The Black Douglas

by S. R. Crockett

CHAPTER XV

THE NIGHT ALARM

At parting with his father, the young captain received many wise and grave instructions, all of which he resolved to remember and profit by—a resolution which he did not fail to keep for full five minutes.

"Be douce in deportment," said his father, speaking quietly and yet with a certain sternness of demeanour. "Think three times before you give an order, but let no man think even once before obeying it. Set him astraddle the wooden horse with a spear shaft at either foot to teach him that a soldier's first duty is not to think. Keep your eyes more on the alert for the approach of an enemy than for the ankles of the women-folk at the turnings of the turret stairs."

To these and many other maxims out of the incorporate wisdom of the elders, Sholto promised most faithful attendance, and, for the time being, he fully intended to keep his word. But no sooner was his father gone, and he introduced to his new quarters and duties by David Douglas, the Earl's younger brother, than he began to wonder which was the window of Maud Lindesay's chamber and speculate on how soon he would see her thereat.

In the castle of Thrieve that night there was little sleeping room to spare. The Earl and his brother lay wrapped in their plaids in one of the round towers of the outer defences. In the castle hall the retainers of the French ambassador slept side by side, or heads and tails with the archers of the house-guard. Lights flickered on the turnpike stair which led to the upper floors. The servitors had cleared the great hall, and here on a dais, raised above the "marsh" and sheltered by an arras curtain hastily arranged, James the Gross slept on a soft French bed, which he had caused to be brought all the way from his castle of Strathavon on the moors of Lanarkshire.

In the Earl's chamber on the third floor was lodged the Marshal de Retz. Next him ranged the apartment of the countess. Here also was the Lady Sybilla at the end of the passage in the guest chamber which looked to the north, and from the windows of which she could see the broad river dividing itself about the castle island, and flowing as calmly on as if the stern feudal pile had been a peaceful monastery and the waving war banners no more than so many signs of holy cross.

Above, in the low-roofed chambers, which gave upon the wooden balcony, were the apartments of Maud Lindesay and her charge, little Margaret Douglas, the Fair Maid of Galloway.

Now the single postern stair of the castle was shut at the foot, where it opened out upon the hall of the guard by a sparred iron gate, the key of which was put into Sholto's charge. The night closed early upon the castle-ful of wearied folk. The marshals of the camps caused the lights to be put out at nine-of-the-clock in all the tents and pavilions, but the lamps and candles burned longer in the castle itself, where the Earl had been giving a banquet to his guests, of the best that his estates could afford. Nevertheless, it was yet long before midnight when the cheep of the mouse in the wainscot, the restless stir or muffled snore of a crowded sleeper in the guardroom, was the only sound to be heard from dungeon to banner-staff of the great castle.

Sholto's heart throbbed tumultuous and insurgent within him. And small is the wonder. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined such a fate as this, to be actual captain of the Earl's own body-guard, even though neither title nor emolument was yet wholly his; better still, that he should dwell night and day within arm's reach almost of the desire of his heart, flinty-bosomed and mischievous as she was—these were heights of good fortune to which his imagination had never climbed in its most daring ascents.