Читать книгу The Black Douglas - S. R. Crockett - Страница 7

William of Douglas reined up Darnaway underneath the whispering foliage of a great beech.

"Aye, aye," he said, "the Douglas badge is indeed a heart—but it is a bleeding heart. God avert the omen, and keep this young man safe—for though many love him, there be more that would rejoice at his fall."

The rider on Black Darnaway rode right into the saffron eye of the sunset. On his left hand Carlinwark and its many islets burned rich with spring-green foliage, all splashed with the golden sunset light. Darnaway's well-shod hoofs sent the diamond drops flying, as, with obvious pleasure, he trampled through the shallows. Ben Gairn and Screel, boldly ridged against the southern horizon, stood out in dark amethyst against the glowing sky of even, but the young rider never so much as turned his head to look at them.

Presently, however, he emerged from among the noble lakeside trees upon a more open space. Broom and whin blossom clustered yellow and orange beneath him, garrisoning with their green spears and golden banners every knoll and scaur. But there were broad spaces of turf here and there on which the conies fed, or fought terrible battles for the meek ear-twitching does, "spat-spatting" at each other with their fore paws and springing into the air in their mating fury.

William of Douglas reined up Darnaway underneath the whispering foliage of a great beech, for all at unawares he had come upon a sight that interested him more than the noble prospect of the May sunset.

In the centre of the golden glade, and with all their faces mistily glorified by the evening light, he saw a group of little girls, singing and dancing as they performed some quaint and graceful pageant of childhood.

Their young voices came up to him with a wistful, dying fall, and the slow, graceful movement of the rhythmic dance seemed to affect the young man strangely. Involuntarily he lifted his close-fitting feathered cap from his head, and allowed the cool airs to blow against his brow.

"See the robbers passing by, passing by, passing by, See the robbers passing by, My fair lady!"

The ancient words came up clearly and distinctly to him, and softened his heart with the indefinable and exquisite pathos of the refrain whenever it is sung by the sweet voices of children.

"These are surely but cottars' bairns," he said, smiling a little at his own intensity of feeling, "but they sing like little angels. I daresay my sweetheart Magdalen is amongst them."

And he sat still listening, patting Black Darnaway meanwhile on the neck.

"What did the robbers do to you, do to you, do to you, What did the robbers do to you, My fair lady?"

The first two lines rang out bold and clear. Then again the wistfulness of the refrain played upon his heart as if it had been an instrument of strings, till the tears came into his eyes at the wondrous sorrow and yearning with which one voice, the sweetest and purest of all, replied, singing quite alone:

"They broke my lock and stole my gold, stole my gold, stole my gold, Broke my lock and stole my gold, My fair lady!"

The tears brimmed over in the eyes of William Douglas, and a deep foreboding of the mysteries of fate fell upon his heart and abode there heavy as doom.

He turned his head as though he felt a presence near him, and lo! sudden and silent as the appearing of a phantom, another horse was alongside of Black Darnaway, and upon a white palfrey a maiden dressed also in white sat, smiling upon the young man, fair to look upon as an angel from heaven.

Earl William's lips parted, but he was too surprised to speak. Nevertheless, he moved his hand to his head in instinctive salutation; but, finding his bonnet already off, he could only stare at the vision which had so suddenly sprung out of the ground.

The lady slowly waved her hand in the direction of the children, whose young voices still rang clear as cloister bells tolling out the Angelus, and whose white dresses waved in the light wind as they danced back and forth with a slow and graceful motion.

"You hear, Earl William," she said, in a low, thrilling voice, speaking with a foreign accent, "you hear? You are a good Christian, doubtless, and you have heard from your uncle, the Abbot, how praise is made perfect 'out of the mouths of babes and sucklings.' Hark to them; they sing of their own destinies—and it may be also of yours and mine."

And so fascinated and moved at heart at once by her beauty and by her strange words, the Douglas listened.

"What did the robbers do to you, do to you, do to you, What did the robbers do to you, My fair lady?"

The lady on the delicately pacing palfrey turned the darkness of her eyes from the white-robed choristers to the face of the young man. Then, with an impetuous motion of her hand, she urged him to listen for the next words, which swept over Earl William's heart with a cadence of unutterable pain and inexplicable melancholy.

"They broke my lock and stole my gold, stole my gold, stole my gold, Broke my lock and stole my gold, My fair lady!"

He turned upon his companion with a quick energy, as if he were afraid of losing himself again.

"Who are you, lady, and what do you here?"

The girl (for in years she was little more) smiled and reined her steed a little back from him with an air at once prettily petulant and teasing.

"Is that spoken as William Douglas or as the Justicer of Galloway—a country where, as I understand, there is no trial by jury?"

The light of a radiant smile passed from her lips into his soul.

"It is spoken as a man speaks to a woman beautiful and queenly," he said, not removing his eyes from her face.

"I fear I may have startled you," she said, without continuing the subject. "Even as I came I saw you were wrapped in meditation, and my palfrey going lightly made no sound on the grass and leaves."

Her voice was so sweet and low that William Douglas, listening to it, wished that she would speak on for ever.

"The hour grows late," he said, remembering himself. "You must have far to ride. Let me be your escort homewards if you have none worthier than I."

"Alas," she answered, smiling yet more subtly, "I have no home near by. My home is very far and over many turbulent seas. I have but a maiden's pavilion in which to rest my head. Yet since I and my company must needs travel through your domains, Earl William, I trust you will not be so cruel as to forbid us?"

"Yes,"—he was smiling now in turn, and catching somewhat of the gay spirit of the lady—"as overlord of all this province I do forbid you to pass through these lands of Galloway without first visiting me in my house of Thrieve!"

The lady clapped her hands and laughed, letting her palfrey pace onwards through the woodland glades bridle free, while Black Darnaway, compelled by his master's hand, followed, tossing his head indignantly because it had been turned from the direction of his nightly stable on the Castle Isle.