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Crockett, S. R. (Samuel Rutherford), 1860-1914

"The Black Douglas"

The lady was seen no more. The silken covering
blazed up. Malise plunged outward into the darkness of the storm,
carrying his young master lightly as a child in his arms, while the
Abbot kept his feet behind him like a boat in a ship's wake. The
thunder roared overhead like the sea bellowing in a cave's mouth, and
the great pines bent their heads away from the mighty wind, straining
and creaking and lashing each other in their blind fury.
Malise and the Abbot seemed to hear about them the plunging of
riderless horses as they stumbled downwards through the night, their
path lit by lightning flashes, green and lilac and keenest blue, and
bearing between them the senseless form of William Earl of Douglas.


CHAPTER VI
THE PRISONING OF MALISE THE SMITH

[Now these things, material to the life and history of William, sixth
Earl of Douglas, are not written from hearsay, but were chronicled
within his lifetime by one who saw them and had part therein, though
the part was but a boy's one. His manuscript has come down to us and
lies before the transcriber.


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