A Prince of Good Fellows by Robert Barr (best thriller novels to read txt) 📖

as if to ask permission, he raised his bugle to his lips and blew a blast. Instantly from the corner of the further bastion a torch flamed forth, and that torch lighted the one next it, and this its neighbour, so that speedily a line of fire ran along the outlines of the castle, marking out the square towers and the round, lining the curtain, the smaller towers, turrets and parapets. Then at the top of the bailey wall a circle of Highlanders lit torch after torch, and thus was the whole castle illumined by a circle of fire. The huge edifice was etched in flame against the sombre background of the high mountain.

"Confess, legate," cried the king, "that you never saw anything more beautiful even in fair Italy."

"I am willing to admit as much," replied the Roman.

Another blast from the bugle and all the torches on the castle itself disappeared, although the fire on the bailey wall remained intact, and the reason for this soon became apparent. From machicolated tower, keep, peel and curtain, the nimble Highlanders, torchless, scrambled down, cheering as they came. It seemed incredible that they could have attained such speed, picking their precarious way by grasping protruding branch or stump or limb, or by thrusting hand between the interstices of the timber, without slipping, falling and breaking their necks.

For a moment the castle walls were alive with fluttering tartans, strongly illuminated by the torches from the outer bailey. Each man held his breath while this perilous acrobatic performance was being accomplished, and silence reigned over the royal party until suddenly broken by the Italian.

"Highlander!" he cried, "your castle is on fire."

"Aye," said the Highlander calmly, raising his bugle again to his lips.

At the next blast those on the bailey wall thrust their torches, still burning among the chinks of the logs, and swarmed to the ground as speedily and as safely as those on the main building had done. Now the lighted torches that had been thrown on the roof of the castle, disappearing a moment from sight, gave evidence of their existence. Here and there a long tongue of flame sprung up and died down again.

"Can nothing be done to save the palace?" shouted the excitable Frenchman. "The waterfall; the waterfall! Let us go back, or the castle will be destroyed."

"Stand where you are," said the chief, "and you will see a sight worth coming north for."

Now almost with the suddenness of an explosion, great sheets of flame rose towering into a mountain of fire, as if this roaring furnace would emulate in height the wooded hills behind it. The logs themselves seemed to redden as the light glowed through every crevice between them. The bastions, the bailey walls, were great wheels of flame, encircling a palace that had all the vivid radiance of molten gold. The valley for miles up and down was lighter than the sun ever made it.

"Chieftain," said the legate in an awed whisper, "is this conflagration accident or design?"

"It is our custom," replied MacNab. "A monarch's pathway must be lighted, and it is not fitting that a residence once honoured by our king should ever again be occupied by anyone less noble. The pine tree is the badge of my clan. At my behest the pine tree sheltered the king, and now, at the blast of my bugle, it sends forth to the glen its farewell of flame."



THE KING EXPLORES

James was pleased with himself. He had finished a poem, admitted by all the court to excel anything that Sir David Lyndsay ever wrote, and he had out-distanced James MacDonald, son of the Laird of Sleat, in a contest for the preference of the fairest lady in Stirling, and young MacDonald was certainly the handsomest sprig about the palace. So the double victory in the art of rhythm and of love naturally induced the king to hold a great conceit of himself. Poor Davie, who was as modest a man regarding his own merits as could be found in the realm, quite readily and honestly hailed the king his superior in the construction of jingling rhyme, but the strapping young Highlander was proud as any scion of the royal house, and he took his defeat less diffidently.

"If the king," he said boldly, "was plain Jamie Stuart, as I am Jamie MacDonald, we would soon see who was winner of the bonniest lass, and if he objected to fair play I'd not scruple to meet him sword in hand on the heather of the hills, but not on the stones of Stirling. It is the crown that has won, and not the face underneath it."

Now this was rank treason, for you must never talk of swords in relation to a king, except that they be drawn in his defence. The inexperienced young man made a very poor courtier, for he spoke as his mind prompted him, a reckless habit that has brought many a head to the block. Although MacDonald had a number of friends who admired the frank, if somewhat hot-headed nature of the youth, his Highland swagger often earned for him not a few enemies who would have been glad of his downfall. Besides this, there are always about a court plenty of sycophants eager to curry favour with the ruling power; and so it was not long after these injudicious utterances had been given forth that they were brought, with many exaggerations, to the ears of the king.

"You think, then," said his majesty to one of the tale-bearers, "that if Jamie had the chance he would run his iron through my royal person?"

"There is little doubt of it, your majesty," replied the parasite.

"Ah, well," commented James, "kings must take their luck like other folk, and some day Jamie and I may meet on the heather with no other witnesses than the mountains around us and the blue sky above us, and in that case I shall have to do the best I can. I make no doubt that MacDonald's position in Stirling is less pleasant than my own. He is practically a prisoner, held hostage here for the good conduct of his father, the firebrand of Sleat, so we must not take too seriously the vapouring of a youth whose leg is tied. I was once a captive myself to the Douglas, and I used words that would scarcely have been pleasant for my gaoler to hear had some kind friend carried them, so I have ever a soft side for the man in thrall."

To the amazement of the courtiers, who had shown some inclination to avoid the company of MacDonald after he had unburdened his soul, the king continued to treat the Highlander as affably as ever, but many thought his majesty was merely biding his time, which was indeed the case. The wiser heads about the court strongly approved of this diplomacy, as before they had looked askance at the king's rivalry with the irascible youth. They knew that affairs were not going well in the north, and so loose were the bonds restraining MacDonald, that at any moment he might very readily have escaped, ridden to the hills, and there augmented the almost constant warfare in those mountainous regions. Every clan that could be kept quiet was so much to the good, for although they fought mostly among themselves, there was ever a danger of a combination which might threaten the throne of Scotland. Very often the king recklessly offended those whom he should conciliate, but even the wiseacres were compelled to admit that his jaunty kindness frequently smoothed out what looked like a dangerous quarrel. The sage counsellors, however, thought the king should keep a closer watch on those Highland chieftains who were practically hostages in his court. But to this advice James would never listen. Having been a captive himself not so very long before, as he frequently remarked, he thus felt an intense sympathy for those in like condition, even though he himself kept them so through the necessity of internal politics, yet he always endeavoured to make the restraint sit as lightly as possible on his victims.

Some weeks after the ill-considered anti-royal threats had been made, their promulgator was one of a group in the courtyard of the castle, when the captain of the guard came forward and said the king wished to see him in his private chamber. MacDonald may have been taken aback by the unexpected summons, but he carried the matter off nonchalantly enough, with the air of one who fears neither potentate nor peasant, and so accompanied the captain; but the gossips nodded their heads sagely at one another, whispering that it would be well to take a good view of MacDonald's back, as they were little likely to see him soon again, and this whisper proved true, for next day MacDonald had completely disappeared, no one knew whither.

When James the laird's son, entered the presence of James the king, the latter said as soon as the captain had left them alone together,--

"Jamie, my man, you understand the Gaelic, so it is possible you understand those who speak it."

"If your majesty means the Highlanders, they are easily enough understood. They are plain, simple, honest bodies who speak what's on their minds, and who are always willing, in an argument, to exchange the wag of the tongue for a swoop of the black knife."

"I admit," said the king with a smile, "that they are a guileless pastoral people, easy to get on with if you comprehend them, but that is where I'm at a loss, and I thought your head might supplement my own."

"I am delighted to hear you want my head for no other purpose but that of giving advice," returned the Highlander candidly.

"Truth to tell, Jamie, your head would be of little use to me were it not on your shoulders. If the head were that of a winsome lassie I might be tempted to take it on my own shoulder, but otherwise I am well content to let heads remain where Providence places them."

Whether intentional or not, the king had touched a sore spot when he referred to the laying of a winsome lassie's head on his shoulder, and MacDonald drew himself up rather stiffly.

"In any ploy with the ladies," he said, "your majesty has the weight of an ermine cloak in your favour, and we all know how the lassies like millinery."

"Then, Jamie, in a fair field, you think you would have the advantage of me, as for example if our carpet were the heather instead of the weaving of an Eastern loom?"

"I just think that," said MacDonald stoutly.

The king threw back his head and laughed the generous laugh of the all-conquering man.

"E-god, Jamie, my man, we may put that to the test before long, but it is in the high realms of statesmanship I want your advice, and not in the frivolous courts of love. You may give that advice the more freely when I tell you that I have made up my mind what to do in any case, and am not likely to be swayed one way or other by the counsel I shall receive."

"Then why does your majesty wish to have my opinion?" asked the Highlander.

"Lord, I'll want more than your opinion before this is done with, but I may tell you at once that there's troublesome news from Skye."

"Are the MacLeods up again?"

"Aye, they're up and down. They're up in their anger and down on their neighbours. I cannot fathom the intricacies