The Black Douglas | Page 2

talked together in alternate snatches and
silences?--Sholto, the elder, meanwhile keeping an eye on his father.
For their converse was not meant to reach the ear of the grave, strong
man who sat so still in the wicker chair with the afternoon sun shining
in his face.
"Hark ye, Laurence," said Sholto, returning from a visit to the door of
the smithy, the upper part of which was open. "No longer will I be a
hammerer of iron and a blower of fires for my father. I am going to be a
soldier of fortune, and so I will tell him--"
"When wilt thou tell him?" laughed his brother, tauntingly. "I wager
my purple velvet doublet slashed with gold which I bought with mine
own money last Rood Fair that you will not go across and tell him now.
Will you take the dare?"
"The purple velvet--you mean it?" said Sholto, eagerly. "Mind, if you
refuse, and will not give it up after promising, I will nick that lying
throat of yours with my gullie knife!"
And with that Sholto threw down his pincers and hammer, and
valorously pushed open the lower door of the smithy. He looked with
bold, dark blue eye at his father, and strode slowly across the grimy
door-step. Brawny Kim had not moved for an hour. His great hands lay
in his lap, and his eyes looked at the purple ridges of Screel, across the
beautiful loch of Carlinwark, which sparkled and dimpled restlessly

among its isles like a wilful beauty bridling under the gaze of a score of
gallants.
But, even as he went, Sholto's step slowed, and lost its braggart strut
and confidence. Behind him Laurence chuckled and laughed, smiting
his thigh in his mocking glee.
"The purple velvet, mind you, Sholto! How well it will become you,
coft from Rob Halliburton, our mother's own brother, seamed with red
gold and lined with yellow satin and cramosie. Well indeed will it set
you when Maud Lindesay, the maid who came from the north for
company to the Earl's sister, looks forth from the canopy upon you as
you stand in the archers' rank on the morrow's morn."
Sholto squared his shoulders, and with a little backward hitch of his
elbow which meant "Wait till I come back, and I will pay you for this
flouting," he strode determinedly across the green space towards his
father.
The master armourer of Earl Douglas did not lift his eyes till his son
had half crossed the road. Then, even as if a rank of spearmen at the
word of command had lifted their glittering points to the "ready,"
Sholto MacKim stopped dead where he was, with a sort of gasp in his
throat, like one who finds his defenceless body breast high against the
line of hostile steel.
"The purple velvet!" came the cautious whisper from behind. But the
taunt was powerless now.
The smith held his son a moment with his eyes.
"Well?" came in the deep low voice, more like the lowest tones of an
organ than the speech of a man.
Sholto stood fixed, then half turning on his heel he began to walk
towards the corner of the dwelling-house, over which a gay streamer of
the early creeping convolvulus danced and swung in the stirring of the
light breeze.

"You wish speech with me?" said his father, in the same level and
thrilling undertone.
"No," said Sholto, hesitant in spite of himself, "but I thought--that is I
desired--saw you my sister Magdalen pass this way? I have somewhat
to give her."
"Ah, so," said Brawny Kim, without moving, "a steel breastplate,
belike. Thou hast the brace-buckle in thy hand. Doth the little
Magdalen go with you to the weapon-show to-morrow?"
"No, father," said Sholto, stammering, "but I was uneasy for the child.
It is full an hour since I heard her voice."
"Then," said his father, "finish your work, put out the fire, and go seek
your sister."
Sholto brought his hands together and made the little inclination of the
head which was a sign of filial respect. Then, solemn as if he had been
in his place in the ordered line of the Earl's first levy of archer men, he
turned him about and went back to the smithy.
Laurence lay all abroad on the heap of charcoal of which the armourer's
welding fire was made. He was fairly expiring with laughter, and when
his brother angrily kicked him in the ribs, he only waggled an
ineffectual hand and feebly crowed in his throat like a cock, in his
efforts to stifle the sounds of mirth.
"Get up, fool," hissed his angry brother; "help me with this accursed
hammer-striking, or I will make an end of such a giggling lout as you.
Here,