The Black Douglas

by S. R. Crockett

No longer did he envy his brother's good fortune, as he had been somewhat inclined to do earlier in the day, when he thought of returning to wield the forehammer all alone in his father's smithy.

The first night of Captain Sholto's responsibility in the castle of Thrieve was destined to be a memorable one. To the youth himself it would have appeared so in any case. Only a panelled door divided him from the girl who, wayward and scornful as she had ever been to him, yet kept his heart dangling at her waist-belt as truly as if it had been the golden key of her armoire.

The ancient Sir John of Abernethy, dubbed Landless Jock, would not be separated from his masters, and slept with two sergeants of the guard in the turret adjacent to that in which the brothers of Douglas, William and David, lay in the first sleep of youth and an easy mind.

Sholto therefore found himself left with the undivided responsibility for the safety of the castle and all who dwelt within it. He was also the only man who, by reason of his charge and in virtue of his master-key, was permitted to circulate freely through all the floors and passages of the vast feudal pile.

Sholto went out to the barred gate of the castle, where in a little cubbyhole dark even at noonday, and black as Egypt now, the warder slept with his hand upon his keys, and his head touching the lever of the gear wherewith he drew the creaking portcullis up and rolled back the iron doors which shut the keep off from the world of the wide outer courtyard and the garrison which manned the turrets.

The porter, Hugh MacCalmont, sat up on his elbow at Sholto's salutation, only enough to see his visitor by the glint of the little iron "cruisie" lamp hanging upon the wall. He knew him by the golden chain of office which the Earl had given Sholto.

"Captain of the guard," he muttered, "Lord, here's advancement indeed. My lord might have remembered me that have served him faithfully these thirty years, opening and shutting without mistake. He might have named me captain of the guard, and not this limber Jack. But the young love the young, and in truth 'tis natural. But what Landless Jock will say when he comes to have this sprat set over him, I know not but I can guess!"

Satisfied that all was safe there, Sholto stepped gingerly over the reclining forms of the first relief guard, who lay wrapped in their cloaks, every man grasping his arms. Most of these were lying in the dead sleep of tired men, whilst others restlessly moved about this way and that, as if seeking an easier adaptation of their bones to the corners of the blue whinstones and rough shell lime than had been provided for when the castle was built by Archibald the Grim, Lord of Thrieve and Galloway.

Close by the last turn of the turret staircase yawned the iron-sparred mouth of the dungeon, in which in its time many a notable prisoner had been immured. It was closed with a huge grid of curved iron bars, each as thick as a man's arm, cunningly held together by a gigantic padlock, the key of which was nightly taken to the sleeping-room of the Earl—whether, as was now the case, the cell stood empty, or whether it contained an English lord waiting ransom or a rebellious baron expectant of his morning summons to the dule tree of the Black Douglas.

Then taking the master-key from his belt, Sholto unlocked the sparred gate leading from the salle de garde into the turret stair which was the sole communication with the upper floors of the castle.