolved that if he had to die, it would be as well to die as became a captain of the Douglas guard.
The blue leme of summer lightning momentarily lit up the western sky. The men could see the great gaunt pack wolves sitting upon their haunches or moving restlessly to and fro across each other, while from the denser woods behind rose the howling of fresh levies, hastening to the assistance of the first. ”

“ CHAPTER LI THE MARSHAL'S CHAMBER
There came a low voice in Laurence MacKim's ear, chill and sinister: "You do well to look out upon the fair world. None knoweth when we may have to leave it. Yonder is a star. Look well at it. They say God made it. Perhaps He takes more interest in it than in the concerns of this other world He hath made."
The son of Malise MacKim gripped himself, as it were, with both hands, and turned a face pale as marble to look into the grim countenance which hid the soul of the Lord of Machecoul. ”

“ The solid keep itself rocked like a vessel in a stormy sea. The great image overturned, and by its fall [459] Gilles de Retz was stricken senseless to the earth. The next moment, like flood-gates burst by a mighty tide, the doors of the temple were opened with a clang, and through them a crowd of armed men came rushing in with triumphant shouts and angry cries of vengeance.
Sholto was far ahead of the others, and, as if led by the unerring instinct of love, he ran to the altar whereon his love lay white as death, but without a mark upon her fair body. ”

“ An owl hooted and a swart raven disengaged himself from the coppice about the door of the pavilion, and fluttered away with a croak of disdainful anger. Black Darnaway turned his head and whinnied anxiously after his master.
But William Douglas, though little more than a boy if men's ages are to be counted by years, was yet a true child of Archibald the Grim, and he passed through the mysterious encampment to the door of the lighted pavilion with a carriage at once firm and assured. ”

“ The Castle of Edinburgh is a strong place with many courts and doors—a hostile city round about, not a solitary castle like Crichton. They may separate you from us, and we may be able neither to save you nor yet to die with you, if the worst comes to the worst."
"I may inform you as well soon as syne, you waste your breath, Sholto," said Earl Douglas, "and it ill becomes a young knight, let me tell you, to be so chicken-hearted. The next time I will leave you at home to hem linen for the bed-sheets. Malise is a licensed croaker, but I thought better of you, Master Sholto MacKim!" ”

“ But, somehow, the answer seemed like an arrow from a bow shot at a venture, entering in between the joints of the marshal's armour.
"Do you think so?" he said, with some startled anxiety, yet without surprise; "older than at Thrieve? I do not believe it. It is impossible. Why, I grow younger and younger every day. It has been promised me that I should."
And setting his elbow on the sill of the window, Gilles de Retz looked thoughtfully out upon the cool dusk of the rose garden. Then all at once it came to him what was implied in that unlucky speech of Laurence's. ”

“ Rooted and ineradicable is the desire in man's heart to know good and evil—but particularly evil. And so now Laurence desired to see the sacrifice laid between the horns of the altar and the image above lean over as if to gloat upon the sweet savour of its burning.
Long and carefully Laurence listened before he ventured forth. The Chapel of the Innocents was dark and silent. Only a reflection of the red light which burned in the keep struck through the clerestory upon the great cross which swung above the altar. ”

“ The whole pavilion was illuminated with a flash of light so intense and white that it appeared to blind and burn up all about. The lady was seen no more. The silken covering blazed up. Malise plunged outward into the darkness of the storm, carrying his young master lightly as a child in his arms, [37] while the Abbot kept his feet behind him like a boat in a ship's wake. The thunder roared overhead like the sea bellowing in a cave's mouth, and the great pines bent their heads away from the mighty wind, straining and creaking and lashing each other in their blind fury. ”

“ In an hour Sholto followed them, having ridden fast and furious across the long broomy braes of Boreland, and wet the fringes of his charger's silken coverture by vaingloriously swimming the Dee at the castle pool instead of going round by the fords. This he did in the hope that Maud Lindesay might see him. And so she did; for as he came round by the outside of the moat, making his horse caracole and thinking no little of himself, he heard a voice from an upper window call out: "Sholto MacKim, Maudie says that you look like a draggled crow. No, I will not be silent." ”

“ La Meffraye! Meffraye!"
So to the excited minds of the three Scots the wolf legions seemed to be crying with one voice as they came nearer. All the wild beasts of the wood appeared to be obeying the summons of the witch woman.
The strain of the situation first told upon the Lord James Douglas. "Great Saints!" he cried, "let us attack them and die sword in hand. I cannot endure much more of this."
"Stand still where you are. It is our only chance," commanded Sholto, as abruptly as if James Douglas had been a doubtful soldier of his company. ”

“ CHAPTER V THE WITCH WOMAN
One of these was Malise the Smith, towering like a giant. His hands rested on the hilt of a mighty sword, whose blade sparkled in the lamplight as if the master armourer had drawn it that moment from the midst of his charcoal fire.
A little in front of Malise there stood another figure, less imposing in physical proportions, but infinitely more striking in dignity and apparel. This second was a man of tall and spare frame, of a countenance grave and severe, yet with a certain kindly power latent in him also. ”

“ James the Gross rode a broad Clydesdale mare, a short, soft unwieldy man, sitting squat on the saddle like a toad astride a roof, and glancing slily sideways out of the pursy recesses of his eyes.
Behind him came his eldest son William, a man of a true Douglas countenance, quick, high, and stern. [77] Then followed James, whose lithe body and wonderful dexterity in arms were already winning him repute as one of the bravest knights in all Christendom in every military and manly exercise.
Behind the Avondale Douglases rode two men abreast, with a lady on a palfrey between them. ”

“ In the forest of Machecoul the guardian demons of its lord had been let loose, and throughout all its borders poor peasant folk shivered in their beds, or crouched behind the weak defences of their twice barred doors. For they knew that the full pack never hunted in the Pays de Retz without bringing death to some wanderer found defenceless within the borders of that region of dread.
"Let us stop here," said Sholto; "if these howling demons attack us, we are at least in somewhat better case to meet them and fight it out till the morning than in the dense darkness of the woods." ”

“ Then, while all watched eagerly, the marshal rose from his seat to his full height.
"Girl—look at me!" he cried in a loud and terrible voice. But Sybilla did not seem to hear him.
She was looking at the Earl, and her eyes were great and grey and vague.
"Listen, my true lord, and then hate me if you will," she said; "listen, William of Douglas. Never before have I found in all the world one man true to the core. I did not believe that such an one lived. ”

“ The soldiers of the Duke of Brittany stood with bared swords and deadly pikes around the Marshal de Retz and those of his servants who had been taken—that is to say, round Poitou, Clerk Henriet, Blanquet, and Robin Romulart. About them surged ever more fiercely the angry populace, drunk with the hot wine of destruction, having been filled with inconceivable fury by that which they had seen in the round tower wherein stood the filled bags of little charred remains.
"Tear the wolves into gobbets! Kill them! Burn them! Send them quick to Hell!" ”

“ Deliver your weapons and submit; 'tis our will."
"My brave Chancellor," said the Earl William, still in a voice of pleasant irony, "you have well chosen your time to shame yourself. We are your invited guests, and the guests of the King of Scotland. We are here unarmed, sitting at meat with you in your own house. We have come hither unattended, trusting to the honour of these noble knights and gentlemen. Therefore my brother and I have no swords to deliver. But if, being honourable men, you stand, as is natural, upon a nice punctilio, I can satisfy you."
He turned again to Sholto MacKim. ”

“ Thus for the breathing of a breath the master armourer stood, and then, replacing his bonnet, he looked up again at the young knight on horseback.
"My lord," he said, after a long pause, in which he waited for the youth to speak, "this is not well—you ride unattended and unarmed."
"Ah, Malise," laughed the young Earl, "a Douglas has few privileges if he may not sometimes on a summer eve lay aside his heavy prisonment of armour and don such a suit as this! What think you, eh? Is it not a valiant apparel, as might almost beseem one who rode a-courting?" ”

“ We have never had either witch or warlock about the house of Thrieve since the old Abbot Gawain laid the ghost of Archibald the Grim with four-and-forty masses, said without ever breaking his fast, down there in the castle chapel."
"Nay, ask me not," answered Sholto, "I am little skilled in matters spiritual. I should try sword point and arrowhead on such gentry, and if these do them no harm, why then I think they will not distress me much." ”