CHAPTER V

THE WITCH WOMAN

One of these was Malise the Smith, towering like a giant.  His hands rested on the hilt of a mighty sword, whose blade sparkled in the lamplight as if the master armourer had drawn it that moment from the midst of his charcoal fire.

A little in front of Malise there stood another figure, less imposing in physical proportions, but infinitely more striking in dignity and apparel.  This second was a man of tall and spare frame, of a countenance grave and severe, yet with a certain kindly power latent in him also.  He was dressed in the white robe of a Cistercian, with the black scapulary of the order.  On his head was the mitre, and in his hand the staff of the abbot of a great establishment which he wears when he goes visiting his subsidiary houses.  More remarkable than all was the monk’s likeness to the young man who now stood before him with an expression of indignant surprise on his face, which slowly merged into anger as he understood why these two men were there.

He recognised his uncle the Abbot William Douglas, the head of the great Abbey of Dulce Cor upon Solway side.

This was he who, being the son and heir of the brother of the first Duke of Touraine, had in the flower of his age suddenly renounced his domains of Nithsdale that he might take holy orders, and who had ever since been renowned throughout all Scotland for high sanctity and a multitude of good works.

The pair stood looking towards the lady and William Douglas without speech, a kind of grim patience upon their faces.

It was the Earl who was the first to speak.

“What seek you here so late, my lord Abbot?” he said, with all the haughtiness of the unquestioned head of his mighty house.

“Nay, what seeks the Earl William here alone so late?” answered the Abbot, with equal directness.

The two men stood fronting each other.  Malise leaned upon his two-handed sword and gazed upon the ground.

“I have come,” the Abbot went on, after vainly waiting for the young Earl to offer an explanation, “as your kinsman, tutor, and councillor, to warn you against this foreign witch woman.  What seeks she here in this land of Galloway but to do you hurt?  Have we not heard her with our own ears persuade you to accompany her to Edinburgh, which is a city filled with the power and deadly intent of your enemies?”

Earl William bowed ironically to his uncle, and his eye glittered as it fell upon Malise MacKim.

“I thank you, Uncle,” he said.  “I am deeply indebted for your so great interest in me.  I thank you too, Malise, for bringing about this timely interference.  I will pay my debts one day.  In the meantime your duty is done.  Depart, both of you, I command you!”

Outside the thunder began to growl in the distance.  An extraordinary feeling of oppression had slowly filled the air.  The lamps, swinging on the pavilion roof tree, flickered and flared, alternately rising and sinking like the life in the eyes of a dying man.