The Black Douglas | Page 4

a shrill and somewhat peevish voice
proceeded from within the house opposite.

"Aye, coming, can you not hear, great nolt! 'Deed and 'deed 'tis a pretty
pass when a woman with the cares of an household must come running
light-toe and clatter-heel to every call of such a lazy lout. Husband,
indeed--not house-band but house-bond, I wot--house-torment,
house-thorn, house-cross--"
A sonsy, well-favoured, middle-aged head, strangely at variance with
the words which came from it, peeped out, and instantly the scolding
brattle was stilled. Back went the head into the dark of the house as if
shot from a bombard.
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."
The young man's eyes were looking this way and that, up and down the
smooth pathway which skirted like a green selvage the shores of the
loch.
"Malise," he said, as if he had already forgotten his late eager quest for
the little Magdalen, "Darnaway here has a shoe loose, and to-morrow I
ride to levy, and may also joust a bout in the tilt-yard of the afternoon. I
would not ask you to work in Whitsuntide, but that there cometh my
Lord Fleming and Alan Lauder of the Bass, bringing with them an
embassy from France--and I hear there may be fair ladies in their
company."
"Ah!" quoth Malise, grimly, "so I have heard it said concerning the
embassies of Charles, King of France!"
But the young man only smiled, and dusted off one or two flecks of

foam which had blown backwards from his horse's bit upon the rich
crimson doublet of finest velvet, which, cinctured closely at the waist,
fell half-way to his knees in heavy double pleats sewn with gold. A
hunting horn of black and gold was suspended about his neck by a
bandolier of dark leather, subtiley embroidered with bosses of gold.
Laced boots of soft black hide, drawn together on the outside from
ankle to mid-calf with a golden cord, met the scarlet "chausses" which
covered his thighs and outlined the figure of him who was the noblest
youth and the most gallant in all the realm of Scotland.
Earl William wore no sword. Only a little gold-handled poignard with a
lady's finger ring set upon the point of the hilt was at his side, and he
stood resting easily his hand upon it as he talked, drawing it an inch
from its sheath and snicking it back again nonchalantly, with a sound
like the clicking of a well-oiled lock.
"Clink the strokes strongly and featly, Malise, for to-morrow, when the
Black Douglas rides upon Black Darnaway under the eyes of--well--of
the ladies whom the ambassadors are bringing to greet me, there must
be no stumbling and no mistakes. Or on the head of Malise MacKim
the matter shall be, and let that wight remember that the Douglas does
not keep a dule tree up there by the Gallows Slock for nothing."
The mighty smith was by this time examining the hoofs of the Earl's
charger one by one with such instinctive delicacy of touch that
Darnaway felt the kindly intent, and, bending his neck about, blew and
snuffled into the armourer's tangled mat of crisp grey hair.
"Up there!" exclaimed MacKim, as the warm breath tickled his neck,
and at the burst of sound the steed shifted and clattered upon the
hard-beaten floor of the smithy, tossing his head till the bridle chains
rang again.
"Eh, my Lord William," an altered voice came from the door-step,
where Dame Barbara MacKim, now clothed and in her right mind,
stood louting low before the young Earl, "but this is a blythe and
calamitatious day for this poor bit bigging o' the Carlinwark--to think
that your honour should visit his servants! Will you no come ben and

sit doon in the house-place? 'Tis far from fitting for your feet to pass
thereupon. But gin ye will so highly favour--"
"Nay, I thank you, good Dame Barbara," said the Earl, very courteously
taking off the close-fitting black cap with the red feather in it which
was upon his head. "I must bide but a moment for your husband to set
right certain nails in the hoofs of Darnaway here, to