The Black Douglas. S. R. Crockett
steel girdle-brace appearing suddenly from behind a knoll, they incontinently bolted every way with noses to the ground, scattering packs and brandishing heels like young colts turned out to grass. It chanced that one of the largest mules made directly towards the fords of Lochar, and the youths, catching the flying bridle at either side, applied a sort of brake which sufficiently slowed the beast's movements to enable such agile skipjacks as Sholto and Laurence to mount. But as they were concerned more with their leaping from the ground than with what was already upon the animal's back, their heads met with a crash in the midst, in which collision the superior weight of the younger had very naturally the better of the encounter.
Sholto dropped instantly back to the ground. He was somewhat stunned by the blow, but the sight of his brother triumphantly splashing through the shallows aroused him. He arose, and seizing the first stone that came to hand hurled it after Laurence, swearing fraternally that he would smite him in the brisket with a dirk as soon as he caught him for that dastard blow. The first stone flew wide, though the splash caused the mule to shy into deeper water, to the damping of his rider's legs. But the second, being better aimed, took the animal fairly on the rump, and, fetching up on a fly-galled spot, frightened it with bumping bags and loud squeals into the woods of Glen Lochar, which come down close to the fords on every side. Here presently Laurence found himself, like Absalom, caught in the branches of a beech, and left hanging between heaven and earth. A rider in complete plate of black mail caught him down, still holding on to his bow, and, placing him across the saddle, brought down the flat of his gauntleted hand upon a spot of the lad's person which, being uncovered by mail, responded with a resounding smack. Then, amid the boisterous laughter of the men-at-arms, he let Laurence slip to the ground.
But the younger son of Brawny Kim, master armourer of Carlinwark, was not the lad to take such an insult meekly, even from a man-at-arms riding on horseback. He threw his bow into the nearest thicket, and seizing the most convenient ammunition, which chanced to be in great plenty that day upon the braes of Balmaghie, pursued his insulter along the glade with such excellent aim and good effect that the black unadorned armour of the horseman showed disks of defilement all over, like a tree trunk covered with toadstool growths.
"Shoot down the intolerable young rascal! Shall he thus beard my Lord Maxwell?" cried a voice from the troop which witnessed the chase. And more than one bow was bent, and several hand-fusils levelled from the company which followed behind.
But the injured knight threw up his visor.
"Hold, there!" he cried, "the boy is right. It was I who insulted him, and he did right to be revenged, though the rogue's aim is more to be admired than his choice of weapons. Come hither, lad. Tell me who thou art, and what is thy father's quality?"
"I am Laurence MacKim, an archer of my lord's guard, and the younger son of Malise MacKim, master armourer to the Douglas."
Laurence, being still angry, rang out his titles as if they had been inscribed in the book of the Lion-King-at-Arms.
"Saints save us," cried the knight in swart armour, "all that!"
Then, seeing the boy ready to answer back still more fiercely, he continued with a courteous wave of the hand.
"I humbly ask your pardon, Master Laurence. I am glad the son of Brawny Kim hath no small part of his father's spirit. Will you take service and be my esquire, as becomes well a lad of parts who desires to win his way to a knighthood?"
The heart of Laurence MacKim beat quickly—a horse to ride—an esquire—perhaps if he had luck and much fighting, a knighthood. Nevertheless, he answered with a bold straight look out of his black eyes.
"I am an archer of my lord Douglas' outer guard. I can have no promotion save from him or those of his house—not even from the King himself."
"Well said!" cried the knight; "small wonder that the Douglas is the greatest man in Scotland. I will speak to the Earl William this day concerning you."
Lord Maxwell rode on at the head of his company with a courteous salutation, which not a few behind him who had heard the colloquy imitated. Laurence stood there with his heart working like yeast within him, and his colour coming and going to think what he had been offered and what he had refused.
"God's truth," he said to himself, "I might have been a great man if I had chosen, while Sholto, that old sober sides, was left lagging behind."
Then he looked about for his bow and went swaggering along as if he were already Sir Laurence and the leader of an army.
But Nemesis was upon him, and that in the fashion which his pride would feel the most.
"Take that, beast of a Laurence!" cried a voice behind him.
And the lad received a jolt from behind which loosened his teeth in their sockets and discomposed the dignified stride with which in imagination he was commanding the armies of the Douglas.
CHAPTER IX
LAURENCE SINGS A HYMN
Laurence turned and beheld his brother. In another instant the two young men had clinched and were rolling on the ground, wrestling and striking according to their ability. Sholto might easily have had the best of the fray, but for the temper aroused by Laurence's recent degradation, for the elder brother was taller by an inch, and of a frame of body more lithe and supple. Moreover, the accuracy of Sholto MacKim's shape and the severe training of the smithy had not left a superfluous ounce of flesh on him anywhere.
In a minute the brothers had become the centre of a riotous, laughing throng of varlets—archers seeking their corps, and young squires sent by their lords to find out the exact positions allotted to each contingent by the provost of the camp. For as the wappenshaw was to be of three days' duration in all its nobler parts, a wilderness of tents had already begun to arise under the scattered white thorns of the great Boreland Croft which stretched up from the river.
These laughed and jested after their kind, encouraging the youths to fight it out, and naming Laurence the brock or badger from his stoutness, and the slim Sholto the whitterick or, as one might say, weasel.
"At him, Whitterick—grip him! Grip him! Now you have him at the pinch! Well pulled, Brock! 'Tis a certainty for Brock—good Brock! Well done—well done! Ah, would you? Hands off that dagger! Let fisticuffs settle it! The Whitterick hath it—the Whitterick!"
And thus ran the comment. Sholto being cumbered with his armour, Laurence might in time have gotten the upper grip. But at this moment a diversion occurred which completely altered the character of the conflict. A stout, reddish young man came up, holding in his hand a staff painted with twining stripes of white and red, which showed him to be the marshal of that part of the camp which pertained to the Earl of Angus. He looked on for a moment from the skirts of the crowd, and then elbowed his way self-importantly into the centre, till he stood immediately above Laurence and Sholto.
"What means this hubbub, I say? Quit your hold there and come with me; my Lord of Angus will settle this dispute."
He had come up just when the young men were in the final grips, when Sholto had at last gotten his will of his brother's head, and was, as the saying is, giving him "Dutch spice" in no very knightly fashion.
The Angus marshal, seeing this, seized Sholto by the collar of his mailed shirt, and drawing him suddenly back, caused him to lose hold of his brother, who as quickly rose to his feet. The red man began to beat Sholto about the headpiece right heartily with his staff, which exercise made a great ringing noise, though naturally, the skull cap being the work of Malise MacKim, little harm ensued to the head enclosed therein.
But Master Laurence was instantly on fire.
"Here,