.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 49301
   :PG.Title: The Grey Man
   :PG.Released: 2015-06-27
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: \S. \R. Crockett
   :DC.Title: The Grey Man
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1910
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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THE GREY MAN
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      THE GREY MAN

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      BY

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      \S. \R. Crockett

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      *POPULAR EDITION*

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      LONDON
      \T. FISHER UNWIN
      ADELPHI TERRACE
      MCMX

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      *To
      \W. \R. NICOLL
      are affectionately inscribed
      these Chronicles of a Stormy Time—
      in memory of
      unforgotten Days of Peace and Quietness
      spent with him and his.*

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      [*All rights reserved*]

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   CONTENTS

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I.  `The Oath of Swords`_
II.  `The Lass of the White Tower`_
III.  `The Second Taunting of Spurheel`_
IV.  `The Inn on the Red Moss`_
V.  `The Throwing of the Bloody Dagger`_
VI.  `The Crown of the Causeway`_
VII.  `My Lady's Favours`_
VIII.  `The Laird of Auchendrayne`_
IX.  `Cartel of Contumely`_
X.  `Sir Thomas of the Top-Knot`_
XI.  `Sword and Spit`_
XII.  `The Flitting of the Sow`_
XIII.  `The Tryst at Midnight`_
XIV.  `The Adventure of the Garden`_
XV.  `A Midnight Leaguer`_
XVI.  `Greybeards and Dimple Chins`_
XVII.  `The Corbies at the Eagle's Nest`_
XVIII.  `Bairns' Play`_
XIX.  `Fighting the Beasts`_
XX.  `The Secret of the Caird`_
XXI.  `Mine Ancient Sweetheart`_
XXII.  `A Marriage made in Hell`_
XXIII.  `A Galloway Raid`_
XXIV.  `The Slaughter in the Snow`_
XXV.  `Marjorie bids her Love Good-night`_
XXVI.  `Days of Quiet`_
XXVII.  `On the Heartsome Heather`_
XXVIII.  `Warm Backs make Braw Bairns`_
XXIX.  `The Murder among the Sandhills`_
XXX.  `I seek for Vengeance`_
XXXI.  `The Blue Blanket`_
XXXII.  `Greek meets Greek`_
XXXIII.  `The Devil is a Gentleman`_
XXXIV.  `In the Enemy's Country`_
XXXV.  `The Ogre's Castle`_
XXXVI.  `The Defence of Castle Ailsa`_
XXXVII.  `The Voice out of the Night`_
XXXVIII.  `A Rescue from the Sea`_
XXXIX.  `The Cleft in the Rock`_
XL.  `The Cave of Death`_
XLI.  `The Were-Wolf of Benerard`_
XLII.  `Ane Lochaber Aix gied Him his Paiks`_
XLIII.  `The Moot Hill of Girvan`_
XLIV.  `The Murder upon the Beach`_
XLV.  `The Man in the Wide Breeches`_
XLVI.  `The Judgment of God`_
XLVII.  `The Place of the Legion of Devils`_
XLVIII.  `The Finding of the Treasure of Kelwood`_
XLIX.  `The Great Day of Trial`_
L.  `The Last of the Grey Man`_
LI.  `Marjorie's Good-night`_
LII.  `Home-coming`_





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.. _`THE OATH OF SWORDS`:

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   THE GREY MAN

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   CHAPTER I

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   THE OATH OF SWORDS

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Well do I mind the first time that ever I was in the
heartsome town of Ballantrae.  My father seldom went thither,
because it was a hold of the Bargany folk, and it argued
therefore sounder sense to give it the go-by.  But it came
to pass upon a time that it was necessary for my father to
adventure from Kirrieoch on the border of Galloway, where
we dwelt high on the moors, to the seaside of Ayr.

My father's sister had married a man named Hew Grier,
an indweller in Maybole, who for gear's sake had settled
down to his trade of tanner in Ballantrae.  It was to his
burying that we went.  We had seen him snugly happed
up, and the burial supper was over.  We were already in a
mind to set about returning, when we heard the sound of a
great rushing of people hither and thither.  I went aloft and
looked through a gable window upon the street.  Arms
were hastily being brought from beneath the thatch, to which
the laws of the King had committed them under the late
ordinance anent weapons of war.  Leathern jackets were
being donned, and many folk cried 'Bargany!' in the streets
without knowing why.

My Aunt Grisel went out to ask what the stir might be,
and came in again with her face as white as a clout.

'It is the Cassillis folk that are besieging the Tower of
Ardstinchar, and they have come near to the taking of it,
they say.  Oh, what will the folk of Ballantrae do to you,
John, if they ken that you are here?  They will hang you
for a spy, and that without question.'

'That,' said my father, 'is surely impossible.  The
Ballantrae folk never had any great haul of sense ever since
Stinchar water ran; but yet they will hardly believe that
Hew Grier, decent man—him that was your marrow and
lies now in his resting grave, poor body—took on himself to
die, just that I might come to Ballantrae to spy out the land!'

But my aunt, being easily flustered, would not hearken
to him, thinking that all terrible things were possible, and
so hid the two of us in the barn-loft till it should be the hour
of the gloaming.

Then so soon as the darkening came, putting a flask of
milk into my pocket and giving a noble satchel of cakes to
my father, she almost pushed us out of her back door.  To
this day I remember how the unsteady glare of a red burning
filled all the street.  And we could see burghers' wives
standing at their doors, all looking intently in the direction
of the Castle of Ardstinchar upon its lofty rock.  Others
set their heads out of the little round 'jaw-holes' that
opened in each gable wall, and gossiped shrilly with their
neighbours.

My father and I went cannily down by the riverside, and
as soon as we turned Hew-the-Friar's corner, we saw all the
noble tower of Ardstinchar flaming to the skies—every
window belching fire, and the sparks fleeing upward as before
a mighty wind, though it was a stirless night with a moon
and stars floating serenely above.

Down by the waterside and straight before us we saw a
post of men, and we heard them clank their war-gear as
they marched from side to side and looked ever up at the
castle on its steep, spitting like a furnace, flaming like a torch.
So at sight of them my father turned us about sharply
enough, because, in spite of what he had said to my Aunt
Grisel, he had much reason to fear for his neck.  For if, on
the night of a Cassillis raid, one of the hated faction should
be found in the town of Ballantrae, little doubt there was
but that a long tow and a short shrift would be his fate.

We climbed the breast of the brae up from the waterside,
intending to make a detour behind the castle.  My father
said that there would be an easy crossing at Heronford, where
he knew a decent man that was of his own party.  Thence
we could make up the glen of the Tigg Water, which in
the evil state of the country was as good and quiet a way
back to Minnochside as one might hope to find.

It seemed a most pitiful sight to me, that was but a young
lad (and had never seen a fire bigger than a screed of
muirburn screeving across the hills with a following wind at its
tail), to watch the noble house with all its wealth of
plenishing and gear being burned up.

I said as much to my father, who swung along with his
head bent to the hill slope, dragging my arm oftentimes
almost from the socket, in his haste to get us out of such
unwholesome company as the angry folk of Ballantrae.

'It is an enemy's house!' he replied very hastily.  'Come
thy ways, lad!'

'But what harm have the Bargany folk done to us?' I
asked.  For this thing seemed strange to me—that Kennedy
should strive with Kennedy, burn castle, kill man, harry
mow and manger, drive cattle—and I never be able to make
out what it was all for.

'Hold your breath, Launcelot Kennedy!' said my
father, testy with shortness of wind and going uphill, 'or
right speedily you will find out for what!  Is it not enough
that you are born to love Cassillis and to hate Bargany?'

'Are the folk of Cassillis, then, so much better than the
folk of Bargany?' I asked, taking what I well knew to be
the chances of a civil answer, or of a ring on the side of the
head.

It was not the civil answer that I got.

And, indeed, it was an ill season for query and question,
or for the answering of them.  In time we got to the angle
of the castle, and there we were somewhat sheltered from
the fierce heat and from the glare of light also.  From
the eminence we had gained, we could look away along
the shore side.  My father pointed with his finger.

'Boy, do you see yon?' he whispered.

I looked long and eagerly with my unaccustomed eyes,
before I could see in the pale moonlight a dark train of
horsemen that rode steadily northward.  Their line wimpled like
a serpent, being pricked out to our sight with little reeling
twinkles of fire, which I took to be the moon shining on
their armour and the points of their spears.

'See,' said my father, 'yonder goes our good Earl
home with the spoil.  Would that I were by his side!
Why do I live so far among the hills, and out of the call
of my chief when he casts his war pennon to the winds?'

We looked all round the castle, and seeing no one, we made
shift to get about it and darn ourselves among the heather
of the further hillside.  But even as we passed the angle
and reached a broken part of the wall, there came a trampling
of iron-shod hoofs.  And lo! a troop of horsemen rode up
to the main castle gate, that which looks to the north-west.
It was all we could do to clamber out of sight over the broken
wall, my father lifting me in his arms.  There we lay flat
and silent behind a pile of stones, just where the breach had
been made—over which we could look into the courtyard
and see the splotched causeway and the bodies of the dead
lying here and there athwart it in the ruddy light of burning.

Just as the foremost horseman came to the gate, which
the riders of Cassillis had left wide open, the roof of red
tile fell in with an awesome crash.  The flames again
sprang high and the sparks soared.  Soon all the courtyard
was aglow with the red, unsteady leme which the skies
gave back, while the moon and stars paled and went out.

'Hist!' whispered my father, 'this is young Bargany
himself who comes first.'

I looked eagerly from behind a stone and saw the noblest
figure of a young man that ever I saw or shall see, riding on
a black horse, sitting framed in the dark of the gateway, the
flames making a crimson flicker about him.  After a
moment's pause he rode within the deserted close, and there
sat his horse, looking up sternly and silently at the leaping
flames and hearkening as it were to the crackling of the
timbers as they burned.

Then another and yet another horseman came riding
within, some of whom my father knew.

'See you, Launce, and remember,' he whispered; 'that
loon there is Thomas Kennedy of Drummurchie, Bargany's
brother.  Observe his fangs of the wolf.  He of all the
crew is the wickedest and the worst.'

I looked forth and saw a gaunt, dark youth, with a
short upper lip drawn up from teeth that shone white in
the leaping flame which harvested the goodly gear of the
house of Ardstinchar.

'There also is Blairquhan the Simpleton, Cloncaird of
the Black Heart, and Benane the Laird's brother—a very
debauched man—and there, I declare, is my Lord Ochiltree.
Upon soul and conscience, I wonder what he does here
thus riding with the Barganies?'

As soon as the fire died down a little, some of the party
began to search about among the defences and outhouses,
and a few even entered into the inner part of the tower.
In twos and threes they came forth, some bringing a
wounded man, some a dead man, till, on the cool, grey
stones of the court, there rested five that lay motionless on
their backs, and two that moaned a while and then were still.
The more lightly wounded were cared for in a chamber
within the gate.  Then we could see all the gentlemen of
the Bargany side dismounted from their horses and
standing about those five that were killed.

'Alas for young Girvanmains!' I heard one cry, for we
were very near.  'What shall we say to his father?  And
here also is Walter Pollock, the cunning scrivener—and
James Dalrymple, that was a kindly little man and never
harmed anyone—the Lord do so to me, and more also, if I
write not this killing in blood upon the walls of Cassillis!'

The crowd thinned a little, and I saw it was the Laird
himself that spoke.

Then this same young Bargany, who was taller by a
head than any there, called for room.  So they made a ring,
with the dead men in the midst, and Bargany standing a
little before.  He bent him over the body of Walter
Pollock, the young clerk, and drew forth a book from his
breast.

'Listen!' he cried, 'all you that love Bargany, and
who now behold this deed of dule and cruelty.  Here lie
our dead.  Here is the Book of God that I have taken from
one of the servants of peace, cruelly bereft of life by our
enemies!'

'I warrant he drew a good sword when it came to the
fighting, clerk though he might be,' whispered my father,
'I know the Pollock breed!'

Bargany looked at the book in his grasp and again at
the hand which had held it.

'This falls out well,' he said.  'Here in the presence of
our dead, upon the Bible that is wet with the blood of the
unjustly slain, let us band ourselves together and take oath
to be avenged upon the cruel house—the house of
over-trampling pride—the house that has ever wrought us woe!
Will ye swear?'

He looked round a circle of faces that shone fierce and
dark in the lowe of the furnace beyond.  As he did so he
unsheathed his sword, and pointed with it to the topmost
pinnacles of Ardstinchar.  In a moment there was a ring
of steel all about him, for, quick as his own, every man's
hand went out to his scabbard, and in every man's grip
there gleamed a bare blade.  And the sight thrilled me to
see it, ay, more than all the religion I had ever been taught,
for I was but a boy.  And even though religion be learned
in youth, the strength and the use of it comes not till after.

Thus Bargany stood with the brand in his right hand
and the Bible in his left, to take, as was ancient custom in
our countryside, the solemn oath of vengeance and eternal
enmity.  And thus he spake,—

'By this Holy Book and by the wet blood upon it, I,
Gilbert Kennedy of Bargany, swear never to satisfy my
just feud against the bloody house of Cassillis, till of all
their defenced towers there stands not one stone in its
place, remains alive not one scion of its cruel race.  I who
stand here, in the presence of these dead men of my folk,
charge the Kennedies of the North with the blood of my
kin, the spoiling of my vassals, and the heart-breaking of
my father.  In the name of God I swear!  If I stay my
hand and make not an end, the God of Battles do so to
me, and more also!'

Gilbert Kennedy kissed the book which he gripped in his
left hand, and then with sudden gesture of hatred he flung
down the sword which he had held aloft in his right.  It
fell with a ringing dirl of iron upon the stones of the
pavement beside the slain men, and the sound of its fall
made the flesh creep on my bones.

Then the Laird's wicked brother, Thomas, called the
Wolf of Drummurchie, came forward, hatred fairly sparkling
in his eyes, and his teeth set in a girn of devil's
anger.

'I swear,' he cried, 'to harry John of Cassillis, the
enemy that has wrought us this woe, with fire and sword—to
cut off him and his with dagger and spear, to light
the thack and to lift the cattle.  I will be an outlaw, a
prey for the hunters for their sake.  For Cassillis it was
who first slandered me to the King, chased me from my
home, and made me no better than a robber man upon
the mountains.'

And in turn he kissed the Book, and his sword rang
grimly on the pavement beside his brother's.  So one by
one the men of Bargany took the solemn band of eternal
and bloody feud.  Presently an old man stood forth.  He
held a spear in his hand, being, as my father whispered,
but a tenant vassal and keeping to the ancient Scottish
yeoman's weapon.

'By the blood of my son that lies here before me, by
this spear which he held in his dying hand, I, that am but
the poor goodman of Girvanmains, before death takes me
to where all vengeance is Another's, I swear the vengeance
of blood!'

And he cast the spear beside the swords of the gentlemen.
Then issuing forth from the chamber over the gate,
and leaning heavily upon the arm of a young page boy,
there came creeping the strangest shape of a man—his
countenance thrawed and drawn, his shrunk shanks twisted,
his feet wambling one over another like those of a mummer's
bear.  Bowed double the man was, and he walked with a
staff that tapped and rattled tremblingly on the pavement
as he came.  The men of war turned at the sound, for
there had been stark silence among them after old
Girvanmains had let his spear fall.

Like one risen from the dead, the old man looked up at
the tower which was now beginning to show black against
the dulling red glow of the dying fire.

'Thou tower of Ardstinchar,' he cried, lifting up a
voice like the wind whistling through scrannel pipes, 'they
have burned you that erstwhile burned me.  Curse me
Cassillis and the Lords of it!  Curse me all that cleave to
it, for their tender mercies are cruel.  I, Allan Stewart,
sometime Abbot of Crossraguel, lay my curse bitterly upon
them for the cruel burning they gave me before their fire in
the Black Vault of Dunure.  But bless me the House of
Bargany, that rescued me from torture and took me to
their strong tower, wherein I have to this day found in peace
a quiet abiding chamber.'

'Mark well, boy,' whispered my father; 'remember this
to tell it in after days to your children's children.  Your
eyes have seen the Abbot of Crossraguel whom the King of
Carrick, the father of our Earl John, roasted quick in the
vault of Dunure—a deed which has wrought mickle woe,
and will yet work more.'

And even as my father spoke I saw the old cripple hirple
away, the young Laird himself helping him with the kindliest
courtesy.

Then, last of all that spake, came a voice from one who
had remained in the gloomy archway of the gate, by the
entering in of the courtyard.  He that broke the silence
was a tall man who sat on a grey horse, and was clad from
head to foot in a cloak of grey, having his face shaded
with a high-crowned, broad-brimmed hat of the ancient
fashion.

'Give me the Book and I also will swear an oath!' he
said, in a voice which made all turn towards him.

'Who may that man be?  I ken him not,' said my
father, for he had named all the others as they came within.

So one gave the man the blood-stained Bible, and he
held it in his hand a moment.  He was silent a space before
he spoke.

'By this Christian Book and among this Christian
people,' he cried, 'I swear to root out and slay utterly all
the house of Cassillis and Culzean, pursuing them, man,
woman and child, with fire and sword till they die the
death of pain and scorn, or I who swear die in the
accomplishing of it.'

The unknown paused at the end of this terrible oath,
and gazed again at the Book.  The dying flame within the
castle flared up for a chance moment as another rafter
caught fire.

'Fauch!' said he of the grey cloak, looking at the
Bible in his hand, 'there is blood upon thee.  Go thou into
the burning as the seal of our oaths.  A bloody Bible is no
Christian book!'

And with that he threw the Bible into the red embers
that glowed sullenly within the tower.

There broke a cry of horror from all that saw.  For
though in this dark land of Carrick deeds of blood were
done every day, this Bible-burning was accounted rank
blasphemy and ungodly sacrilege.  But I was not prepared
for its effect upon my father.  He trembled in all his limbs,
and I felt the stones shake upon which he now leaned breast
high, careless who should see him.

'This is fair devil's work,' he muttered.  'The fires of
Sodom, the brimstone of Gomorrah shall light upon us all
for this deed!'

He would have said more, but I never heard him finish
his words.  Sudden as a springing deer, he tore from the
covert of the wall by my side and bounded across the court,
threading the surprised group and overleaping the swords
and the bodies of the slain men.  He disappeared in a
moment through the door into the tower, within which
the flames still glowed red, and from which every instant
the crash of falling timber and the leaping flames answered
each other.

Ere my father sprang back, his figure stood plain and dark
against the fire within, like that of a smith at his forge seen in
the bygoing upon a snowy night.  He held the unburned
Bible clasped to his breast, but his left hand hung straight
down by his side.

A moment after he had sprung from a window and fallen
upon his face on the pavement with the Bible beneath him.

A dozen men ran towards him and seized him—Thomas
of Drummurchie the first among them.

'A traitor!  A spy!' he cried, lifting a sword from the
pile with clear purpose to kill.  'To the death with him!
It is John Kennedy of Kirrieoch—I ken him well, a rank
Cassillis thief!'

And he would have slain my father forthwith, but that
I ran among his legs and gripped him so close to me that he
fell clattering on the pavement among the swords.  Then I
went and took my father's hand, standing by his side and
crying out the while,—

'Ye shallna, ye shallna kill my father.  He never did ye
harm a' the days o' his life!'

'Who are you, and what do you here?' asked young
Bargany in a voice of command, when they had set my
father on his feet.

'I am John Kennedy of Kirrieoch on Minnochside,
and I came to Ballantrae to bury the corpse of my sister's
man, Hew Grier, merchant and indweller there, that was
this day laid in the earth.'

So, right quietly and calmly, my father spoke among
them all.

'But what seek you in my burned Castle of Ardstinchar
and alone with these dead men?' asked the young Bargany.

With a quietness that came of the hills my father told
the chieftain his plain tale, and his words were not words
that any man could gainsay.

Then Bargany answered him without consulting the
others, as none but a great chief does whose lightest word is
life or death.

'Ye are here within my danger, and had I been even as your
folk of Cassillis, ye should have died the death; but because
ye stopped devil's work and, it may be, kept away a curse
from us for the burning of the Holy Book, ye shall not die
in my house.  Take your life and your son's life, as a gift
from Gilbert Kennedy of Bargany.'

My father bowed his head and thanked his house's enemy.

'Bring a horse,' cried the Laird, and immediately they
set my father on a beast, and me in the saddle before him.
'Put the Bible for a keepsake in your winnock sole, turn
out the steed on Minnochside, and come no more to
Ballantrae in time of feud, lest a worse thing befall
you!'  So said he, and waved us away, as I thought grandly.

Some of the men that had sworn enmity murmured
behind him.

'Silence!' he cried, 'am not I Lord of Bargany?  Shall
I not do as I will?  Take your life, Kirrieoch.  And
whenever a Bargany rides by your door, ye shall give him bite
and sup for the favour that was this night shown you in the
courtyard of Ardstinchar.'

'Ye shall get that, Bargany, and welcome, whether ye
let me gang or no!' said my father.  And pressing the
Book to his bosom, and gathering up the reins in his
unwounded hand, we rode unquestioned through the arch
of the wall into the silence of the night.  And the hill
winds and the stillnesses without were like God's blessing
about us.

But from a knoll on the left of the entrance the man of
the grey habit, he who had thrown the Bible, sat silent upon
his horse and watched.  And as we looked back, he still sat
and watched.  Him my father took to have been the devil,
as he said to me many times that night ere we got to
Minnochside.

Also ere we left the clattering pavement behind, looking
out from the postern door we saw the thrawn visage of him
who was Allan Stewart, the tortured residue of the man
who had once been Abbot of Crossraguel, and in stature like
a square-shouldered tower.

And this is the way my father brought home the burnt
Bible to the house of Kirrieoch.  There it bides to this day,
blackened as to its bindings and charred at the edges, but
safe in the wall press at my father's bed-head, a famous book
in all the land, even as far as Glencaird and Dranie Manors
upon the Waters of Trool.

But it brought good fortune with it—a fortune which,
God be thanked, still remains and grows.  And as for my
father, he never lifted sword nor spear against the house of
Bargany from that day to this, because of the usage which
Gilbert Kennedy gave him that night at the burning of
Ardstinchar.

Nevertheless, for all that, he exercised me tightly in the
use of every weapon of war, from the skill of the bow
to the shooting of the hackbutt.  For it was his constant
intent to make me an esquire in the service of Sir Thomas
Kennedy of Culzean,[#] reputed the wisest man and the best
soldier in all the parts of Carrick and Ayr.  As, indeed, I
have found him.

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[#] Culzean is pronounced Culayne, as though to rhyme with 'domain.'

.. vspace:: 2

And this saving of the burning Bible was, as I guess, the
beginning of my respect for religion—which, alas! I fear
this chronicle will show to have been both a late-garnered
and a thin-sown crop.





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.. _`THE LASS OF THE WHITE TOWER`:

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   CHAPTER II


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   THE LASS OF THE WHITE TOWER

.. vspace:: 2

Now, as the manner is, I must make haste to tell
something of myself and have by with it.

My name is Launcelot Kennedy, and I alone am the
teller of this tale.  In a country where all are Kennedies,
friends and foes alike, this name of mine is no great
head-mark.  So 'Launcelot of the Spurs' I am called, or sometimes,
by those who would taunt me, 'Launcelot Spurheel.'  But for
all that I come of a decent muirland house, the Kennedies
of Kirrieoch, who were ever lovers of the Cassillis blue and
gold—which are the royal colours of France, in memory
of the ancient alliance—and ever haters of the red and
white of Bargany, which we hold no better than butchers'
colours, bloody and desolate.

The story, or at least my own part in it, properly begins
upon the night of the fair at Maybole—whither to my
shame I had gone without troubling my master, Sir Thomas
Kennedy of Culzean, with the slight matter of asking his
permission.  Indeed, none so much as knew that I had been to
the town of Maybole save Helen Kennedy alone; and she,
as I well knew (although I called her Light-head Clattertongue),
would not in any wise tell tales upon me.  There
at the fair I had spent all my silver, buying of trittle-trattles
at the lucky-booths and about the market-stalls.  But upon
my return I meant to divide fairly with Helen Kennedy,
though she was fully two years younger than I—indeed,
only sixteen years of her age, though I grant long of the
leg and a good runner.

So, being advised of my excellent intentions, you shall
judge if I was not justified of all that I did to be revenged
on the girl afterwards.

It was the early morning of a March day when I came to
the foot of the Castle of Culzean.  I went with quiet steps
along the shore by the little path that leads to the coves
beneath.  I carried the things that I had bought in a
napkin, all tied safely together.  Now, the towers of Culzean
are builded upon a cliff, steep and perilous, overlooking the
sea.  And I, being but a squire of eighteen (though for my
age strong and bold, and not to be beaten by anything or
feared by any man), was lodged high up in the White Tower,
which rises from the extremest point of the rock.

Now, as I say, I had not made mention of the little
matter of my going abroad to Sir Thomas, both because it
was unnecessary to trouble him with so small a thing, and also
on account of the strictness of his opinions.  It was,
therefore, the more requisite that I should regain my chamber
without putting lazy Gilbert in the watch-house at the
gate to the trouble of letting fall the drawbridge for me.
I did not, indeed, desire to disturb or disarrange him, for
he would surely tell his master, being well called Gabby
Gib-cat, because he came of a race that never in their lives
has been able to hold a secret for a single day in the belly of
them—at least, not if it meant money, ale, or the goodwill
of their lord.

So it happened that before I went to Maybole I dropped
a ladder of rope from the stanchions of my window,
extremely strong and convenient, which came down to a
ledge someway up among the rocks, at a place which I could
easily reach by climbing.  Thither I made my way while,
as I tell you, the night was just beginning to dusk toward
the dawning.  I had all my buyings in my arms, tied up
well and that tightly in the napkin, just as I had carried them
from the lucky-booths of Maybole.  I tied the outer knot
of my bundle firmly to the last rung of the ladder, praying
within me that Sir Thomas might be fast asleep.  For I had
to pass within three feet of his window, and, being an old
man, he was somewhat wakerife in the mornings, easily
started, and given to staring out of his lattice without
method or sense, in a manner which had often filled me
with pain and foreboding for his reason.

But by the blessing of God, and because he was
somewhat tired with walking in the fields with his baron-officer
the night before, it happened that Sir Thomas was sound
asleep, so that I was nothing troubled with him.  But
immediately beneath me, in the White Tower, were the
rooms of his two daughters, Marjorie and Helen Kennedy;
and of these Helen's room was to the front, so that my
rope ladder passed immediately in front of her window,
while the chamber of Marjorie was to the back, and, in
this instance, concerned me not at all.

So as I scrambled up the swinging ladder (and, indeed,
there are not many that would venture as much on a cold
March morning) I passed Helen Kennedy's window.  As
I went by, the devil (as I take it) prompted me to scratch
with my toe upon the leaden frame of her lattice, for
the lass was mortally afraid of ghosts.  So I pictured to
myself that, hearing the noise at the window, she would
take it for the scraping of an evil spirit trying to find a
way in, and forthwith draw the clothes over her head and
lie trembling.

Pleasing myself, therefore, with this picture, I scraped
away and laughed within myself till I nearly fell from the
ladder.  Presently I heard a stirring within the chamber,
and stopped to listen.

'She has her head under the clothes by now,' I said
to myself, as I climbed on up to my own window, which
I found unhasped even as I had left it.  I entered, gripping
the edge of the broad sill and lifting myself over with ease,
being very strong of the forearm.  Indeed, I had won a
prize for wrestling at the fair that day, in spite of my
youth—a thing which I intended to keep secret till Helen
Kennedy should begin to taunt me with being but a boy
and feckless.

It chanced, however, that I, who had been thus victorious
with men older than myself, was now to be vanquished,
conquered, and overset, by one who was two years younger,
and she a lassie.  Then being safe in my chamber, I began
to pull up the ladder of cords with all my goods and chattels
tied at the end of it.  And my thoughts were already
running on the good things therein—cakes and comfits,
sweetmeats, some bottles of Canary wine, and gee-gaws
for the adorning of my person when I rode forth—the
latter not for pride, of which I have none, but in order that
I might ride in good squirely fashion, and as became the
gentleman attendant of so great a lord as Sir Thomas
Kennedy of Culzean, Tutor of Cassillis, brother of the
late, and uncle of the present Earl of that name.

I drew up my rope ladder all softly and with success,
because from the stanchions it swung clear of the walls
of the castle, for the reason that my turret jutted a little
way over, as is the custom with towers of that architecture.
And so all went well till my bundle came opposite the
window of Helen Kennedy's room.  There it was suddenly
caught and gripped tight, so that I could in no wise pull it
further.  Nevertheless I wrestled with it so strongly, even
as I had done with grown men at Maybole, that the cord
suddenly gave way.  And what with the stress and pith of
pulling, I fell *blaff* on my back, hitting my head upon one
of the low cross-beams of my little chamberlet.

This made me very angry indeed, but I leave you to
judge how much more angered I was, when I found that
the cords of my rope ladder had been cleanly severed with
a knife, and that my bundle and all it contained had been
most foully stolen from me.

I looked out of the window, rubbing my sore head the
while with my hand.

'Nell Kennedy!' I called as loudly as I dared, 'you
are nothing but a thief, and a mean thief!'

The lass put her head out of the window and looked up
at me, so that her hair hung down and I saw the soft lace
ruffle of her night apparel.  It was long and swayed in the
wind, being of a golden yellow colour.  (The hair, I am
speaking of, not, by'r Lady, the bedgown.)

'Mistress Helen Kennedy from you, sirrah, if you
please!' she said.  'What may be the business upon which
Squire Launce Spurheel ventures to address his master's
daughter?'

'Besom!' said I, taking no heed of her tauntings;
'thief, grab-all, give me back my bundle!'

My heart was hot within me, for indeed I had intended
to share everything with her in the morning, if only she
would be humble enough and come with me into the cove.
Now, there is nothing more angering than thus to be
baulked on the threshold of a generous action; and,
indeed, I was not given to the doing of any other
kind—though often enough frustrated of my intention by the
illsetness of others.

'Thou wast a noble ghost, Spurheel,' she cried, mocking
me.  'I heard thee laughing, brave frightener of girls!
Well, I forgive thee, for it is a good bundle of excellent
devices that thou hast carried for me all the way from the
fair at Maybole.  Everything that I craved for is here,
saving the brown puggy-monkey wrought with French
pastry and with little black raisins for the eyes which I
heard of yesterday!'

'I am glad I ate that by the way,' I said, in order to
have some amends of her; for, indeed, there was no such
thing in the fair, at least so far ar I saw.

'May it give thee twisty thraws and sit ill on thy
stomach, Spurheel!' she cried up at me.  For at sixteen
she was more careless of her speech than a herd on the hill
when his dogs are not working sweetly.

Nevertheless she spoke as though she had been saying
something pleasant and, by its nature, agreeable to hear.

For I do not deny that the lass was sometimes
pleasant-spoken enough—to others, not to me; and that upon
occasion she could demean herself as became a great lady,
which indeed she was.  And when no one was by, then I
took no ill tongue from her, but gave as good as I got or
maybe a kenning better.

I could hear her at the window below taking the
packages out of the bundle.

'Ye have good taste in the choice of cakes!' she said,
coming to the window again.  'The sweetmeats are most
excellent.  The pastry melts in the mouth.'

As she looked out, she munched one of the well-raised
comfits I had bought for my own eating.  At Culzean we
had but plain beef and double ale, but no lack of these.
Also puddings, black and white.

'See, it flakes tenderly, being well readied!' she cried
up at me, flipping it with the forefinger of her right hand
to show its delicate lightness.  She held the cake, in order
to eat it, in the palm of her left hand.

At which, being angered past enduring, I took up an
ornament of wood which had fallen from the back of an oak
chair, and threw it at her.  But she ducked quickly within,
so that it went clattering on the rocks beneath.

She looked out again.

'Ah—um—blundershot!' she said, mocking me with
her mouth.  'Remember you are not shooting at a
rantipole cockshy at Maybole fair.'

'Give me my property,' I replied with some dignity and
firmness, 'else in the morning I will surely tell your father.'

'Ay, ay,' cried she, 'even tell him about Maybole fair,
and coming home through the wood with your arm round
the waist of bonny Kate Allison, the Grieve's lass!  He will
be most happy to hear of that, and of the other things you
have been doing all the night.  Also to be thy father
confessor and set thee penance for thy deed!'

'It is a lie!' I said, angry that Nell Kennedy should
guess so discomfortably near to the truth.

'What is a lie, most sweet and pleasant-spoken youth?'
she queried, with a voice like Mistress Pussie's velvet
paws.

'The matter you have spoken concerning the Grieve's
lass.  I care nothing for girls!'

And I spoke the truth—at the moment—for, indeed,
there were things bypast that I was now sorry for.

She went in and explored further in my bundle, while I
stood at the upper window above and miscalled her over the
window sill as loudly as I dared.  Every little while she ran
to the window to examine something, for the light was now
coming broad from the east and flooding the sea even to
the far blue mountains of Arran and Cantyre.

'Ribbons—and belts—and hatbands, all broidered with
silk!' she cried.  'Was ever such grandeur known in this
place of Culzean?  They will do bravely for me, and
besides they will save thy back from the hangman and the
cart-tail whip.  For thou, Spurheel, art not of the quality
to wear such, but they will do excellently for the pearling
and ribboning of a baron's daughter.  Nevertheless, heartily
do I applaud your taste in taffeta, Spurheel, and let that be
a comfort to thee.'

'Was there ever such a wench?' I said to myself,
stamping my foot in anger.

Last of all Nell brought to the window the three bottles
of Canary wine, for which I had paid so dear.

'What is this?' she cried, with her head at the side in
her masterful cock-sparrow way.  'What is this?  Wine,
wine of Canary—rotten water rather, I warrant, to be sold
in a booth at a fair?  At any rate, wine is not good for
boys,' she added, 'and such drabbled stuff is not for the
drinking of a lady—wouldst thou like it, Spurheel?'

She ducked in, thinking that I was about to throw
something more at her—which, indeed, I scorned to do,
besides having nothing convenient to my hand.

'Look you, Squire Launce,' she said again, crying
from the window without setting her head out, 'you are
something of a marksman, they say.  There never was a
nonsuch like our Spurheel—in Spurheel's own estimation.
But I can outmark him.  Fix your eye on yon black
rock with the tide just coming over it—one, two, and
three—!'

And in a moment one of my precious broad-bellied
bottles of wine played clash on Samson's reef two hundred
feet below the White Tower.  I was fairly dancing now
with anger, and threatened to come down my rope ladder
to be even with her.  Indeed, I made the cord ready to
throw myself out of the window to clamber down.  But
even as I did so, the glaiked maiden sent the other two
jars of Canary to keep company with the first.

Then she leaned out and looked up sweetly, holding the
sash of the window meantime in her hand.

'You are going to visit my father in the morning,
doubtless, and tell him all about the bundle and the Grieve's
lass.  Good speed and my blessing!' she cried, making
ready to shut the window and draw the bolt.  'I am going
to sleep in Marjorie's room.  The gulls are beginning to
sing.  I love not to hear gabble—yours or theirs!'

But I leave you to guess who it was that felt himself
the greater gull.





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.. _`THE SECOND TAUNTING OF SPURHEEL`:

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   CHAPTER III


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   THE SECOND TAUNTING OF SPURHEEL

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Now I shall ever affirm that there was not in all this realm of
Scotland, since the young Queen Mary came out of France—of
whom our grandfathers yet make boast, and rise from
their chairs with their natural strength unabated as they
tell—so lovely a maid as Marjorie Kennedy, the elder of the two
remaining daughters of Sir Thomas, the Tutor of Cassillis.
Ever since I came to the house of Culzean, I could have lain
down gladly and let her walk over me—this even when I was
but a boy, and much more when I grew nigh to eighteen,
and had all the heart and some of the experience of a man
in the things of love.

And how the lairds and knights came a-wooing her!
Ay, even belted earls like Glencairn and Eglintoun!  But
Marjorie gave them no more than the bend of a scornful
head or the waft of a white hand, for she had a way with
her that moved men's brains to a very fantasy of desire.

For myself, I declare that when she came down and
walked in the garden, I became like a little waggling
puppy dog, so great was my desire to attract her attention.
Yet she spoke to me but seldom, being of a nature
as noble as it was reserved.  Silent and grave Marjorie
Kennedy mostly was, with the lustre of her eyes turned
more often on the far sea edges, than on the desirable
young men who rode their horses so gallantly over the
greensward to the landward gate of Culzean.

But it is not of Marjorie Kennedy, whom with all my
heart I worshipped (and do worship, spite of all), that I
have at this time most to tell.  It happened on this day
that, late in the afternoon, Sir Thomas, my master, came
out of the chamber where ordinarily he did his business, and
commanded me to prepare his arms, and also bid the grooms
have the horses ready, for us two only, at seven of the
clock.

'That will be just at the darkening,' I said, for I
thought it a strange time to be setting forth, when the
country was so unsettled with the great feud between the
Kennedies of Cassilis and the young Laird of Bargany and
his party.

'Just at the darkening,' he made answer, very shortly
indeed, as though he would have minded me that the time of
departure was no business of mine—which, indeed, it was not.

So I oiled and snapped the pistolets, and saw that the
swords moved easily from their sheaths.  Thereafter I
prepared my own hackbutt and set the match ready in my belt.
I was ever particular about my arms and of those of my lord
as well, for I prided myself on never having been faulted
in the performing of my duty, however much I might slip
in other matters that touched not mine honour as a soldier.

Once or twice as I rubbed or caressed the locks with a
feather and fine oil thereon, I was aware of a lightly-shod
foot moving along the passage without.  I knew well that
it was the lassie Helen, anxious, as I judged, to make up the
quarrel; or, perhaps, with yet more evil in her heart,
wishful to try my temper worse than before.

Presently she put her head within the door, but I stood
with my back to her, busy with my work at the window.
I would not so much as look up.  Indeed, I cared nothing
about the matter one way or the other, for why should a
grown man and a soldier care about the glaiks and
puppet-plays of a lassie of sixteen?

She stayed still by the door a moment, waiting for me
to notice her.  But I did not, whereat at last she spoke.  'Ye
are a great man this day, Spurheel,' she said tauntingly.
'Did ye rowell your leg yestreen to waken ye in time to
bring hame the Grieve's lassie?'

I may as well tell the origin now of the name 'Spurheel,'
by which at this time she ordinarily called me.  It was a
nothing, and it is indeed not worth the telling.  It chanced
that for my own purpose I desired to wake one night at a
certain time, and because I was a sound sleeper, I tied a spur to
my heel, thinking that with a little touch I should waken as I
turned over.  But in the night I had a dream.  I dreamed
that the foul fiend himself was riding me, and I kicked so
briskly to dismount him that I rowelled myself most cruelly.
Thus I was found in the morning lying all naked, having
gashed myself most monstrously with the spur, which has
been a cast-up against me with silly people ever since.

Now this is the whole tale why I was called 'Spurheel,'
and in it there was no word of the Grieve's daughter—though
Kate Allison was a bonny, well-favoured lass too, and that I
will maintain in spite of all the gibes of Helen Kennedy.

'I will bring you the spoons and the boots also to clean,'
she said, 'and the courtyard wants sweeping!'

In this manner she often spoke to me as if I had been a
menial, because when I did my squire's duty with the weapons
and the armour, I would not let her so much as touch them,
which she much desired to do, for she was by nature as
curious about these things as a boy.

So for show and bravery I tried the edge of my own sword
on the back of my hand.  Nell Kennedy laughed aloud.

'Hairs on the back of a bairn's hand!' quoth she.  'Better
try your carving knife instead on the back of a horse's
currying comb!'

But I knew when to be silent, and she got no satisfaction
out of me.  And that was ever the better way of it with
her, when I could sufficiently command my temper to
follow mine own best counsel.

So the afternoon wore on, and before it was over I had
time to go out into the fields, and also towards evening to
the tennis-court—where, to recreate myself, I played sundry
games with James and Alexander Kennedy, good lads enough,
but ever better at that ball play which has no powder behind it.

At the gloaming the horses were ready and accoutred for
the expedition.  The Tutor of Cassillis and I rode alone, as
was his wont—so great was his trust in my courage and
discretion, though my years were not many, and (I grant it)
the hairs yet few on my chin.  It was still March, and the
bitter winter we had had seemed scarcely to have blown
itself out.  So that, although the crows had a week before
been carrying sticks for their nesting in the woods of
Culzean, yet now, in the quick-coming dark, the snowflakes
were again whirling and spreading ere they reached the
ground.

As we rode through the courtyard and out at the gate, I
heard the soft pit-pat of a foot behind us, for I have a good
ear.  I heard it even through the clatter of the hoofs of our
war horses.  So I turned in my saddle, and there behind us
was that madcap lass, Nell Kennedy, with her wylicoats kilted
and a snowball in her hand, which she manifestly designed
to throw at me.  But even as I ducked my head the ball
flew past me and hit Sir Thomas's horse 'Ailsa' on the rump,
making him curvet to the no small discomfort of the rider.

'What was that, think ye, Launcelot?' my master asked
in his kindly way.

'It might have been a bat,' I made answer—for it was, at
least, no use bringing the lassie into the affair, in spite of
what she had done to me that morning.  Besides, I could
find out ways of paying my debts to her without the telling
of tales, and that was always one comfort.

'It is a queer time of year for bats,' answered Sir
Thomas, doubtfully.  But he rode on and said no more.
I kept behind him, ducking my head and appearing to be
in terror of another snowball, for the ground was now
whitening fast.  Nell Kennedy followed after, making her
next ball harder by pressing it in her hand.  So we went till
we came to the far side of the drawbridge and were ready to
plunge into the woodlands.

Then I gave the whistle which tells that all is well on
the landward side, and is the signal for the bridge to be
raised.  Gabby Gib-cat heard and obeyed quickly, as he
was wont to do when his master was not far away.  At
other times he was lazy as the hills.

The bridge went grinding up, and therefore the Gib-cat
would immediately, as I knew, stretch himself for a sleep
by the fire.  So there I had Mistress Nell on the landward
side of the drawbridge and the gate up, with the snow
dancing down on her bare head and her coats kilted for
mischief.

I lagged a little behind Sir Thomas, so that I could
say to Nell, whose spirits were somewhat dashed by the
raising of the bridge, 'Step down to the water side and
bring up the three bottles of Canary, or go over to the
farm and keep the Grieve's lass company.  She may
perchance be lonely.'

So waving my hand and laughing, I rode off and left
her alone.  I hoped that she cried, for my heart was hot
within me because of the good things on which I had
expended all my saving, and which I had in all kindliness
meant to share with her.

Yet we had not reached the great oak in the park
before she was again by my side.

'Think ye I canna gang up the ladder in the White
Tower as well as you, Spurheel.  It is just kilting my
coats a kennin' higher!'

And I could have bitten my fingers off that I had
forgotten to pull it in again to my chamber.  For in the
morning I had mended and dropped it, not knowing when
it might be needed.





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.. _`THE INN ON THE RED MOSS`:

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   CHAPTER IV


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   THE INN ON THE RED MOSS

.. vspace:: 2

And now to tell of sterner business.  For light-wit havering
with a lass bairn about a great house is but small part of the
purpose of my story—though I can take pleasure in that
also when it chances to come my way, as indeed becomes a
soldier.

We rode on some miles through the woods.  It still
snowed, and straying flakes disentangled themselves from
among the branches and sprinkled us sparsely.  It grew
eerie as the night closed in, and we heard only the roar of
the wind above us, the leafless branches clacking against
one another like the bones of dead men.

It was not my place to ask whither we were going, but
it may be believed that I was anxious enough to learn.
By-and-by we struck into the moorland road which climbs over
the Red Moss in the direction of the hill that is called Brown
Carrick.  The snow darkness settled down, and, but that
once I had been friendly with a lass who lived in that
direction, and so was accustomed to night travel in these
parts, I should scarce have known whither we were going.

But I understood that it could only be to the lonesome
Inn of the Red Moss, kept by Black Peter, that Culzean
was making his way.  As we began to climb the moor, Sir
Thomas motioned me with his hand to ride abreast of him,
and to make ready my weapons, which I was not loth to do,
for I am no nidderling to be afraid of powder.  When at
last we came to the Inn of the Red Moss, there were lights
shining in the windows, and looking out ruddy and lowering
under the thatch of the eaves.  It was ever an uncanny spot,
and so it was more than ever now.

But for all that the Red Moss was populous as a bees'
byke that night, for men and horses seemed fairly to swarm
about it.  Yet there was no jovial crying or greeting between
man and man, such as one may hear any market day upon
the plainstones of Ayr.

The men who were meeting thus by dark of night, were
mostly men of position come together upon a dangerous and
unwholesome ploy.  As soon as I saw the quality of the
gentlemen who were, assembled, I knew that we had come
to a gathering of the heads of the Cassillis faction.  Nor
was it long before I saw my lord himself, a tall, well-set
young man, inclining to stoutness, and of a fair complexion
with closely-cut flaxen hair.

The Laird of Culzean, my master, lighted down and took
the Earl by the hand, asking in his kindly way,—

'Is it well with you, John?'

For in his minority he had been his tutor and governor,
and in after years had agreed well with him, which is not
so common.

'Ay, well with me,' replied the Earl, 'but it is that
dotard fool, Kelwood, who has gotten the chest of gold
and jewels, which in my father's time was stolen from
the house of Cassillis by Archibald Bannatyne, who was my
father's man.  He died in my father's hands, who was not a
cat to draw a straw before.  Nevertheless, even in the Black
Vault of Dunure he could not be brought to reveal where he
had hidden the chest.  But now Kelwood, or another for
him, has gotten it from Archie's widow, a poor woman that
knew not its worth.'

'But Kelwood will deliver it, John.  Is he not your
man?  Trouble not any more about the matter,' counselled
the Tutor, who was ever for the milder opinion, and very
notably wise as well as slow in judgment.

'Nay,' said the Earl, 'deliver it he will not, for Bargany
and Auchendrayne have gotten his ear, and he has set his
mansion house in defence against us.  I have called you
here, Tutor, for your good advice.  Shall we levy our men
and beset Kelwood, or how shall we proceed that I may
recover that which is most justly mine own?'

For it was ever the bitterest draught to the Earl to lose
siller or gear.  The Tutor stood for a moment by his
beast's neck, holding his head a little to one side in a way
he had when he was considering anything—a trick which
his daughter Nell has also.

'How many are ye here?' he said to the Earl.

'We are fifteen,' the Earl replied.

'All gentlemen?' again asked the Tutor.

'All cadets of mine own house, and ready to fight to the
death for the blue and gold!' replied the Earl, giving a cock
to the bonnet, in the side of which he had the lilies of
France upon a rosette of blue velvet, which (at that time)
was the Cassillis badge of war.

As the Earl spoke, I, who stood a little behind with my
finger on the cock of my pistol, saw my lord raise a
questioning eyebrow at me, as if to ask his uncle who the
young squire might be whom he had brought with him.

'He is the son of John Kennedy of Kirrieoch, and with
us to the death,' said my master.

For which most just speech I thanked him in my heart.

'The name is a good one,' said the Earl, with a little
quaintish smile.  And well might he say so, for it was his
own, and my father of as good blood as he, albeit of a
younger branch.

Presently we were riding forth again, seventeen men in
our company, for the Earl had not counted the Tutor and
myself in his numeration.  We rode clattering and careless
over the moors, by unfrequented tracks or no track at all.
As we went I could hear them talking ever about the
treasure of Kelwood, and, in especial, I heard a strange,
daftlike old man, whom they called Sir Thomas Tode,
tell of the Black Vault of Dunure, and how lands and gear
were gathered by the tortures there.  His tales and his
manners were so strange and unseemly, that I vowed
before long to take an opportunity to hear him more fully.
But now there was much else to do.

Betimes we came to the tower of Kelwood and saw
only the black mass of it stand up against the sky, with
not a peep of light anywhere.  Now, as you may judge,
we went cannily, and as far as might be we kept over the
soft ground.  The Tutor bade us cast a compass about
the house, so that we might make ourselves masters of the
fields, and thus be sure that no enemy was lying there in wait
for us.  But we encompassed the place and found nothing
alive, save some lean swine that ran snorting forth from a
shelter where they had thought to pass the night.

Then I and the young Laird of Gremmat, being the
best armed and most active there, were sent forward to spy
out the securest way of taking the tower.  I liked the job
well enough, for I never was greatly feared of danger all my
days; and at any rate there is small chance of distinction
sitting one's horse in the midst of twenty others in an open
field.

So Gremmat and I went about the house and about,
which was not a castle with towers and trenches, like
Dunure or Culzean, but only a petty blockhouse.  And I
laughed within myself to think of such a bees' byke having
the mighty assurance to dream of keeping a treasure against
my Lord Cassillis, as well as against the Tutor of that ilk
and me, his squire.

There was no drawbridge nor yet so much as a ditch
about Kelwood Tower, but only a little yett-house with an
open pend or passage, that gave against the main wall of the
building.  Within this passage, could we gain it, I knew that
we should be well protected, and have time to burst in the
wall, even if the door withstood us.  For once within the
archway, I could not see how it was possible for those in the
house to reach us, in any way to do us harm.

Gremmat and I therefore went back to our company with
the news, but the best of it—the part concerning the
yett-house—I kept to myself.  For the Laird of Gremmat, though
a tough fighter, was not a man of penetration, so that
I well deserved the credit of telling what I alone had seen.

When I told the chiefs of my discovery, my Lord of
Cassillis said nothing but turned abruptly to the Tutor,
thinking nothing of my tidings or of the danger I had been in to
bring them.  Nevertheless Sir Thomas, my master, turned
first to me, as was his kindly custom.

'It is well done of you, Launcelot.  The sheep herding
on Kirrieoch has given you an eye for other things,' he
said.

And at that I think the Earl gave me a little more
consideration, though all that he said was no more than, 'Well,
Tutor, and what do you advise?'

'I think,' said the Tutor, 'that you and the younger men
had best take Launcelot's advice, and conceal yourselves in
the pend of the yett-house, with picks and, perhaps, a mickle
tree for a battering-ram, while I and a trumpeter lad summon
Kelwood himself to surrender.  In that clump of trees over
there we shall be out of reach of their matchlocks.'

So the Earl took the advice, and in a little we were in the
black trough of the pend, with an iron-bolted door in front
and the rough, unhewn stones of the wall on either side of us.

Then the Tutor's trumpet blew one rousing blast and then
another, till we could hear the stir of men roused out of their
sleep in the tower above us.  But we ourselves held our
breaths and keeped very quiet.

Once more the trumpet blew from the clump of oak trees
over against the main gate.

'Who may ye be that blaws horns in the Kelwood without
asking leave of me?' cried a voice from the narrow window
in the wall above us.

And my master, Sir Thomas, answered him from the
coppice,—

'It is I, Kennedy of Culzean, that come from your liege
lord to demand the treasure that is his, stolen from his
house by his false servant and now reset by you, Laird Currie
of Kelwood.'

The Laird laughed contumeliously from his turret window.

'An' the Earl wants his treasure, let him come and fetch
it,' said he.

At which answer it was all that we could do to keep the
Earl quiet.  He was for setting the squared tree to the door
at once.

'Kelwood,' again we heard the voice of Sir Thomas,
'I ken well who has deceived you in this matter.  Listen
to no glosing words.  No man can strive with the
Kennedy and prosper in all these lands 'twixt Clyde and
Solway.'

'Which Kennedy?' cried Kelwood, from his window,
fleeringly.  And this set the Earl more bitterly against him
than ever, for it was as much as to say that the Bargany
Kennedies were equal in power and place to his own house
of Cassillis.

'Lift the trees and to it!' he cried, and with that, being
a strong man of his own body, he garred a great
fore-hammer dirl against the iron of the door.  And though he
had many faults, this forwardness should be minded to him
for good.  Then there was a noise indeed, coulters and
fore-hammers dinging merrily against the door, while from aloft
came shouts and the rolling of heavy stones down about us;
but by my strategy there was not one came near to hurting
us.  The defenders might have been so many sparrows
fyling the roof, for all the harm they did to us.  But
nevertheless, they banged away their powder and shouted.  We
that were with the Earl shouted none, but kept dourly to
our work.  Stark and strong was the bolted door of
Kelwood, and all the might of our men could do it no injury,
nor so much as shake the hinges.  It must have been the
work of a deacon among the hammermen.

But I felt that we were against the wall of the kitchen,
for one side of the passage was warm, on my right hand, and
the other clammy and cold.  So I cried on them, to leave
the door and pull down the stones of the jamb on my
right.  Then since I had given them good advice before,
and they knew that I was of the household of the wise man
of Culzean, they were the more ready to take the counsel,
though they thanked me not a word, but only lifted the
tree and drave at it.

'Make first a hole with the crowbars,' said I.  'Pull
down the stones; they are set without lime under the
harling.'

So they did it, and we found the first part of the wall
as I had said, not difficult of conquest; but the inner, being
cemented with shell lime, was like adamant.  Therefore,
with a shout, we set the tree to it, swinging it in our hands.
After many attempts we sent the butt of it crushing
through, and then, before the enemy could come to the
threatened place, we had made a hole large enough for a
man to enter on his hands and knees.  I was leaping
forward to be first within, but Gremmat got in front of
me and crawled through.  Whereat the Laird of Kelwood
himself came at him with his gun, and shot Gremmat in
the kernel of the thigh, so that he dropped in a heap on
the floor, and was ever thereafter unable of his legs.  But
I that came second (and right glad was I then that I had
not been first) rose and set my point at Kelwood, for he
was tangled up with the reeking musket.  I had him
pierced before ever he had time to draw, and was set in
defence for the next that might come, when the Earl and
the other gentlemen came rushing past us both, and
completely invaded the place of Kelwood, so that all within it
immediately surrendered.

Then the Earl was like a man gone mad to find the
chest, and questioned the Laird, who, as was somewhat
natural, could do nothing but groan on the floor, with
my sword-thrust through his shoulder.  But in a little
they found the box in a cunning wall-press under his bed,
where it could not be reached except by moving the whole
couch from its place and sliding a panel back—which being
done, the secret cavity was made plain.

It had been a harder task to transport young Gremmat
back with us than it was to take the treasure—which was
in a small enough compass, though heavy beyond belief.  But
after going a mile or two we left the young wildcap at
the house of a good and safe man, who made himself bound
to the Earl for his safe keeping till he should be whole of
his wound.





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.. _`THE THROWING OF THE BLOODY DAGGER`:

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   CHAPTER V


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   THE THROWING OF THE BLOODY DAGGER

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Indeed it had been no likeable job to deny Cassillis that
night.  For with the fighting, the treasure, and the
reproaches of Kelwood, whom he could hardly be kept from
finishing with his own hand, his spirit was apt for wars and
stratagems—all the more that he himself had as yet had little
experience of blows or the smart of wounds.  Kelwood we
left with those of his dependents that had been in the tower
with him.  His wound proved not so serious as it might have
been, and in a month he was safe with the Laird of
Kerse—which thing occasioned a most bitter quarrel between
Cassillis and the Craufords, as indeed hereafter ye shall hear.

It was already greying for the dawn when we reached
the House on the Red Moss.  Black Peter was at the door,
and within the kitchen a large fire was blazing, which,
because the night was chill and the sweat of fighting hardly
yet well dried on us, we were right glad to see.  We laid
down the chest in a little trance at the back of the kitchen,
setting it upon an oatmeal ark which stood there.

Black Peter went out to hold our horses while we talked
together, and left his daughter, a well-favoured lass of about
my own years or thereby, to wait upon us.  So meeting
the lass in the dusk of the trance, on pretext of seeing that
the treasure was safe, I took occasion of a kiss of her—not
that I liked it over much, or that her favours were precious,
but because such like is held a soldier's privilege at an inn,
and no more to be disregarded than the reckoning—indeed,
somewhat less.

But the wench dang me soundly on the ear for it, so that
my head echoed again.  Yet I liked her better for that,
because it made the adventure something worth attempting.
'Go,' she cried, 'grow your beard before ye set up to
kiss women.  I would as soon kiss the back of my hand as
a man wanting the beard to his face.'

Thus she gave me also the woman's buffet of the tongue,
and I could have answered her, and well, too, but that I saw
behind me my Lord Cassillis himself, and right heartily he
was laughing—which, I do admit, disconcerted me no little,
and brought me to silence.

'Ah, lad,' he said, 'have ye not learned from your
experience of this night that women are just like castles?  Ye
must reconnoitre them circumspectly before ye can hope to
take them by direct assault.'

He went by, giving me a clap on the shoulder, as one
that had sympathy both with the winning of castles and
of women.  And I think he liked me none the worse for
it in the long run.  But I hoped that he would not make
a jest of it nor tell the Tutor of the matter.  For my
master, Sir Thomas of Culzean, being a grave man and
reverend, was not apt to look upon the follies of youth
with so kindly and comprehending an eye.

Within the kitchen of the Inn of the Red Moss there was
routh of liquor, and all the Cassillis faction were gathered
there, quaffing and pledging one another.  They were
flushed with their success, and several were even keen for
assaulting some of the Bargany strongholds at once.

But the Tutor cautioned them.

'Mind what ye do.  Young Bargany is as a lion compared
to that braying ass we left groaning behind us at
Kelwood; and John Muir of Auchendrayne has at once
the wisest head and the evilest heart in all this broad
Scotland.  Be patient and abide.  We have gotten the
treasure.  Let us be content and wait.'

'Ay, and by waiting give them the next score in the
game!' said the young Earl, scornfully—for he, too, was hot
with success.

So they stood about the kitchen with drinking-cups of
horn in their hands, while the Earl unfolded a plan of the
great house of Bargany, and began to explain how it might
be taken.

'But,' he said, 'we must wait till, by some overt and
considered act of war, Bargany gives me the chance to execute
justice within my Balliary of Carrick, as is my legal right.
Then swiftly we shall strike, before that Bargany can reach
us with the sword, or John Muir of Auchendrayne foil us
by getting at the King with his fox's cunning.'

Hardly were the words out of his mouth when a silence
fell upon us.  The Earl ceased speaking and inclined his
head as though, like the rest of us, he were harkening eagerly
for the repeating of a sound.

Then we who listened with him heard something that
was like the clattering of horses' feet at a gallop, which
came nearer and nearer.  There arose a cry from the front
of the house—that wild, shrill scream, the unmistakable
parting cry of a man stricken to death with steel.  Then broke
forth about the Inn of the Red Moss, the rush of many
horses snorting with fear and fleeing every way, the while
we, that were in the house, stood as it had been carved in
stone, so swift and unexpected was this thing.

The Earl remained by the table in the centre, with his
hand yet on the plan of the house of his enemy.  Sir
Thomas was still bending down to look, when all suddenly
the glass of the window crashed and a missile came flashing
through, thrown by a strong man's hand.  It fell with
a ring of iron across the paper that was outspread on the
table.  It was a dagger heavily hiked with silver.  But
what thrilled us all with fear was, that the blade of it was
red nearly to the hilt, and distilled fresh-dripping blood
upon the chart.

Then was heard from without something that sounded like
a man laughing—but as of a man that had been longtime in
hell—and again there came the galloping of a single horse's feet.
The first in all in the house to run to the door was no
other than the young lass I had tried to kiss.  She flung
the door open and ran to a dark, huddled thing, which
lay across the paving stones of the little causeway in front
of the inn.

'My father—oh, they have slain my father!' she cried.

We that were within also rushed out by the front door,
forgetting all else, and filled with dread of what we might see.

The dawn was coming red from the east, and there, in
the first flush of it, lay Black Peter, plain to be seen, a dark
tide sluggishly welling from his side, and his young daughter
trying pitifully to staunch it with the bit laced napkin
wherewith she had bound her hair to make her pleasant in the
men's eyes.

When Peter of the Red Moss saw the Earl, he tried
to raise himself upon his elbow from the ground.  One
feeble hand went waveringly to his head as if to remove
his bonnet in the presence of his chief.

Cassillis sank on his knees beside him and took the hand.
There was a fragment of a leather rein still clasped in it,
cut across with a clean, slicing cut.

'Peter, Peter, poor man, who has done this to you?'
he asked.

The man that was about to die turned his eyes this
way and that.

'My lord, my lord,' he said, struggling with the choking
blood that rose in his throat, 'it was—it was—the grey
man—!'

And the Earl listened for more with his ear down to
Peter's mouth, but the spirit of the man who had died for
his master ebbed dumbly away without another word.  So
there was nothing left for us to do but to carry him in,
and this we did in the young sunshine of a pleasant
morning.  And the maid washed and streeked him, moaning
and crooning over him piteously, as a dove does that
wanteth company.

I went, as it happed, into the trance to fetch her a
basin of clear water.  The top of the meal-ark stood empty!

'My lord—the chest!' I cried, and all save the maid
alone rushed in.  The treasure of Kelwood was gone!
Without the door, on the trampled clay and mud, there
were the steads of naked feet many and small.  But of
the treasure-chest for which we had ventured so much
that night, we saw neither hilt nor hair, clasp nor band.

Only in the kitchen of the house on the Red Moss
there was a dead man, and a maid mourning over him;
on the table a dagger, red to the guard, and from it fell
slowly the drip of a man's life blood, blotting out with a bitter
scorn the plans of our wisest and the enmity of our proudest.





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.. _`THE CROWN OF THE CAUSEWAY`:

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   CHAPTER VI


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   THE CROWN OF THE CAUSEWAY

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I rode forth from Edinburgh town with infinite glee and
assurance of spirit.  No longer could I be slighted as a boy,
for that day I, even I, Launcelot Kennedy, had been put to
the horn—that is, I had been proclaimed rebel and outlaw
at the Cross of Edinburgh with three blasts of the king's
horn, 'Against John, Earl of Cassillis, Sir Thomas of
Culzean, called the Tutor of Cassillis, and Launcelot
Kennedy, his esquire!'  So had run the proclamation.
I wondered what that unkempt, ill-tongued lassie, Nell
Kennedy, would say to this.  But the honour itself even
she could not gainsay.

It is true that there were others forfaulted as well as I—the
Earl himself that was a sitter in the King's council board,
Sir Thomas, my master, and, indeed, all that had any hand
in the great contest in the High Street of Edinburgh.  How
close had every leal burgess kept within doors that day and
how briskly screamed for the watch!  How the town
guards sequestered themselves safe behind bars, and were
very quiet, for there was hardly a man to be seen from the
castle to Holyrood-House that was not a Kennedy, and
trying to kill some other Kennedy—as indeed is ever the
way with our name and clan.

We of Cassillis had ridden hot foot to Edinburgh to
denounce the Bargany faction to the king, in the matter of
the treasure and the killing of Black Peter.  Not that we
knew for certain that it was Bargany who had any hand in
the murder and reiving.  But it was necessary to make a
bold face for it, and, at all events, we knew that the thing
had been done in Bargany's interests.  So we went, all
prepared to declare that the active criminal was Bargany's
brother, Thomas of Drummurchie, a bold and desperate
villain, who had been outlawed for years for many a crime
besides murder in all its degrees.  Also we hoped that if
the king were in a good humour towards us of Cassillis,
who were always the men of loyalty and peace, he might
even attaint Bargany himself.  So that our Earl, being the
Bailzie or chief ruler of Carrick under the King, might get
his will of his house foe, and thus put an end to the quarrel.
For there was no other hope of peace, save that our enemies
should be laid waste.

But we found King James in aught but a yielding mood.
The ministers of Edinburgh, and in especial one, Mr Robert
Bruce, a man of very great note, and once a prime favourite
with the king, had been setting themselves against his will.
So at first we got little satisfaction, and it did not help
matters that, on the second day of our visit, the Bargany
Kennedies and Mures rode into the town in force—all
sturdy men from the landward parts of Carrick, while
we were mostly slighter and limberer lads, from the side
of it that looks towards the sea.

The next day, as I went down the Canongate with the
gold lilies of Cassillis on my cocked bonnet, I declare that
nearly every third man I met was a Bargany lout, swaggering
with his silly favour of red and white in his cap.  But, for
all that, I ruffled it right bravely in despite of them all, letting
no man cock his feather at me.  For I had a way, which I
found exceedingly irritating to them, of turning the skirt or
my blue French cloak over my shoulder when I met one of
the other faction, as if I feared defilement from the contact
of their very garments.  This I did with all of the
underlings—aye, even with Mure of Cloncaird.  Indeed, I had
already had my long sword three times out of its sheath by
the time I got to the guard-house at Holyrood.

It was just there that I met young Bargany himself,
coming direct, from the King's presence.  But I practised
my pleasantry not with him.  For a more kingly-looking
man did I never see—far beyond our Earl (shame be to me
for saying such a thing!), and, indeed, before any man that
ever I saw.  But Gilbert Kennedy of Bargany was the
bravest man that was to be gotten in any land, as all men
that saw him in his flower do to this day admit.  And
hearts were like water before him.

He was of his stature tall and well-made, with a complexion
black but comely, noble on horseback, and a master
both of arms and at all pastimes.  And when I beheld him,
it came upon me to salute him—which, though I had small
intention thereof till I saw him, I did.  It was with some
surprise, perceiving, no doubt, the Earl's colours, that he
returned my greeting, and that very graciously.  The
moment after I looked about me, and right glad I was to
observe that none of our folk had been in the place before
the palace to observe my salutation.

After this we of Cassillis went in parties of three or
four, and our swords were in our hands all the day, in spite
of the watch—ay, in spite even of the King's Guard, which
His Majesty had sent to keep the peace, when he himself
had gone off to Linlithgow in the sulks, as at this time was
oft his silly wont.

For me, I went chiefly with Sir Thomas, my master, as
was my duty; but being allowed to choose my companion,
I chose Muckle Hugh from Kirriemore, which marches with
mine own home of Kirrieoch on Minnochside.  Hugh was
the strongest man in all Carrick, and had joined the
command chiefly for the love of me—because he had once
herded sheep for us, and my mother had been kind to him
and given him new milk instead of skim for his porridge.

And I warrant you when the two of us took the crown
of the causeway, we stepped aside for no man, not even for
Bargany and his brother Drummurchie had we seen them
(which by good luck we never did).  But others we saw in
plenty.  It was 'Bargany thieves!' 'Cassillis cairds!' as
we cried one to the other across the street.  And the next
moment there we were, ruffling and strutting like gamecocks,
foot-to-foot in the midst of the causeway, neither
willing to give way.  Then 'Give them iron!' would be
the cry; and in a clapping of hands there would be as pretty
a fight as one might wish to see—till, behold, in a gliff,
there on the cobble stones was a man stretched, and all
workmanly completed from beginning to end, while the
clock of St Giles' was jangling the hour of noon.

For the matter of the killing of Black Peter, and the way
that lassie his daughter held his head as she washed him,
abode with us, and made our hearts hot against the Barganies.
That is, the hearts of the younger of us.  For I wot well
that the elders thought more of the lost box of treasure, than
of many men's lives far more famous and necessary than
that of poor Black Peter, who died in his duty at the house
door of the Red Moss—and that is not at all an ill death
to die.

But there came a day when the ill blood drew to a head.
It was bound to come, because for weeks the two factions of
us Kennedies had been itching to fly at each other's throats.
The Barganies mostly lodged together in the lower parts of
the town beneath the Nether Bow, in order to keep us away
from the King when he was at Holyrood House, and also
to be near the haunts of those loose characters of the baser
sort with whom, as was natural, they chiefly consorted.

We, on our part, dwelled in the upper portion of the town,
in the well-aired Lawnmarket and in the fashionable closes
about the Bow-head.  For none of us, so far as I knew, desired
to mix or to mell with loose company—save, an' it might be,
the Earl himself.  That being 'the custom and privilege of
the nobility,' as Morton said to his leman, when he wished
to change her for another.

Now, we had among us of our company one Patrick
Wishart, an indweller in Irvine and a good fighter.  He was
an Edinburgh man born, and knew all the town—every lane
and street, every bend and bow, every close and pend and
turning in it.  He also knew that which was even more
valuable, where the King's Guard were, and how to shut
them up till we had done our needs upon our foes.  He was
well advised besides where each of the leaders among the
Barganies dwelt.

On the day appointed the Earl gave us all a meeting-place
by the back of Saint Giles' High Kirk, beneath the wall of
the Tolbooth.  And there we mustered at ten of the clock
one gay morning.  It was a windy day, and, spite of the sun,
the airs blew shrewdly from the eastern sea, as is their use and
wont all the year in the High Street of Edinburgh.

Now our young Earl had ever plenty of siller though
afterward he parted with it but seldom.  Yet for the furtherance
of his cause he had spent it lavishly during these days
in Edinburgh, so that all the common orders in our upper
part of the town held him to be the greatest man and the
best that ever lived.  And as for the vices he showed, they
were easy, popular ones, such as common folk readily excuse
and even approve in the great—as women, wine, and such-like.

So as we swung down the street all the windows of the
armourers' shops in the booths about the Kirk of Saint Giles'
were opened, and as many as desired it were supplied with
spears and pikes and long-handled Highland axes, each with
a grappling hook at the back, such-like as had brought many
a good knight down at the Red Harlaw.

And these were afterwards a great advantage to us,
for though we were much fewer in numbers, yet we had
longer weapons of assault and also the upper side of the
street to fight from.

Then we sallied forth crying, 'A Kennedy!'  And
the streets were lined to see us go by, many a douce
burgher's wife, knowing our good intentions and our not
companying with the riotous troublers of the town, but
rather, when we could compass it, with honest, sonsy
women, giving us her blessing from an upper window.

Patrick Wishart advised that we should stop up all the
alleys and closes as far down as the Blackfriar's Wynd with
barracadoes of carts, barrels, and puncheons, to prevent the
enemy sallying forth upon us from behind.  It was a good
thought, and but for a foe without, whom we knew not how
to reckon with, it had been completely successful.  Down
by the Nether Bow, where the street narrows, was the place
where we first saw the misleared Bargany faction drawn across
the street to resist us and contemn the King's authority.

When we observed them we gave a mighty shout and
heaved our weapons into the air, that they might see the
excellence of our arming.  They sent a shout back again,
and I saw in front of their array Bargany himself with a
casque on his head, the sun glinting the while on a steel
cuirass which covered him back and front.  Then I gave
the word to blow up the matches; for by this time I was well
kenned for a good soldier and proper marksman, and had by
my lord himself been put over the hackbuttmen, which was
a great honour for one so young.  Thus we advanced to
the onset.  But first my Lord of Cassillis, going to the front,
cried to Kennedy of Bargany to know why he withstood
him in the highway of the King's principal town.

'Because ye have lied concerning me to the King.  Because
ye have slain my men, hated my race, and sought to
bring me to my death!' answered back young Bargany in
a clear, high voice.

'Ye lie, man!  Have at you with the sword!' cried
our Earl, who was never a great man with his tongue,
though sometimes masterful enough with his hands.

So with that I gave the order, and our hackbuttmen shot
off their pieces, so that more than one of the wearers of the
red and white fell headlong.

'A Kennedy!  A Kennedy!' cried the Earl.  'To it,
my lads!'

And in a moment we were on them.  By instinct we
had dropped our matchlocks and taken to the steel, so that
the first thing that I knew, I was at Thomas of
Drummurchie's throat with my borrowed pike.  He roared an
oath, and leaping to the side, he struck the shaft with his
two-handed sword, which shore the point off near to my
upper grip.  And there is little doubt but that I had been
spent ere I could have drawn my sword, had not Muckle
Hugh of Kirriemore brought his broadsword down upon
the steel cap of the Wolf of Drummurchie, so that with the
mighty blow he was beaten to the ground, and, being
senseless, men trampled upon him as the battle swayed to
and fro.  Yet I have never forgotten that, but for Hugh,
I was that day almost sped, which should have been a
lesson to me not to trust to a weapon of which I had no
skill, even though it might be an ell longer in the haft
than my sword.  Also I was thankful to God.

'A Kennedy! a Kennedy!' cried we.  'We are
driving them.  They give back!'

For we felt the downward push upon the hillslope, and
that gave us courage.

And the crying of 'Bargany' was almost silenced, for
now the wearers of the butcher's colours had enough to do
to keep steeks with us, with their faces braced to the brae,
and so needed all their breath.

By this time I had my arm cleared and my sword out,
and, certes, but the fray was brisk.  Now, when it is hand to
hand I fear no man.  Once I had a chance of paying my
score in the matter of Drummurchie, for as I passed over
him he cut upwards at me with a knife.  But I spared only
long enough from the man I was engaging at the time
(who indeed was no swordsman or I dared not have done it)
to slash the Wolf across the wrist, which, I am given to
believe, has troubled his sword-hand all his life—and for no
more than this he has borne me a grudge unto this day, so
malicious and revengeful are some men.

Thus we drove the Bargany faction into the Canongate
in spite of the swordsmanship of their chief, who fought
ever in the forefront.  It was, indeed, all over with them,
when suddenly, from behind us, there came rushing a
rabblement of men with weapons in their hands, all crying
'Bargany!'  Able-bodied scoundrels with long hair and
pallid faces they were, and they laid about them with
desperate vigour.  Now, it is no wonder that this was a
terrible surprise to us, and, hearing their cry, the broken
Bargany folk down the streets and closes took heart of grace
to have at us again.  We were not discouraged, but part of
us faced about, so as to fight with our backs set one, to the
other.  Nevertheless, I saw at once that unless some help
came we were overpowered.

'Into the lanes!' I cried, though, indeed, I had no right
to give an order, but, in the pinch of necessity, it is he
who sees that should lead.

So into one of the narrow lanes which led to the ford
and down by the stepping-stones across the Nor' Loch
we ran, but not in the way of a rout.  Rather we retreated
orderly and slow—withdrawing, grieved at heart to think
that we had to leave so many of our sick and wounded
behind us.  Yet, because of the love they bore us as
peaceable men, we knew that the town's dames would
succour them—also lest we should be bloodily revenged
on their husbands when we came back, if they did not.

At the edge of the Nor' Loch, six or seven of us made
a rally, and having wounded and captured one of the long-haired
desperadoes whose assault had turned the tables against
Cassillis, we brought him with us, thinking that my Lord
might wish to question him with the pilniewinks.

Now not many of the Bargany faction pursued; some
because they knew not whither we were gone, some because
both their chief and the Wolf of Drummurchie were
hurt, and others again because the rabble which had fallen
on our rear, not knowing one party from another, had
turned their weapons upon their friends.

Nevertheless, it was a patent fact that we good men of
Cassillis had been baffled and put to shame by the thieves of
Bargany in the open High Street of Edinburgh.  It has not
happened to many to be victorious and pursuing, and again
broken and defeated, all within the space of half-an-hour.

When we were safe from pursuit on the other side of
the Nor' Loch, we questioned the varlet whom I and others
had captured, as to what was his quarrel against us.

'Nothing,' he said.  'I and the others were lying in
the Tolbooth, when suddenly the gates were opened, and
there stood one at the door, clad in grey, who gave a sword
or a pike to each man, as well as a piece of gold, telling us
that there were other ten of the same awaiting each good
striker who should fall on and fight those whom he would
show us.'

'What like was this man?' said Sir Thomas, my master.

'An ordinary man enough,' said the fellow; 'grey of
head and also clad in grey, but with armour that rattled
beneath his clothes.

Then we looked at one another, and remembered the
dying words of Black Peter—'It was—it was—the Grey
Man—!'

Once more such a man had crossed the luck of
Cassillis.  By what golden key he had bribed the warders
and opened His Majesty's Tolbooth, we knew not; but
assuredly he had clean beaten us from the field.

Nevertheless, I was much cheered to hear on the next
day that the name of Launcelot Kennedy, called 'of
Kirrieoch, or Launcelot of the Spurs,' was among those
that were 'put to the horn,' or in plain words declared
rebel and outlaw at the Cross of Edinburgh.

For I knew that Nell Kennedy would never flout me
more.  Even fair Marjorie would, perhaps, not disdain
speech with me now, and might perchance let me walk
by her side in the garden some summer evening.





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.. _`MY LADY'S FAVOURS`:

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   CHAPTER VII


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   MY LADY'S FAVOURS

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It was as I had foretold.  Those that had flouted me for a
beardless boy, now scorned me no more.  I mean chiefly
Nell Kennedy.  Indeed, for some days it was as much as
I would do even to speak to her.  She would make shift
oftentimes to pass me in the pleasaunces of the house of
Culzean, when I walked abroad in the sunshine with my
hand on my sword—as was my duty—to receive her father's
guests.  For there was a great repair of people to our castle
ever since the outlawing, the cause of which was considered
most fortunate and honourable to all concerned.

Nell Kennedy, as I say, would often pass me in the orchard
or in the Italian garden, which her father had made with
great expense.  And as she went by, she would kick with
her foot a stone in front of me.  But of this I took no heed
whatever, no more than if I had not seen it.  Because, for
my own part, I was resolved never to think of maids and
such light matters again, but rather to concern myself solely
with glory, as became one who at eighteen had been outlawed
for rebellion and other deeds of military prowess.

Once it happened that we were all in the garden—Marjorie,
the loons James and Alexander Kennedy, and little
David, Sir Thomas's youngest son.  Also Nell Kennedy was
there.  Sir Thomas himself was walking to and fro at the
garden's end, all by his lone, with his hands clasped behind
his back, as was his custom.

Then Nell, who, being angry, desired above all else to put
a slight upon me, called me to come to her, speaking roughly
as though I had been a servitor, and bade me take a
misbehaving puppy dog of hers within doors.

But I was equal with her, and beckoned to me Sandy, her
brother, who played about on the grass plots.

'Who may this little girl be that hath the messan dog with
her?' I asked of him.

'Thou art a great blind colt-head not to know my sister
Nell!' he answered, and ran again to his play with his brothers.

'Ah,' said I, looking over the heads of those that stood near
by, 'now I do remember to have seen the little maid
playing with her dolls before I went to the wars!'

And with that I marched off, and walked to and fro on
the terrace near to my master.  Presently he came and
walked with me, as I had hoped he would, in sight of Nell
and of them all, speaking low and kindly the while.  And I
listened as though it were an affair of State and policy he had
been confiding to my private ear, though indeed it was only
concerning our greatly increased expenses with the vast
number of guests who came to see him, and his fear that
the buttery might be running low.

When Nell Kennedy had betaken herself away in an access
of anger and despite, I made my bow to Sir Thomas, her father,
and went to the Italian pleasaunce once again.  Presently the
young Lady Marjorie came walking by, fairer of face than
the flower of the hawthorn hedge on a moonlight night, but
with hair tossed about her temples blacker than the sky on a
night of stars.  Her eyes were bright and large when she
turned them on me.

'Launcelot, come and walk with me awhile,' she said
kindly, 'unless you have something better to do—with your
arms and war gear as it may be,' she added.  And her way of
speaking thus of my calling as a soldier pleased me.  Also in
spite of my renunciation of all pleasure in women's society,
my heart gave a great stound at her marked favour.  Perhaps,
also, at the way she had in walking, which was with her head
high and her bosom set well forward in its openwork bodice
of fair linen, and all her sweet body swaying lightly to the
side as a willow wand that bends in the wind.

Her voice, the voice of Marjorie Kennedy, sounded like
the running of deep water in a linn under the dusk of trees,
with undercurrents of sobs and pitifulness in it, for all that
it was so proud.  For even thus, in her youth, walking as the
fairest maid the sun shone on, Marjorie seemed ever to be
'fey,' trysted to some lot beyond that of maids who are to be
good men's wives and mothers.

But enough of speaking about her and about.  Better
that I should tell what she said to me as we walked up and
down, while the young buds were cracking open that
gracious May gloaming.

'It was a good fight, I hear, and well fought,'she said.

'Which fight may it please you to speak of, my Lady
Marjorie?' said I, making as though I had been in many.

'The battle in the High Street of Edinburgh,' she made
answer, and methought smiled as she said it.  But there was
no bairnly scorn or raw coltish ignorance in Marjorie's smile,
as there mostly was in the face of her sister—who was nothing
but a child at any rate, and still wore her hair without a
snood, flying daft-like about her shoulders.

Then I told Marjorie Kennedy of all the fight, and she
listened with face turned away from me to the sea, looking
to the hills of Arran that were so blue in the distance,
so that for a space I thought she hearkened not to what I
said.

But in a little she interrupted me.  'And you speak thus
with admiration of Gilbert Kennedy of Bargany, he that is
an enemy to our house and name!  How say ye then that
such an one is noble and worthy?'

For I had been telling her of meeting him coming from
the king's palace.

'Ay, noble and generous is Gilbert Kennedy of Bargany,
as well as the handsomest man that walks, with a spring to
his feet as one that goes upon the deep twigs of the pine
trees in the woods.  He can twirl a lance in one hand on
horseback—for I myself have seen him—never was there
such a man!'

For I had given him all my heart and admiration, being
then young—or at least not very old in years—and I wished
with all my strength that such an one had been chief of our
side and Earl of Cassillis, instead of he that was.  Though
my lord is a good man also, and I deny it not.

Then it was that my Lady Marjorie showed me the
greatest favour that ever she showed to any man, and caused
my heart to beat high with love and hope.  For she took my
hand in hers, holding it to her side as she walked—ay, and
stroked and touched it gently with her other hand as we went
along, being hidden by the screen of the leaves in the
pleasaunce hedges.  Now this was so sweet to me and precious,
that I slept with my right hand in a glove of silk for many
days—ay, and even forbore to wash it.  For I bethought
me that though, as a man of war, I had forsworn the society
of silly girls, yet every true knight had a lady for his heart's
mistress, whose colours he might wear in his helmet, and whose
lightest word he might treasure in his heart.

Thus we two walked and talked, while the sun was
going down and the colours of a dove's breast crept over
the water from the west.

'And this Gilbert of Bargany—tell me of him—for,
being the great enemy of our house, I desire to hear more
of him,' she said.

So I told her, being nothing loth to speak of so brave
an enemy.

'Was he at all hurt in the combat, think you?' she
asked again, carelessly, as one that thinks of other things.

'Wounded?  No,' I replied, with a laugh; 'on the
contrary, he pursued us down to the ford of the Nor' Loch,
and defied us all to come back and have it out.  But I
think that not he but another, had a hand in the craven's
trick of letting loose on us the offscourings of the
prisons—Highland catherans and Border hedgethieves.'

'And who might that other be?' she asked.

'That,' I replied, with dignity, 'I am not at liberty to
tell.  It is yet a secret under trust.'

'Tell it me,' she said, bending her eyes on me, that
were beautiful as I know not what.

And this, indeed, I should very gladly have done at that
moment, but truly I knew nothing of the matter.  So I
made haste to answer that I would readily die for her, but
that it was a soldier's duty that he should keep the secrets
with which his honour had been entrusted.

'Then tell me what you can,' she said, so quietly that I
was ashamed of my subterfuge.  Though that is the way
that all wise men must talk to women, so as to keep the
peace, telling them (mostly) the truth, but seldom the
whole truth.

'It was,' said I, 'the Grey Man!'

'Ah,' she replied, quickly drawing away her hand, and
laying it upon her heart, 'the Grey Man!'

'What ken ye of the Grey Man?' I asked her, in
surprise.

'Nothing,' she said, giving me back her hand; 'I
know not why, but for the moment something came upon
me, and I felt as it had been a little faint.  It is nothing.
It has already passed.'

Then I wished to bring her a cup of wine from the
house.  But she laughed more merrily than ever I had
heard her, and tossed back the lace kerchief which confined
her hair, so that it lay about her white neck with the ends
dropping over her bosom.

'Let us two walk here yet a space, Launcelot,' she said,
'for it is lonely within the great house.'

A saying which made my heart swell with gladness and
pride, for she had never thus distinguished any man before, so
that I forgot all about my vows and about forswearing to
company with women.  But this was indeed very different.

'My Lady Marjorie,' I said (I much desired to say 'My
sweet lady' as they do in the stage plays, but dared not),
'My Lady Marjorie,' I said, 'I, even I, will be your true
knight, and fight for you against all, if so be that coming
home I may see the pleasure in your eyes.'

'Ah, will you truly?' she asked, and sighed.  Then she
was silent for a moment but drew not away her hand, which
I took of be a good omen.

'No, you must not—you must not.  It would not be
fair!' she said.

'I love you with all my heart!' I whispered, trying to
reach her hand; but somehow, though it was very near, I
could not again take it in mine.

She seemed not to hear me speak.

'Well,' she said at last, as if to herself, 'perhaps it will
be good for the lad.'

I could not conceive what she meant.

'Launcelot,' she continued, and her voice had music in
it such as I never heard in any kirk or quire, at matins or at
laud,—'Launcelot, do not think of me, I pray you—at
least, not if you can help it—'

'Help it I cannot,' answered I; 'it is far beyond that!'

And so I thought at the time.

'But, Launcelot, my sweet squire,' she said again, 'hast
thou already forgotten thy vow?  It is better for thee to be
a squire of arms than a squire of dames!  At least,' she
added, smiling, 'till you win your spurs.'

'I will win them for your sake, an you will let me,
Marjorie!' I cried.

'Win them, then, Launcelot,' she made me answer,
suddenly breaking from her reserve, 'win them for my
sake—and see, meantime you shall wear my colours.'

And she undid a brooch of gold whereon were the lilies
of France, that were the badge of her house, and setting it
on the velvet collar of my coat she gave a little dainty pat
to the place where she put it.

'It sets you well,' she said, pushing my hair to one side
to look at me; 'two such I have.  Wear you one and I shall
wear the other—for Marjorie Kennedy and the honour of
Culzean.'

It sounded like a sacred oath rather than the posy of
a love-gift: '*For Marjorie Kennedy and the honour of
Culzean*!'

Then most humbly would I have lifted her fingers to
my lips and kissed them, not daring more; but she put
her hand on my head, for she was tall (though not as tall
as I), and bent sweetly to me.

The blood of all my heart fled insurgent to my ears,
deafening me, as I also stooped toward her.

'No, not there,' she whispered, and kissed me gently on
the brow.

'My laddie,' she said, 'be brave, true, noble, and one day
you shall know root and branch what the love of woman is.'

And waving me not to follow her, she went in with her
head turned away from my sight.

So there for a great space I stood in the dusk of the
arbour, mazed and bewildered by the strange, undreamed-of
bliss—ennobled by the touch of her lips, ay, more than if
the King himself had laid his sword on my shoulder in the
way of accolade.

Then at last I moved and went in also, dragging
tardy-foot away from the sweet and memorable place.

At the garden gate I met Nell Kennedy, and made to
pass without seeing her.  But she stood in the middle of the
way.

'I know,' she said, pointing scornfully with her finger,
'Maidie has been talking to you behind the hedge.  She
has given you the French brooch she would not give me
yesterday, though she has another.'

Then I walked silently past her, with as great dignity
as I could command, for that is ever the best way with
forward children.

But she turned and cried after me, 'I know who will
get that other.'

A saying which did not trouble me, though I could not
quite forget it, for I knew well enough that it was only
Nell's spite, because her sister had not given her the golden
badge which she coveted.

High in my room in the White Tower I sat and looked
out to the sea.  There I sat all night, sleepless, till the sun
rose over the woods and the chilly tops of the waves glittered.
I bethought me on all that had happened, and I remembered
with shame many things in which I had done not wisely
especially in the matter of the Grieve's lass, and my
convoying of her home through the wood.  For now, with
Marjorie Kennedy's badge against my lips, all things had
become new; bitterly was I ashamed of my folly, and right
briskly did I repent of it.





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.. _`THE LAIRD OF AUCHENDRAYNE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VIII


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   THE LAIRD OF AUCHENDRAYNE

.. vspace:: 2

It is not to be supposed that the taking of the treasure of
Kelwood was permitted to pass without the Earl, a man
keener for red siller than any other man in Scotland, casting
about him for the reivers of the gear he had so confidently
counted his own.  His old grandmother of a Countess, whom,
though a young man, he had shamefully married for her
tocher and plenishing, flustered about the house of Cassillis
like a hen dancing on a hot girdle when she heard of the
loss.  It was but the other day that she had had to draw her
stocking-foot and pay down eight thousand merks, that her
man might be permitted to resign the office of High
Treasurer, lest all her gear would be wasted in making
loans to the King, who had great need of such.  And so
the further loss of this treasure sat wondrously heavy on
my Lady Cassillis, as indeed it did on her husband.

The Earl himself rode over to Culzean to hold council
concerning it with his uncle, the Tutor.  He cherished a
wonderful affection for Sir Thomas, considering, that is,
what a selfish man he was, and how bound up in his own
interests.

So after they had talked together a while, pacing up and
down in the garden (while I walked apart and pressed the
hard brooch-pin of Marjorie Kennedy's trysting favour to
my breast for comfort), they called me to them.

So with all respect and speed I went, and stood with my
bonnet off to hear their commands.  I thought that it was
some light matter of having the horses brought.  But when
I came the Earl was looking keenly at me, and even Sir
Thomas paused a little while before he spoke.

'Launcelot, you are a brave lad,' he said, 'and I know
that you desire to distinguish yourself even more than you
have done, though you have shown your mettle already.
Now my lord and I have a matter which it needs a man to
perform—one of address and daring.  I hear from all about
me that you are a ready man with your wits and your
tongue.  Will you bear my lord's cartel of defiance to his
enemy, David Crauford of Kerse?'

'Ay, my lords, that will I, and readily!' I replied,
knowing that my good fortune stood on tiptoe.

'I am not eager,' the Earl said, breaking in upon my
reply, 'for reasons which I have given to the Tutor, to send
one of my own folk.  I would rather accredit one more kin
to Culzean here, one who is a gentleman of good blood and
a brave Kennedy, such as I observed you to be on the day
of the tulzie in Edinburgh.'

'I will serve Cassillis till I die,' I replied, making him a
little bow—because I wished him to see that, though I was
of the moorland house, I had yet manners as good as he had
brought back with him from France.  Besides, I saw
Marjorie looking down upon us from the terrace, which
made me glance at my shadow as it lay clearly outlined
upon the gravel.

And I was glad to observe that the point of my cloak
fell with some grace over the scabbard of my sword.  Now
this was not vanity, God knows, but only a just desire to
appear point device in the presence of the heads of my clan
and of the lady of my heart—which is a thing very
different.  For of all things I am not vain, nor given, after
the manner of some, to talking greatly about my own
exploits.

'So,' said the Earl, 'you will go to David Crauford of
Kerse at his own house as my messenger.  You will not
give him a written but a spoken message.  And in token
that you come from us who have power to speak, you must
exhibit to him our signet rings, which we now entrust to
you to guard with your life.'

So, giving me the rings, which I put under my glove
upon the first finger of the left hand, he communicated to
me the cartel for the Laird of Kerse, which he made me
repeat carefully thrice over in their hearing.  Then he
dismissed me to go my way.

And as I went, I saw the lads roistering in the garden
with the young Sheriff of Wigton, who had married their
eldest sister when she was but a lassie.  And I smiled as I
thought within me, 'Had I been so born to lofty estate, I
might even have been playing at golf and pat-ball, instead
of riding on the errands of Cassillis and Culzean, with an
Earl's message in my mouth and an Earl's signet on my
finger.'

And I do not think that the pride was an unworthy one,
for since I had none to push my fortune for me, it was the
more necessary that I should be able to do it for myself.

I went to get my war-horse, for after the affair of
Edinburgh, Sir Thomas had given me 'Dom Nicholas,' a
black of mettle and power, well able to carry me even had
I been clad in full armour, instead of merely riding light as
I now meant to go, with only my sword and pistolets.

At the seaward corner of the White Tower, going by
the way of the stables, I met my Lady Marjorie, and my
heart gave a bound at the seeing of her.  She came
gravely forward to give me her hand.  Yet not to kiss,
as I knew by the downward weighting of it, and by her
taking it quickly again to herself.

'Whither go you, grave man of affairs?' she said,
smiling with pleasantry.

'I go with an Earl's cartel and defiance,' I replied,
telling her, perhaps, more than I ought.  But then she was my
lady.

Marjorie became very pale and set her hand on the stone
parapet of the sea wall where she stood.

'To Bargany?' she asked, breathlessly, for it was natural
she should think that the quarrel with the family had broken
out again.

'Not to Bargany,' I said, smiling to reassure her.  'I
cannot now tell you where, but it is out of Carrick that I
ride—Carrick for a man—Kyle for a cow.  I ride to the
land of sweet milk cheese!'

'God speed you, then,' she said.  'Take care of yourself—beware
of the dairymaids.  I have heard they are dangerous.'

'For your sweet sake,' cried I, waving my bonnet to her
as I ran down the path.

But before I went fairly out of sight I turned and looked
back, for, indeed, I could not help it.  And Marjorie was
still standing under the archway where I had left her, but
with so sad and lost a countenance that I had run back to
ask her what was her grief.  Then she seemed to awake,
kissed the tips of her fingers to me, and turning her about,
walked slowly within.

When I was fully arrayed, I rode past the front of the
house on pretext of knowing if my lords had any further
commands for me, but really that the maids might see me
upon Dom Nicholas in his fair caparison of beaten silver.
She whom I wished most to see I saw not indeed; but
there at the great gate, with a foolish spraying branch of
hawthorn in her hair, was Nell Kennedy, of whom during
these last days I had scarcely so much as thought.

And with her, to my burning shame and amaze, was
Kate Allison, the Grieve's daughter.  The two girls stood
with their arms about one another's waists, as maids that
are yet half bairns are wont to do.  But neither of them
looked at me.  Only when I made Dom Nicholas caracole
by, they turned disdainfully aside as though they were
avoiding the path of some poisonous toad or asp.  And so,
wholly without word, they passed down one of the leafy
avenues that beset the place of Culzean, which thing in a
moment rendered all my full, sweet cup empty and bitter.

At this I was much dashed and crestfallen, so that I had
no spirit in me.  For I was sure, by the attitude of the
maids, and their demeanour to me, that they had gotten to
the stage of the confiding of secrets.  And if that were so, I
had a good guess that it would be as well for me to avoid
the Grieve's house by the shore for some time to come.
Which thing, indeed, last evening's tryst with Marjorie had
made me resolve on before.  But it was not the matter of
Kate Allison's anger that troubled me; it was rather that
the clattering minx, Nell Kennedy, would certainly tell her
sister of my past boyish affairs with the pretty young lass,
and specially of our home-coming from the March fair so
late at night.

But the stir of going through the town of Maybole—the
lasses running to the doors to admire, the 'prentice lads
envying and hating me, so worked on me that, for a space,
I forgot the ill-fared memory of the two maids linking down
though the greenwood together.  Yet the thing came again
into my mind and stuck there, before I had o'ertaken half
the way to Dalrymple, by which I was behoved to go.

As I rode along I practised pulling at the wicks of my
upper lip, where I was persuaded that my moustache was
certainly beginning to grow apace.  For so I had seen the
soldiers of the King's Guard do in Edinburgh, and mightily
admired them at it.

The way went pleasantly by, there being many folk of
all degrees and qualities on the road.  And as many as saw
me come, stepped aside and stood respectfully at gaze, if
they were on foot; or courteously saluted me as an equal
if they were on horseback.  Both which things pleased
me well.

So I went on smiling to myself for the pleasantness of my
thoughts, in spite of the incident of the lasses.  Suddenly,
however, I came upon a horseman like myself, that rode down
a loaning from the muirside.  I saw no weapon that he had
about him, yet he was no mere landward minister or merchant,
by the sober richness of his habit.  He was dressed in fine
cloth of Flemish blue, with a plain edging of silk, but without
lace or any broidery.  His face, when I saw it, was pleasant,
and there was on it a smile that spoke of good cheer.  He
seemed to be tall of his person, and, from the manner in
which he reined his horse easily with his left hand, I knew
him to be strong.  A well-appearing, sober, conditionable
man of fifty I should have taken him to be, fit to be head of
a house or to sit at a king's council table.

But his occupation was the strange part of his sudden
appearing.  He was employed in reading a little book which
he held in his right hand, riding easily all the while with
his horse at a brisk walk—a thing which I never saw anyone
do before.  Then was I sure that he was a man of religion,
by his busying himself thus with his devotions.  At which
I was the better pleased, since religion is a thing I was ever
taught to reverence above all else, for that is the habit of
the moorland folk who get but little of it.  On the other
hand, they tell me that in Edinburgh, where there are as
many as seven ministers, the folk pay little heed to their
privileges; and are, as indeed I have seen, given over to
following all manner of wickedness and that with greediness.

As my fellow-traveller came down the loaning he looked
up, and seeing me, he wheeled his horse alongside of mine,
and very courteously gave me 'Good-day.'

Then, as well he might, he admired Dom Nicholas,
letting his eyes stray smilingly over my equipage.  Yet
even at that moment I marked that it was a set smile, and
methought that there was a busy brain behind it.

'You ride like a soldier that hath seen the wars, young
sir,' he said.

'Ah,' I replied, lifting my bonnet of steel as to an elder,
'but little enough of these, my Lord, for I am but a youth.'

'You will mend of that last, I warrant,' said my companion,
'and in the end more swiftly than you will care about.'

'You were busy with your book of devotion,' said I,
with respect, for I care not to force my conversation on
any man; 'let me not interrupt.'

'Nay,' he said, 'I fear I am no great churchman,
though for my servants' sake I have reading and worship
daily in my own house, and generally I may claim to be
very well affected toward the Almighty.'

'Are there no churches in your part of the country,' I
asked him, 'for I perceive by your habit you are not a
hereaway man?'

'There are indeed kirks there, but I cannot bide to be
hampered and taken in a snare within walls, in the present
unsettled state of the country.  A peaceable man does well to
worship in the open.  What sense is there in being shut
weaponless in a kirk, and shot at through the windows,
as happened not long ago?'

I asked how that could be.

'Have you not heard how in the north country the
Craufords beset the Kennedies in Dalrymple Kirk, taking
them at an advantage without their weapons of war—so
that a Kennedy now goes no oftener to kirk than the
twenty-ninth of February comes into the calender.'

'How strange it befalls in a small world,' said I, laughing,
'for I am a Kennedy, and I ride to visit the Craufords of
Kerse.'  Then he looked at me more closely than ever.

'My name,' he said courteously, 'is John Mure of
Auchendrayne.'

So I told him my name and style, and also the knight's
name to whom I was squire, for after his giving me his own
I could not do less.

'You have been in Edinburgh lately?' he said.  'And
I doubt not, by your looks, bore yourself well in the sad broil
in the High Street.  Indeed, I think that I heard as much.
Though being a man of good age, and one that is of quiet
ways, I neither make nor mell with such tulzies, which are
for young, lusty folk at any rate.'

After a little riding in silence and thought, he asked me
if I had ever spoken to Gilbert Kennedy of Bargany, and it
was with a loath heart that I answered 'No.'

Then he spoke long of him and his noble prowess, comparing
him to the Earl of Cassillis, to his great advantage—which
I grant it was easy enough to do.  But since I could not wear
a man's signet ring on my finger and deny him even by my
silence, I spoke up for my colours.  And that is good enough
religion, as I read it.

'I am Cassillis man,' said I, with my hand on my sword,
'and I care not who knows it.'

'Hush you, young sir,' replied the Laird of Auchendrayne,
soothingly, 'mind that you are now in an enemy's country.
I warrant that Currie of Kelwood has travelled this road
not so long before you.'

'I am not one who cares whether folk know my opinions,'
I cried.  'See, I wear them on my collar.  And I have on
my finger a double safe-conduct.'

Whereupon I let him see the rings, drawing off my
gauntlet that I might show him the signets.

Then he redoubled his respect and rode nearer to me,
which made me glad that I had showed him the seals with
their crests.

'You are young to ride so far alone on such great folk's
business,' he said softly.  'Even I, that am old and sober,
am not so trusted.'

'Laird Auchendrayne,' I replied to him, 'you do jest with
me because of my youth.  For you yourself are of the great
ones, their kinsman and equal at muster and council-board,
and but lately, in the Earl's absence, Bailzie of Carrick!'

Then he went on to speak of the Earl, mocking at him
as one greedy-tooth for land and siller like his father, and
warning me that when he had done with me he would cast
me off without fee or reward, like an old glove.

'Nay, worse,' said he, 'for he will save the worn glove
to sell over again to Granny Nish of the Luckenbooths.'

'Light-hand or luck-penny,' said I, 'Launcelot Kennedy
is not the man to change his colours for goods or gear.'

'And who bids you?' said he.  'Tush, man! you are
at the horn and outlaw.  Any man may take your life and
be the freer for it.  The sneckdraw Cassillis and the old wife
Culzean are not fit mettle for a gallant like you to ride
beside.  Hear ye, man; I will tell you a secret which none
knoweth yet, but which, if you are wise and bold, will make
your fortune with the King.  Bargany is to marry one of
the Queen's bower-maidens—one too that carries the King's
name—*and he is to have the Earldom of Carrick*!'

Here he hushed his voice and leaned towards me, setting
his hand on the arch of Dom Nicholas's neck.

'And that,' he whispered,' will mean knighthood and an
estate—besides a fair maid with a tocher, to every good man
that can draw a sword and lead a company.  What think
ye of that?  Be not hasty, man.  I tell you Bargany will
crumple up Cassillis as I crumple this bit of paper.'

And he threw a crushed sheet of writing into Doon
Water as we rode beside it.

Then I faced about upon him, and set myself very straight
in the saddle.

'Sir,' I said, 'you are an older man, a richer man, a
better learned man than I.  But let me tell you, sir, that I
am an honester man than you; and maybe I shall win
though none the worse of that at the long and last.  But if
what I have said offend you, I am willing to give satisfaction
on horse or foot, now or again, either to you or to any younger
man of your name.  I bid you good-day, sir, for I count you
not good company for leal gentlemen.'

And with that I turned my back on him, and rode on
my way.

'Go your own gate,' he said, rather regretfully than
angrily.  'You have thrown away a kindly offer for an old
song and a sounding phrase.  You are a mettle lad, but with
much wind in your belly.'

So I rode on, thinking that I had done with him—which
was very far indeed from being the case.





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.. _`CARTEL OF CONTUMELY`:

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   CHAPTER IX


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   CARTEL OF CONTUMELY

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Now, the place where I took my leave of that pleasant,
reputable treason-breeder, John Mure of Auchendrayne, was
within a quarter of a mile of Dalrymple Bridge, where it
strides across Doon Water.  I am persuaded that when I
left him a little behind, I saw him heave up his hand, for
I got just a waft of it with the tail of my eye.  Yet though
I could not swear it conscience-clear in any court in the land
(unless absolute need were), I am still persuaded in my mind,
as much as I was then, that the douce and gracious man
intended that I should fall into an ambush, if I proved overly
hard-bitten for his projects and temptings.

So as I came near to the bridge-end, I looked very warily
about, and methought that I spied the black muzzle of a
hackbutt, where there was no need of such like.  Now
hackbutts do not, even in Carrick, grow on hedges, though
in these days a man might somewhat easily make the mistake
of thinking so.  I judged, therefore, that there would be an
ugly face behind the gun, and a finger on the slow match
that intended me no good.

As I paused, turning about on my saddle, I saw a fellow
rise out of the copse-wood before me, and run like a rabbit
to the bridge-end.  That was enough for me.  Fighting is
well enough, and I can be doing with it, for it is the path
of glory and of fortune.  But black treachery I cannot
stomach.

So being mightily angry, but resolved like steel to show
John Mure and his butchers that I despised them, I turned
Dom Nicholas's head and set him straight at the deeps of
Doon Water, where ford there was none.  In a moment we
were splashing in the pool, and in another Dom Nicholas
had thrown back his head and taken to the swimming like
a duck.  It was but a little way across, but far enough for
me, for I saw the fellows running along the bank from
the end of the bridge, blowing on their matches and bidding
me stop.  Now that was not a likely thing for me to do,
being, praise the Lord! in my sober senses.

But when I got to the other shore, and set my horse to
climb the steep (which was by a mill on the waterside), I
was somewhat dashed to find one sitting quiet on his horse,
within ten paces of me, with his fingers on his sword and
his pistol bended in his hand.

I apprehended in a moment that this must be James
Mure the younger of Auchendrayne, and I thought that I
was as good as dead.  Yet I held up my hand and cried,
'Herald!' and 'Safe-Conduct!'  Though I knew that
with such men as the Mures I might just as well and
usefully have cried 'Bubbly Jock!' or 'Pigeon Pie!'

The young man in war-gear who sat his horse above
me, did not move nor lift his weapon to fire.

'Tell me,' he said calmly, 'who may you be that cries
"Safe-Conduct!" and "Herald!" on the lands of Kerse?'

I answered him that I was Launcelot Kennedy—and to
effectuate something with him I added 'of Kirrieoch.'  For
I thought it was unlikely that he would know the hill
country well enough to remember that my father was
still alive.  Which I take to have been an innocent enough
deception, in that it hurt no one.

And in this I was right, for he answered at once,—

'I am David Crauford the younger of Kerse, but what
said you of safe-conducts?'

So I showed him the rings, and told him that my
business lay by word of mouth with his father.  Thereafter
I laid before him the matter of the scoundrels running at me
nigh to Dalrymple bridge.  Indeed, we could even then
see them retiring in a group.

'Let us ride to the bridge head now, and see if they
will molest us?'

And this we did, but none stirred nor showed themselves.

'So,' he said, 'let us ride on to Kerse.'

As we went our way we had much excellent discourse
of the news of the countryside, and also of Edinburgh and
its customs.  I found David Crauford a fine and brave
fellow, and regretted heartily that he was not on our side
of the blanket—a thing which, indeed, I was too apt to do.
I considered it an unfair thing that all the shavelings should
be ours, and all the paladins theirs.  Yet I was comforted
by the thought that it was easier to be distinguished among
the men of Cassillis than with Bargany—for in the kingdom
of the blind the one-eyed man is king, as the saw hath it.

Thus we came at last to the place of Kerse.  It was a
handsome tower, with additions that made it almost a castle,
standing upon a rising ground by a loch, and overlooked at
a safe distance by some high rocks and scaurs, which David
Crauford told me were called the Craigs of Kyle.

It was the slowest time of the afternoon when we arrived
at the ancient strength, and David, saying that his father
might not be wakeful, slipped on ahead, in order to assure
me a proper reception—so, at least, he said.

And at the doorway I was met by many men-at-arms,
with pikes in their hands and feathers in their bonnets.  And
there came forth to meet me eight of the twelve brothers of
Kerse, all bareheaded and with swords at their sides.  In
the background I could see the cause of my adventuring
Currie, the Laird of Kelwood—bowing and smirking like
a French dancing-master.  But I never so much as looked
his way.

'From whom come you, and in peace or war?' said
David Crauford, just as though I had not told him—which
was quite right and proper, for these commissions of diplomacy
should be carried out with decorum and observance.

'I come,' said I, 'from the Earl and also from the Tutor
of Cassillis, and am commissioned to speak with the Laird
of Kerse in their name and on their behalf.'

With that I was conducted through a lesser into a
greater hall, at the upper end of which was a raised
platform, two feet or so above the floor.  The hall and dais
were alike strewed with yellow bent grass, such as grows
upon the sides of the hills and on the seashore.  On the
dais stood a great oaken chair with a hood about it, and in
it there sat the noblest old man that ever I saw.  He seemed
by his beard and hair to be ninety years of age at the least,
yet his natural colour was in his cheek, and he was gleg
both to hear and to speak.

So they introduced me, and I went up to the old man
of Kerse to show my credentials, bending my knee, but not
near to the ground, in token of courtesy.

'Come hither, David, and tell me what are the posies
on the rings.'

So David came near, and, looking at my hand, he read
that motto of the Earl of Cassillis—'*Avise a fin*!' it read.

'Ay, ay, that will do.  Let the lad speak his message,'
said the old man.

Then in the midst of three-score Craufords I set myself,
with my shoulders squared and my hand on my hip, to speak
the message of my lord.  I do not deny that I liked the
job well enough, for it was the sort which enables a man
to make a figure—thus to stand alone among a host of
enemies, and speak a challenge of defiance.

'Master David Crauford, Laird of Kerse and Skeldon,'
said I, giving out his titles like a herald, 'I bear you greeting
and worship from John, Earl of Cassillis, and Sir Thomas
Kennedy of Culzean, Tutor of that ilk.'

The old man bowed in token of respect for the formal
courtesy.  'My principals bid me say that they request and
demand as their right, that you shall deliver up to them the
Laird of Kelwood, their liege vassal, presently rebel and
fugitive; and also that you render back the box of treasure
and the stones of price which they have good reason to
believe their vassal aforesaid hath concealed with you.  These
things being done, they assure you of their friendship and
support in all your undertakings.'

So I gave it out clearly, formally, dispassionately, and
without heat, as one that is accustomed to high commissions.

As I spoke I saw the old man grip his staff as though it
had been a sword, and ere I had done, he had half risen from
his seat as though he would have struck me to the ground.

'And you dare, you beardless birkie, to bring such a
message to Crauford of Kerse, in his own hall and among
his own folk?'

But I stood still with my hand on my side as before,
looking at him with a level brow, knowing that without a
weapon in my hand, and with a double safe-conduct on my
finger, I had by far the best of it, ay, though there had
been a thousand Craufords in the hall.

'Father, father,' said David from behind, as one accustomed
to soothe the old man's anger.

'I ken—I ken bravely.  The laddie has to bring his
message, but Scraping Johnny of Cassillis shall rue this day.
Tell him,' he cried, his voice rising to a wild scream, 'that
I have seen no doit of the dirty money which he howks out
of every dub with his swine's snout.  The Laird of Kelwood
indeed, I have with me, and here he shall bide while it likes
him—not for his own sake, for he is small credit either to Kennedy
or Crauford (to his face I say it), but because Kerse is an
eagle sitting on high, and it has not yet come to it that he
must, forsooth, throw down so much as a well-pyked bone
at the bidding of Cassillis.'

I bowed to the ground as having gotten my answer.
But I had another part of the piece still to play, and the doing
of it liked me even better, for I saw that this time I should
anger not only the old man but the young.

'Then,' said I, 'in the name of John, Earl of Cassillis,
whom ye call swine's snout, I am charged to tell you that
if ye will not deliver the man and the thing that are his just
right, then will my master come and gar ye be fain to
deliver them—'

Then there went a murmur of scorn and anger all about
the hall, and the white locks of the old man fairly bristled on
his head.  But I spoke on, level as a clerk that reads his
lessons.

'Hearken ye to the word of Cassillis—the last word—gin
ye refuse he will come on Lammas day proximate, and
in token of ignominy and despite, he will tether a brood
sow upon the lands of Kerse, and not a Crauford shall steer
her for the length of a summer's day.'

What a shout of anger went up from about the hall!
The blades of the young men fairly blazed from their sheaths.
The old man rose in his chair and lifted his staff by the
middle.  Two tall servitors that stood at the back of the
hall, lighting the dusk with torches, sprang forward
ready to catch him should his strength fail.  There were
at least thirty swords pointed at my breast, and one great
lout threatened me with a Lochaber axe.

But with my heart swelling I stood still and calm amid
the graceless tumult, like one of the carven stones which
look out from the niches of Crossraguel.  Motionless I
stood as I had done from the first, for I was a herald with
an Earl's message.

'An insult! an insult! an insult in the hall of Kerse.
Kill the black Kennedy!' they cried, gnashing on me with
their teeth like wild beasts.

I declare I never was happier in my life, knowing that
I had made that day a figure which would not be forgotten,
and that my bearing among them would be spoken of over all
Carrick and Kyle.  How I wished that Marjorie Kennedy
could have seen me.  And I smiled as I thought how little it
mattered after this, whether or no Nell Kennedy turned
tale-pyet.

'I will take the smile off his black Kennedy's face with
a paik of this Lochaber axe!' cried my great lout.  But
indeed I smiled not at him nor any of his sept, but at the
thought of Nell Kennedy.

Then when they had roared themselves out in anger,
they became, as I take it, some deal ashamed of the hideous
uproar, and of a sudden were silent—as with a stave thrust
in the joint and a twist of the wrist one may shut off a noisy
mill-lade.

So I got in my last word.

'Thereafter, John, Earl of Cassillis, bids me say that he
will leave not one standing stone in the house of Kerse
upon another, for the despite and contempt done to him as
its overlord.'

Then the loud anger gave place to silent, deadly hate,
and it was some time before any could speak.  David the
younger would have spoken, but his father waved him down,
fighting for utterance.

'Hear ye, sir, and bear this message and defiance to
your master.  He has put a shame on us in this our own
house.  Tell him that he may bring his swine to Kerse
every Lammas day, and fetch with him every swineherd
Kennedy from every midden-head betwixt Cassillis and the
Inch.  There are plenty stout Craufords here in Kyle that
can flit them.  Ay, though this hand, that was once as the
axe-hand of the Bruce, be shrunken now, and though I lean
on these bearers of torches because of mine age, tell him
that there are twelve stout sons behind me who can render
taunt for taunt, blow for blow, to King or Kennedy.  And
tell him that Crauford of Kerse knows no overlord in
earth or heaven—least of all John Kennedy, fifth Earl of
Cassillis!'

Then I bowed as one might before some of the glorious
pagan gods of whom Dominie Mure has tales to tell.  For,
indeed, that was an answer worth taking back, and, being
a man, I know a man when it is given me to see him.
So, with my face to him still, and my bonnet in my
hand, I made my way off the dais.  There I turned
me about, and, as an Earl's spokesman should, set my steel
bonnet on my head to go out alone through the crowded
hall.

But the old man stayed me.

'Launcelot Kennedy of Kirrieoch,' he said, courteously,
'to you and not to your master, I say this.  Ye have well
delivered an ill message.  May ye never get your fill of
fighting, and at the last may you die in harness.  I would
to God ye were my thirteenth son!'

So I bowed again, and for respect I walked backwards
to the door of the great hall with my head again
bare.  Then I helmed myself and passed without to Dom
Nicholas.

There was now a full muster of Craufords in the
courtyard—a hundred of them, I should say, at least.  But
no murmur arose among them as, helped by a groom, I
mounted and moved slowly through the throng, having
saluted David the younger and his brothers with my
hand.

Then, as I rode through the gateway, the feet of Dom
Nicholas clattering on the stones, I was aware of a troop of
twelve that followed me, all well-accoutred men riding in
order.  And I knew the author of that guard.  It was David,
who had resolved to see me safe across Dalrymple bridge,
and so gave me the attendance of a prince.

Then knew I how excellent a thing it is to have to
do in peace or war with gentlemen.  For to do them
justice, the Craufords of Kerse were neither landloupers
nor ambuscaders.





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.. _`SIR THOMAS OF THE TOP-KNOT`:

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   CHAPTER X


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   SIR THOMAS OF THE TOP-KNOT

.. vspace:: 2

My guard of honour did not leave me till I was within
sight of the towers of Cassillis, when David Crauford and
his men parted from me with silent salute.  Nor had the
dyke-back hiding gentry so much as ventured to show their
faces.  So I rode down to Cassillis yett, a well-kenned place
and famous in story.  Down a smooth, green mead I rode to
it.  At the gate the porter, a surly rogue, bade me stand.

'Stand thou, hang thee, pock-faced varlet!' I cried;
'haste thee and up with the gates, or thine ass's ears shall
answer for it, nailed incontinent to a post!'

Whereupon, seeing him wondering and still wavering,
I drew off my glove and flashed the Earl's broad signet ring
at him.  I declare he laid hold of the pulley like one
demented.

'I trust, noble sir, that ye will not mention the matter
of my hasty greeting to my lord,' he said to me as I passed,
for the rascal was shaking in every limb.

'Let it learn you to be better scraped as to the tongue
for the time to come,' I answered sharply, for I was none
sorry once for all to read the villain a lesson.  There is
nothing better than a man who worthily and for his office's
sake magnifies his office, but there is nothing more scunnering
than that a menial knave, in pride of place, should beard
his betters.

In the hall of Cassillis, while I waited for my lord, I
met the old man of strange aspect, who had been with us
upon the Red Moss.  He was dressed in a long, lank robe
like a soutane, and he carried a book with him, very filthy
and tattered.  In this he read, or pretended to read, by whiles,
muttering and mumbling the words over to himself.

Seeing me stand alone, he came over and began to speak
to me about matters that I knew not of—something that
concerned the Black Vault of Dunure, so I understood him
to say.

But his appearance as he talked caused me to laugh,
though, being an old man, I did not let him see it.  His
head appeared as bald all about as is a hen's egg.  But on
the very crown there was an oval place of a hand's breadth
or thereby, from which dropped a crest of yellow-white hair,
very laughable and ludicrous.  For as the old man talked
the silly cockscomb on his crown waggled, and being toothless
his jaw waggled also.  So that the nut-cracker jaw underneath
and the waggling plume aloft might well have made a
cat laugh.

'I am Sir Thomas Tode,' he mumbled, when I began
to get a little familiar with his shambling speech—'ay me,
Sir Thomas Tode' (he pronounced the word as though it
had been the name of the foul beast that squats on its
belly), 'the famous Sir Thomas Tode am I.  Ay, dear
mother Mary—I mean Christian friends, but a feck of life
it has been my lot to see.'

I thought within me what a strange old scare-the-crows
this was, to have the name and style of knighthood.  So I
asked him what were his ancestral possessions.

'I am only poor Sir Thomas Tode, chaplain to two mighty
Earls,' he said, shaking his head and waggling his top-knot,
till he looked more like the father of all the apes that ever
were, than a sober cleric.

'Even so,' he went on, 'I was bred to Holy Church—I
mean brought up in ignorance, to serve the Whore that
sitteth on the Seven Hills.  I was chaplain to the old Lord
Gilbert, the father of the Earl John that is.  Ah, many a
time did I shrive him soundly, and none needed it more.
Faith, but he was a ripe, crusted old sinner—'

And Sir Thomas Tode chuckled a senile laugh at his
memories of the bygone wickednesses of the great.

'Faith, I doubt shrewdly that he fries for it now.  For
in these days there are no prayers to hoist men out of
purgatory by the telling down of the good broad bonnet
pieces—more's the pity for poor honest churchmen!  Ah
me, the times that were!  The times that were!'

The old man paused a moment to think the matter over,
and then very visibly his mind went wandering after some
greater and yet choicer wickedness which he might retail
to me.

'Have you ever heard,' he said at last, 'of the roasting
of the Abbot of Crossraguel?  Man, I was there—yes, I
was there—Tom Tode was there, and turned him on the
iron brander till I burned my fingers!'

And the ancient rascal beat merrily on the floor with
his stick and charked together his toothless gums.

'Now sit ye down, and I shall tell you all that took
place in the Black Vaut of Dunure—'

Just then I saw a sonsy, red-faced woman, ample of
bosom and with many plies of wylicoats pleated and gathered
about her, rise from the black stair head—even as Dominie
Mure fables that Venus (a heathen goddess, but one of
whose ongoings I own it diverts me greatly to hear) did
from the sea.  With three strides she came across the hall
and caught Sir Thomas Tode by the shock of yellow-white
hair on his crown.

'Be you at it again?' she cried.  'I will give you your
fill of the Black Vaut of Dunure, doddering old bletherer
that ye are.  Who is to turn my spit, I would have you tell
me, gin you waste your time yammering to wanchancy
lazybones of the Black Vaut of Dunure?  "Black Vaut of
Dunure" indeed!  You have told your lies till I declare you
grow to believe them yourself!'

So without a word of protest from the knightly lips of
Sir Thomas Tode, he was led below, his head nodding and
bowing as his captor shook the yellow top-knot.

After the pair were gone, I laughed both loud and long,
so that they had to fetch me nigh on a gallon of strong ale
to recover me of my access of mirth, and prepare me for the
presence of the Earl.

And right certainly did I vow within my heart, that it
would not be long before I renewed acquaintance with Sir
Thomas and his tyrant, for it seemed a strange and merry
thing to sec an Earl's chaplain so used.  It was, indeed,
many a day since I had seen such sport.

At last I was led in to the Earl.  He sat in a rich
dressing-robe, flowered with gold, and a leather-bound book with
knobs and studs of brass lay open beside him.  It was the
account book of his estates and overlordships.

'What was that loud mirth I heard a moment since?'
he asked, for the Earl John did not seem to be in the best
of tempers.  Indeed he was said never to be canny to come
near, when he was in the same house as his wife, a thing
passing strange and but not wholly without precedent.

I answered that I laughed at a good story of Sir Thomas
Tode, his private chaplain.

'My what!' he cried.  'Oh, ye mean old Tode of
the Top-knot!  Was his story about the Black Vault of
Dunure?'

And without stopping for an answer he went on with
one of his proverbs, just as though he had not sent me on
an errand, and that in peril of my life.  I never met a young
man so broadened on wiseacre saws and proverbs in my life.
It was clean ridiculous, though well enough in a gap-toothed
grandfather, no doubt.

'The loud laughter of the idle gathereth no gear,' said
Earl John.

'No,' replied I, 'but since it cheers the heart, it costs
less than your good strong ale.'

'Ay, but,' he said, breaking in and looking pleased,
'but you have had some deal of that too.  I can smell it.'

Then he looked briskly up, as if delighted with himself
for his penetration, and catching me with my hand held
guiltily before my mouth, he smiled.

'Well,' he said, 'can you not come to the point—why
stand so long agape?  What of your mission?'

So, being nothing loath, I told him the whole matter,
much as I have related it in this place.  And though at the
beginning he sat calmly enough to listen, long before I
had finished he was striding up and down the room
gripping at his thigh, where for common he wore his
sword—for, after all, Earl John was a true Cassillis, and
neither craven nor hen-hearted.

'And they roared upon you, standing still.  Nay, you did
well!  I wish it had been I!  Man, I will give you the horse
you rode upon, and all the caparison.  I declare I will!'

For which I thanked him in words; but in my heart I
said, 'It is an easy present to give that which is your uncle's,
and hath indeed been mine for weeks.'

Then he seemed to remember, for he said, 'But give me
back my signet.  Ye have done well, and on Lammas day
ye shall do better.  Will ye take a ring or a sword for a
keepsake?'

A moment only I divided my mind.  A ring, if good,
would indeed buy many swords.  But Cassillis was not the
man to give a ring of price.  Contrariwise a sword was a
thing that all men had good skill of, and for very shame's
sake a good sword would he give.

'I crave a sword,' said I, briefly.

'Ye have chosen like a soldier.  I shall not grudge you
the wale of swords,' the Earl made reply, smiling upon me,
well pleased.

So with that he went out into the armoury, and came
back with the noblest sword I had ever seen.  Blade, hilt,
and scabbard were all inlaid with scrolled Damascus work of
gold, thin limned and delicate—I never saw the like.  And
my blood leaped within me—I declare to my shame, nigh
as hotly as it did when Marjorie Kennedy kissed me on
the brow in the arbour of the pleasaunce at the house of
Culzean.

'Buckle it on, and take it with you,' said the Earl, 'lest
looking long upon it my heart should smite me, and I want
it back again.'

So I thanked him and presently was gone without great
ceremony, lest, indeed, it should be so.

'Stay the night at Cassillis,' he cried after me.  'I have
a letter to send to my eame the Tutor in the morning.'





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.. _`SWORD AND SPIT`:

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   CHAPTER XI


.. class:: center medium bold

   SWORD AND SPIT

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The house of Cassillis is not a great place for size, to be so
famous.  But the Earl has many castles, to which he goes
oftentimes—specially to the grand house of the new style
which he is building at the Inch, and from which he means
to assert his overlordship of the Lairds of Galloway,
which, as I see it, is likely to breed him trouble—more than
if he had stayed here at home and flairdied his old gammer
mistress into good humour.

So, leaving his presence, I went to see that Dom
Nicholas had the best of food and bedding, passing through
the grooms and men-at-arms in the bravery of my Damascus
sword, walking carelessly as though I wore suchlike every
day—a thing I liked well to do.  I also made them change
the straw for better, though, indeed, there was little to find
fault with.  But it is always best when one goes first into
the stables of the great to speak loud, to cry, 'Here, sirrah,
what means this?'  And then order fresh bedding to be
brought, and that instantly.  Thus I made myself respected,
and so walked out, while the grooms bowed, pulling the while
at my moustache and pressing upon the hilt of my sword, so
that the point stood out at the proper angle behind with my
cloak a-droop over it, as I have said.

Then, on my way back to the house, I must needs pass—or
so I made it appear—through the kitchens, where I found my
tyrant Venus-of-the-fiery-face in the act of cooking the
supper.

Seeing me lean against the baking board, dressed so
*cap-à-pie*, she came and brushed me a place to sit upon.  Then
she asked, 'Would I be pleased to drink a cup of sack—rare
and old?'

So, seeing her set on it, I denied her not; but sat down,
unbuckling my weapon for ease's sake, and throwing it down
with clank of blade and jingle of buckle on the clear-scoured
boards of the great deal table in the midst.  The Lord forgive
me for caring so mightily about these things and so little for
going to church!  Some good day, doubtless, I shall change
about.  And in the meanwhile, what would you?

Were you that chance to read never eighteen and thought
you not well of yourself, having a new sword?  If not, the
Lord pity you.  It is little ye ken.

But all the while I longed to hear more of Sir Thomas
Tode, and if it might be, to see him.  So I asked of the lady of
the pans where her husband was.

She set her thumb over her shoulder, pointing to a narrow
door as of an aumrie or wall press.

'He is in there,' she said shortly.

'And what else is there in there?' said I, laughing, for
what was I the wiser?

'Half a bullock is in there,' she said, laughing also.
'That is the meat-cupboard.  It is fine and caller, and he is
not troubled with flies upon his miserable bald head.'

'The meat-safe,' cried I, much astonished; 'and what
does a reverend chaplain and a knight in the meat-safe?'

'The old dotard will not quit his maundering about
the Black Vaut of Dunure to every one that comes near.
He got hold of a silly chapman in the yard that came with
fish from Ayr, and I declare he must sit down and prate by
the hour of the Black Vaut of Dunure.  So I shut him up
in the meat-safe.  Faith, I will give him Black Vaut of
Dunure ere I have done with him.  The Black Vaut of
Cassillis and the company of the dinner roast will set him
better.'

'And what says my lord to your using his chaplain so?'

The lady gazed at me a moment in a kind of wilderment.
Then she broke into the vulgar speech of the
country, which, because I learned to write English as
those at the Queen's Court do, I have used but seldom
in this chronicle—though, of course, not for lack of
knowledge.

'Sain me,' she said, 'this may be a queer, uncanny world,
but it is surely no come to that o't yet, that a wife mauna
check and chastise her ain man.  Guid Lord, no—life
wadna be worth leevin'—see till this—' she said.

And taking a key from her pocket she rapidly unlocked
the door of the meat-closet.

Sir Thomas was discovered sitting most forlornly within,
upon the corner of a great chest, with many pieces of meat
depending from hooks about his head.  His wife, reaching
in from the step, took him by the top-knot of hair as by
a handle, and pulled him out upon the floor of the kitchen
with one movement of her arm.

'It's a guid's mercy,' she cried, 'that yince ye war a
papish monk wi' a shaven crown, for the place that ye
keepit bare sae lang has ripened late, after a' the lave o'
the crap has been blawn awa' wi' the wind.'

I had been endeavouring to explain to myself the strangeness
of the wisp upon Sir Thomas's head, but the words of
his wife made clear the matter.  It was but the retarded
growth of his long fallow tonsure.

'An' it's a de'il o' a queer thing,' said Mistress Tode,
'that turning your coat ootside in should turn your hair
inside oot!  Heard ye ever the mak' o' that?'

'It was all owing to—' began Sir Thomas Tode, looking
at his wife with a cringing shamefacedness that was
most entertaining.

'Oh, I ken,' interrupted his wife, 'it was owing to the
Black Vaut o' Dunure, nae doot!  I declare I canna haud
ye aff it.  I jaloose that it maun hae been owing to the
Black Vaut o' Dunure that Mary Greg, a decent cook
woman and a deacon in her trade, took up wi' the likes o'
you—that mak's yoursel' nae better than a mountibank wi'
your yammer-yammering like a corn-crake aboot black
vauts and roasted abbots.  Fegs, I declare I could roast ye
yoursel'.  Ye are that muckle thocht and care to me, but
ye wadna pay for the trouble.  Even the Earl himsel'
couldna mak' a profit oot o' you—an' a' folk kens that he
wad drive a flea to London market for the sake o' the
horns and hide!'

'Wheesht, wheesht, honest woman!' said Sir Thomas
Tode, 'wha kens wha may be listenin'—maybe the Countess
her very sel'.'

'Faith, an' I carena,' cried the brave cook, tossing her
head, 'she is a backstairs body at ony gate, but she canna
fear me—na, brawly no'.  I ken ower muckle.  I ken
things the Earl doesna ken.  Certes an' serve him richt—a
young man like him—but three-an'-twenty, to mairry his
grandmither.  Though guid kens Mary Greg is no the
woman to speak, that mairried nocht better than an auld
skeleton hung on strings—for nae sounder reason than that
it is the custom for the cook in a decent big hoose to tak'
up wi' the chaplain.'

The kitchen began to fill, and I bethought me that I
should be going; for it was not seemly that a gentleman
and a squire should collogue overly long with all the orra
serving-men and women in a great house.  But before I
could lift my sword and depart, there came in a dark, burly
man with a sharp-cleft eagle's face on him, his eyes very
close together, and a contemptuous sneer that was liker a
snarl, on his face.

'Good e'en to ye, John Dick,' said the cook.  'Mind
ye keep the peace, ye wull-cat, for there are to be no
collieshangies in my kitchen!'

A voice called something querulously down the stairs.

'Coming the noo, my leddy,' cried Mrs Tode, the cook
of Cassillis, 'I am juist pittin' on the pot—'

And she vanished up the stair.

As soon as she was gone, Sir Thomas appeared to wake
up from a dream.  He looked eagerly around him.

'She will no be back for a while,' he said.  'I might
have a chance.  I maun tell you of the roasting of the
abbot.  Man, I saw it—I was there.  I held him on the
ribs o' the grate.  I set him on the brander, and poured the
oil on him that he might be roasted in sop.  Oh, man, ye
think I am a fool.  Ever since that day, never hae I been
alone without seeing the face o' him, crying out for them
to ding whingers into him, or blaw him up wi' powder to
ease him—the auld Earl girnin' at him like a wild cat, and
hunkering low to watch, with his hands on his knees.  Oh,
young men, never you put your hand to the torture of
man, for it bides with you in the brain—just as, asleep or
awake, night or day, I see the Black Vaut o' Dunure!'

'Good life,' cried his wife, entering briskly at the
moment, 'is it possible that the auld fule is at it again?
The very de'il's in the craitur.  He thinks that he was at the
roastin' o' a man, whan a' the roastin' he has done in his
life has been turnin' the spit in this decent hoose o' Cassillis.
Come awa', ye doitered auld loon, what did I tell ye the
last time?—Into the keepin' chamber wi' you!'

And she caught him by the top lock to lead him away
once more.  But I pled for him, saying that I had never
heard of his fantasy, and had indeed encouraged him to
begin.

The tall man who had been called John Dick, the
fellow of the hateful countenance, in whose eyes there was
the insolence of challenge, at this point stalked up to the
table on which my sword still lay.  He took it in his hand
with a contemptuous air, examined the Damascus work of
fine gold, and was about to draw the blade from its sheath.

'That sword is mine,' said I, scarcely looking at the
fellow, 'and does not leave its scabbard save when I draw it.'

'And then,' quoth he, with a bitter sneer, 'I opine it
will not do much damage.  'Tis but a bairn's plaik at any
rate!  And in fit hands!'

'It may be that you would like to try, sirrah,' said I,
slipping my hip off the table and buckling on my sword
with one movement.

'Very willingly,' said he of the sneer.  'Come out to
the green.'

But before I could move to end the matter, there arose
from the corner, where he had been lying on an oaken settle,
a tall, slender lad of foreign aspect and distinction.  He had
on him a green suit like the Royal hunting liveries.  A long,
plain sword in a black leather scabbard swung by his side.

'Launcelot Kennedy of Kirrieoch,' he said, bowing to me,
'I am Robert Harburgh, and though for the time being I
serve here as little better than a cullion, I am yet of some
blood and kindred.  Therefore I shall do you no shame.
And you, sir,' said he, turning to John Dick, who stood
lowering, 'being your equal here, I can serve your turn to
cross swords with—and spare this gentleman the discomfort
of defiling his sword of honour with such black ignoble
blood as yours.'

And with that he whipped out a long, straight sword
which glittered in the firelight.  John Dick turned up his
lip wickedly, so that we saw his teeth, and the black, curly
fringe of hair about his face stood out, till his visage was like
that of an angry ramping bull of Galloway.

There were only men in the kitchen when the fracas
arose, for Mistress Tode had gone to do some errand for
the Countess.

'You are surely a stark man,' said John Dick, 'to mell
or meddle with me.  Ken ye that I have wounded more
men with my whinger than I have fingers on my right hand?'

'And how many may that be?' said the young man
who had espoused my cause.

'Why, four,' said John Dick, surprised at the question.

'Then in a little while you shall have one less—and
that is but three.  Guard yourself!'

And there in the red dusk of the kitchen they cleared
themselves for fighting, and their blades met with so stern
a clash that sparks were driven from the steel.  But
Harburgh, my young and melancholy Dane, forced the
fighting from the first, driving Dick before him round the
narrow and enclosed place, countering and attacking with
such dexterity and fury as I had never seen, though for
years I myself had been a sound swordsman.  But such fighting
as this I saw not—no, not in the schools which the King
has set up in Edinburgh to be used instead of golf and siclike
foolish games, which the men of the east country love to
play in their idle folly and wantonness.

They had not gone far when my champion, using a
snicking undercut I had never seen, severed the little finger
of his opponent, at the second joint just where it overlaid the
hilt, so that the tip of it fell on the floor.  Whereat Sir
Thomas Tode lifted it and wrapped it with care in two sheets
of clean scrivening paper which he took from his pocket.

But John Dick, who after all was a man, though a
crab-grained and ill-conditioned one, only called a halt for a
moment and wrapped his wounded finger in a napkin, drawing
the cincture close with cord.  And he was in the act of
continuing the fight, and pressing his adversary for revenge,
being resolved to kill him for the affront, when, with a loud
outcry, Mistress Tode rushed down the stairs.  She seized
a huge spit, and with the sharpened end so briskly attacked
both the combatants, battering them soundly about their
heads, that they were compelled to desist.

And it was most comical to see these fierce and confident
fighters drop their swords' points and shield their
heads with their hands to ward off the blows of the
stick.

'Varlets!' she screamed.  'Briskly I will learn you to fight
and tulzie in my kitchen.  Out with you,' she cried, giving
John Dick the sharpened end of her weapon in his wame,
'out with you, for it was your de'il's temper that began
the fray.'

And so, having opened the door, she fairly thrust him
out into the night.  But she had not time to close it again
before one whom none of us had seen came within the circle
of red light.  He was a man of a dignified countenance,
dressed in black, and he held a plain staff, also of black, in
his hand.  On his head there was a broad hat with a cord
about it.  Upon his coat he wore no ornament save a broad,
black silk collar which lay upon his shoulders, and over that
again there fell another collar of fair soft linen, very white
and well dressed.

'What means this tumult in the house of Cassillis?' he
asked, speaking as one that has authority, and has been
accustomed to wield it unquestioned for many years.

Now there was not a man there but longed to ask, 'And
who may you be that speers?'  But none answered rudely,
for the awe that was upon them.

Then at last Robert Harburgh said to him, but
courteously, 'Sir, you ask of the tumult.  It was a matter
that concerns those only that fought upon their own proper
quarrel.  It concerns neither you nor yet my Lord Cassillis,
in whose house ye presently are.'

'Lead me to my lord!' he said, as one who had only to
speak that the doors might be opened.

But Robert Harburgh withstood him and would not
suffer him to pass.

'Let me see the Earl of Cassillis instantly!' said he.

'The Earl is at supper,' said Robert Harburgh, 'and
cannot be disturbed.'

'I will eat with him,' said the stranger, calmly.

Then when some scullion laughed, for of custom those
who ate with the Earl of Cassillis entered not by the kitchen
door, the unknown made a gesture of extraordinary contempt
and yet withal of a marvellous dignity.

'Go, instantly,' he commanded, pointing to the stair door
with his finger, 'and tell your master that Robert Bruce,
Minister of Edinburgh Town, would see him in the name
of the Lord and of His Highness the King of Scots.'

And Robert Harburgh, who had just outflouted John
Dick, the ruffler of camps, bowed before him.  And as for
me I took my bonnet off my own head and saluted, for
there was no one of us who had not heard of the famous
and well-reputed minister, to whom the King had committed
the rule and governance of all the realm during the half-year
he was in Denmark busy marrying of his queen.

So with Robert Harburgh leading and myself following,
the minister passed up the stair with due attendance, and
into the supper chamber where the Earl and Countess took
their meal at even, mostly without speech each with the
other.  And when through the open door I saw the Earl
welcome his guest as he would have done the King himself,
and especially when I heard their serious and weighty
conversation, the thought came to me that it was well that there
were men in Scotland able to make religion so to be honoured.
Then again I laughed, thinking of the mighty difference that
there was between Maister Robert Bruce, Minister of
Edinburgh and sometime ruler of Scotland, and poor Sir Thomas
Tode, domestic chaplain to the Earl of Cassillis and the
well-pecked husband of Mary Greg, his cook.





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.. _`THE FLITTING OF THE SOW`:

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   CHAPTER XII


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   THE FLITTING OF THE SOW

.. vspace:: 2

It was Lammas day, and the strange wager of battle was
about to be fought.  Maister Robert Bruce, who had
composed so many quarrels (and made so many more in the doing
of it), had altogether and utterly failed to make up this one.
So he had passed south to his friend and favourer the Laird
of Bargany, who for all his soldiership was ever great for the
honour of the Kirk.  I hope that the Minister of Edinburgh
made more of him than he made of Earl John, of whom he
gat nothing but fair speeches and most indifferent drink,
which were indeed in my time the staples of Cassillis
hospitality.

Now, it so happened that Sir Thomas Kennedy, my
master, could not move from his chair, much less sit a horse,
because of that old income in the knee, which ever in the
hot season of the year caused him so much pain and trouble.
Thus it fell to me to lead our small levy from the lands of
Culzean, for we were near to the country of the Barganies,
and it would not do, in the absence of an armistice,
to denude our head castle of all the fighting men that were
thereabout.

The morn of Lammas was one that promised to open
out into a day of fervent heat, for the mists rose lazily, but
did not dissolve as the sun climbed the skies.  Yet it was a
morning that pleasured me beyond telling, as I buckled on
my new sword of price, and rode out to fight.  I am not
averse from fighting, but I own it is the riding out in array
that I chiefly love.

What a heartsome sight it was when we turned our faces
towards Cassillis Yett, and saw the companies of Kennedies
come riding and running over every green knoll—long,
upright men of the South who had started the night before
from far Minnochside and Auchneil, shoulder-bent
shoremen who came over the edge of Brown Carrick, pikemen,
spearmen, and hackbuttmen, together with a multitude of
limber, pranksome lads with only a leathern jacket and a
whinger.

When we came to Cassillis Yett, there by the road-end
was Sir Thomas Tode, who was charged to tell us that my
lord had gone on before us with many soldiers and horsemen.
They had taken also with them a trail-cart, being a box
with shafts like a carriage, but without wheels, mounted
on a great brush of branches and twigs, which stuck out
behind and scored the ground with a thousand ruts and
scratches.  This was for the conveyance of the sow, which
from sundawn to sunset was to be tethered, in despite and
contempt, upon the lands of the Craufords of Kerse.  For
that was the wager of battle between the Kennedies and the
Craufords.

The place where we found the Earl and his tethered sow
was well chosen.  It was a three-cornered piece of land, of
which two sides were defended by the Doon Water sharply
bending back upon itself, while across the broad base of the
triangle there ran a moss.  The beating of the drums and
the playing of pipes were on all the hills; and so gay and
cheerful was the scene that it might have been a fair or a
weapon-shawing, for the sound of merrymaking and deray
that there was all about.

The Doon, that should run so red or sunset, now
sparkled pure and clear in the light of morning, and the
speckled piets and pigeons scudded here and there among
the coppices.  We had not been long established on this
tongue of land with our tethered sow when there arose a
crying among the outposts, and word was brought that
from all the Craigs of Kyle, and out of all the country of
the east, the Craufords and their allies were gathering to
the trysted fray.

Presently we saw them top the brae in ordered companies.
It was bonny to see them come stringing down the sides of
the hills, now going singly like cattle along a path in the
steep places, and now forming into squadrons and companies
on the plain ground.  The sunshine sifted through the thin
clouds as through a sieve, and made a strange pale glittering
on their war gear, so that all the country round was lit up
with little sparkling flashes of fire, like the wave tops when
the sun rises out of the eastern sea.

They had their drums also, though it was the latest of
many affronts that the Kennedys had put holes in all the
Crauford drums which were in the town of Ayr upon the
last market day.  And this quarrel also had to be settled.
Presently we could see all twelve of the stalwart sons leading
on their vassals from the brown hills.  They were a
sunburnt company, because it was about the Lammastide, when
the muirmen are wont to be out all day at the watersides at
the winning of the meadow hay—the crop which is hard to
grow, ill to mow, but worst of all to gather into barn, as
the saying goes in the parts of the outland hills.

It was nine of the morning when the Craufords moved
to the attack.  All this while the loathly sow, that was at
once provocation and offence, lay upon a little mound in
the midst of our camp, grunting and grumphing most
filthily.  The Earl had set a little snipe of a raggetty loon
to stir her up with a pointed stick, so that she should not go
to sleep, but should grunt and disport herself as she ought.
Being thus encouraged, the boy did his work to admiration,
and the old grouting wretch kept up such a snorking and
yellyhooing that she could be heard almost from Dalrymple
Kirk to the Mains of Kerse.

Then there was a pause for parley.  Of this I will not
write at length, because it was for the most part but rudeness
and dirtiness that were bandied about and between—each
party miscalling the other for greater thieves and worse
murderers than their neighbours.  Even in this I do not
think we had the worst of it, for John Dick (whose
finger-stump was well healed) spat out oaths as if for a wager.
And Muckle Hugh miscalled the Craufords in a voice like
thunder, as though they had been dogs that would not run
aright upon the hillsides of Kirriemore, in that dear land
which looks towards Galloway.

Now, I cannot say that I was keen of this particular
quarrel.  For though there was some pleasure in making a
figure in the great hall at Kerse, I foresaw but a brawling
of clowns and the splattering of confused fighting without
honour or chivalry, in this affair of swine and blundering
*melées*.  Yet, because I was there in the place of my
knight, I could do no more than just bear the brunt and
abide.

Presently the Craufords came on with their horsemen first
and the pikemen behind.  But the mounted men came not
far, for the bog laired their horses, and they sank deeper and
deeper at every step.  Then the footmen came between them
and charged up to our foremost lines, so that we were
hand-to-hand and hard at it in a trice.  It was not, however, the
work of many minutes to gar them turn about and run, for
our front was solid and broad, while the hackbutt shooters
had fine rests for their guns, so that on a still day they could
bring a man down at thirty yards or more.  A good many
Craufords were already splattering like wounded waterfowl
in the moss which protected our front.

After this we had time to look across the Doon Water,
from which there was a crying.  And lo! there on the bank
stood our late guest, Maister Robert Bruce, the Minister of
Edinburgh.

But our Earl was now too hot to think of courtesy, so he
bade the minister stop where he was, or come over and take
a pike by the end; and this greeting made me sorry, for he
was a grand-looking man, with his long black cloak and his
noble black horse, which, they say, had once been the King's
own charger.

So I took the great risk of drawing the Earl aside, and
urged upon him that he should call a parley and see what the
Minister wanted.  This, very reluctantly, he did, and we
could hear Master Bruce speaking from over the Doon
Water clearly, as if he had been in his own pulpit.

'In the King's name I bid you cease,' he cried; 'and in
God's name I debar and forbid you.  If ye persist, I shall
deliver you to Satan, so that ye may learn that it is dangerous
to despise authority.

'Hoot toot, Maister Bruce, the days of curses are by with,'
said the Earl, 'and, besides, the most of us have ta'en a heap
of risks afore noo.  We can e'en afford to take another.'

'I wish to speak,' said the Minister, 'with Crauford of
Kerse.'

'Then gang farther up the waterside and gie a cry.
There's nae Craufords here except dead anes!' said the Earl,
who had his daft coat on him that day, so that we feared he
had been bewitched.

But the young men of the Craufords would have nothing
to say to him, having, as I suspect, no goo for a Minister
meddling in the bickerings of men.

So he returned and asked Cassillis for one to take him to
Kerse.

'Go, Launcelot,' said the Earl,' and guide him.  We will
manage somehow to keep the battle up among us till you
return.'

So, nothing loath to get away from gruntling horror on
the knowe top, I set Dom Nicholas's breast to the river, and
was beside the Minister in a trice.

As I passed up the waterside I came quite near to David
Crauford the younger.  He stelled up the cock of his pistol
to shoot at me, but I held up my hand.

'I am going to the Kerse to see your father.  Have you
any word?' I cried to him.

For in these quaint times the friendliness and complaisance
with which killing was done will scarce be believed—often
with a jest, and, as one might say, amicably.

'To see my father?' cried David across the water.
'Ye'll find him bird-alone.  Then tell him that we'll flit
the Cassillis sow or it be dark yet.'

He turned again to where his brothers were standing
in council, looking often south and north, as though they
expected some reinforcement.  Then something came into
his mind.

'Gangs the Minister to Kerse wi' you?' he cried down
the wind.  I told him ay.

'Then,' said he, laughing, 'he is likely to hear my father
at his devotions.'

I had at that time no inkling of David Crauford's meaning,
but before all was done I learned.

So Master Robert Bruce and I rode daintily and cannily
along the riverside, till we came to the ford of the mill
which is beneath the house of Kerse.  As we rode our
horses through the water and slowly up the bank, and even
as we set our heads over the edge, we heard the loud and
wrathful crying of a voice that shook the air.  It sounded
just as when, straying by quiet woodland ways, one turns
the corner of a cliff and comes suddenly upon the sea edge,
and lo! the roar and brattle of the waves on the long beaches.

As we neared the house of Kerse we noted that the
words rose and fell, swaying like the voice of a preacher
who has repeated the same prayer times without number.

'Did not the young man mention that his father was at
his devotion?  Heard ye ever tell that he was a religious
person?' asked the Minister of me.

I answered him no, but by all accounts the contrary.
I told him that I had once been in the house of Kerse, and
that none there (including myself, I might have added with
truth) seemed to be greatly oppressed with any overload of
the Christian virtues.

When we came near we were aware of a wide and
vacant house, all the doors open to the wall, stables and
barn alike void and empty.  Not so much as a dog stirring.
But from the house end that looked down the water, there
came the crying of this great voice of one unseen.  Mid-noon
though it was, and I with the most noted minister in
Scotland by my side, I declare that I felt eerie.  Indeed, I
have never cared for coming on a habited house, when it
stands empty with all the furniture of service left where the
folk laid them down, and finding no one therein.  Such a
place is full of footfalls and whispers, and a kirkyard at
midnight is not more uncanny, at least not to my thought.

'It sounds much like a man blaspheming his Maker,'
said the Minister.

We rode round an angle of the wall, where there was
a flanking tower; and there, straight before us, sitting on a
high oaken chair under a green tree, was old David Crauford
of Kerse, his head thrown forward, his hands clenched, his
eyes fixed on the brow of the hill over which his sons had
gone—while from his mouth there came an astounding
stream of oaths and cursings, of which, so far as one could
grasp it, the main purpose seemed to be the sending of every
Kennedy that ever drew the breath of life directly and
eternally to the abodes of the damned.

We dismounted leisurely from our horses, and reined
them loosely to the rings in the louping-on stone at the
house end.  Then Maister Bruce strode forward and stood
in front of the old man, who had never for a moment noticed
us nor ceased from his earth-shaking cursings.

Not until the tall and dark figure of the Minister had
blotted out the point of the hill towards which he looked,
did the old man intermit his speech.  Then he drew his
hand slowly across his brow, and threw his head back as if
to distinguish whether it were indeed a living man who
stood before him.

'I am Robert Bruce, Minister of the Town of Edinburgh,'
said my companion, 'and I come from His Majesty
the King of Scotland, to bid you make an end of this evil
and universal regardlessness, which has polluted the whole
country with cruelty and dissension, with public factions and
private deadly feuds—'

Old David Crauford leaned forward in his chair and set
his hand to his ear, as though he had not heard a word of
the Minister's speech.

'What say ye, man?' he cried, testily, like one who is
stayed from his purpose by childish pranks.

'I say,' said the Minister, stoutly, 'that the disquieting
of the lieges with jacks, breast-plates, plate-sleeves, and
pistols is as much dishonouring to God as it is distasteful
to His Majesty the King—'

'Hear ye me, my man.  Hae ye done?' said old David,
glowering at him.

'Are you a Christian man?' said the Minister, sternly,
'or,' he added, as if on second thoughts, 'a loyal subject of
King James the Sixth?'

'Christian!' cried the old man with great indignation.
'Do you speer me gin I am a Christian?  Man, do ye no
ken that I am an Ayrshireman?  An' as for a loyal subject
of King Jamie, man, I hae been four score year and ten in
the world, and proud am I to say that three score and sax o'
them hae been at the King's Horn for rebel and outlaw—an'
never a penny the waur o' either, being ever willing and
able to keep my ain heid and haud my ain land again baith
prince and Providence!'

'Old man,' said the Minister, sternly, 'ken ye that ye
speak blasphemies.  Know ye not that for every word ye
utter, God shall enter into judgment with you?'

'Verra likely,' said David Crauford, drily.  'Stand oot
o' my licht, man, I canna see through ye.  Gin ye dinna,
this pistol will enter into judgment wi' you.'

The Minister stepped aside—not, as I think, at all for
fear of the pistol, but despairing of reaching the conscience
of such a seared and battered heathen.

Then suddenly the old man rose from his seat as one
that sees a heavenly vision.  His face appeared transfigured
and shining, and, with his white hair falling on his shoulders,
I declare he looked like the Apostle Andrew in the Papish
window of the High Kirk of Edinburgh.

'I see him!  I see him!' he cried.  'He comes with the
tidings of battle.'

I looked where he pointed with his eyes, but could see
nothing save a black dot, which seemed to rise and fall
steadily.  Nevertheless, the old man spoke the truth.  It
was, indeed, a swift rider making straight for the house of
Kerse.

As the man came nearer we saw him spur his horse till
it stumbled and fell at the park dykes, weary or wounded,
we could not tell which.  This roused David Crauford, and
he shouted to the man who now came on lamely on foot.

'Man, is the sow flitted?' he cried.

The man, peching and blown with his haste, could not
answer till he came near.

'Is the sow flitted?' again shouted the old man.

'Oh, Laird Kerse,' cried the messenger, the tears trickling
down his face, 'pity this sorrowfu' day!  There has been
a waesome slaughter o' your folk—ten o' them are dead—'

'Is the sow flitted?' cried Crauford, louder than ever.
'Can you no answer, yea or nay?'

'Oh, Kerse, hear me and weep; your braw and bonny
son Jock, the flower of Kyle, is stricken through the heart,
and lies cauld and dead on the ground.'

'Scoundrel, dolt, yammering calf, answer or die.  Is the
sow flitted?'  The patriarch stood up on his feet, fiercely
threatening the messenger with his staff.

'The sow is flitted,' cried the man.  That and no more.

The old man fairly danced in a whirling triumph, cracking
his fingers in the air with joy like a boy.

'My thumb for Jock!' cried he, 'the sow's flitted!'

And with that he dropped slack and senseless upon his
great chair.

The Minister took my arm and led me to the louping-on stone.

'Come away,' he said sadly, 'it is no use.  Ephraim hath
too long been joined to his idols.  Let him alone.  It is as
guid Maister Knox foretold.  The Word of God is indeed
made of none effect in Kyle and Carrick.'





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.. _`THE TRYST AT MIDNIGHT`:

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   CHAPTER XIII


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   THE TRYST AT MIDNIGHT

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From Robert Harburgh I got the tidings of the disaster that
had befallen the Cassillis' arms soon after I had ridden away
with the Minister of Edinburgh.  The Craufords were in no
hurry to come on in spite of all the taunts of the Earl, and
the disordered noise of the foul beast which for despite he had
tied on their lands.

But they kept outposts on the hills about, and they looked
often this way and that way—even I had seen them.  Then
began a waving of flags and crying of words, till once more
their line settled into place, and from the north and the
south at once fresh bands of horsemen came riding towards
us.  And as they came nearer, the Cassillis folk saw that they
from the North were led on by James Mure the younger of
Auchendrayne, and from the south there came the band of
outlaws and robbers that called Thomas of Drummurchie
their captain.  On two sides these beset us, with only the
river between, and the Craufords began to gather more
closely than ever on our front.

Then the Earl remembered that what Dom Nicholas
and I had done so easily in the crossing of the Doon, other
men as determined might also do.  But being, as I have said,
by nature a brave man, he first awaited the event.  Nor was
it long before, at a given signal, Drummurchie and young
Auchendrayne set their horses to the water and came at us
through the bends of the river, in spite of the shots that
rained upon them, and the men that dropped from their
seats and spun down the flooded Doon.  For it was soon
after the time of the Lammas floods, and the water was yet
drumlie and wan.

In our front the Craufords raged, and altogether in a
trice our position was wholly turned.

'This is not well done,' cried our Earl to Thomas of
Drummurchie, as he laid stoutly about him.  'Thy brother
had not so have treated his chief, when he strove with the
enemies of the clan.  Wolf should not tear wolf, nor
Kennedy Kennedy!'

In a little it was seen that the promontory could not be
kept in face of a force three times our number, and specially
when those of our own name and ancient alliance were
striving against us.

'Out of the neck of the bottle, and keep together!'
cried the Earl, who on stricken field was no shaveling.

So with that, Earl John led his people straight across
the water at the point of the land that jutted between
the forces of Auchendrayne that came from the north,
and Drummurchie's desperate riders who beset us on the
south.  So swiftly was this done that before they could close
or the Craufords come on, most part of the Cassillis folk
had passed Doon water.  Though there were twenty at
the least who were either drowned or else wounded to
death, where they had fought the wager out on the fair
holms of Dalrymple.

It so befel as the Minister and I were riding home,
that we came on our little company of Culzean lads riding
with tired horses and slack reins shorewards.  And God
be thanked for His ill-deserved mercy, in the quarrel that
had been so evilly settled, there was no loss to Culzean.
For we came not home with a single empty saddle, nor was
there so much as a pike staff left behind.  The last of it that
they heard was the shouts of the Craufords as they flitted
the sow over the water to the lands of Kennedy, thus clearing
their own borders ere set of sun, according to their boast
and promise.

On the morrow's morn there came to each Kennedy's
gate a little squealing pigling with the Cassillis colours of
blue and gold tied in derision to its curled tail.  And
round its neck was this motto, 'The flitted sow of Cassillis
hath pigged, and Crauford of Kerse sends the litter
home!'

And so in like manner was done at the house of every
Kennedy that had men at the fight of the sow-flitting,
whether they lived near or far.  But who left them at the
yetts, none saw.  All which was more likely to be a ploy
of Thomas of Drummurchie or John Mure's than of the
Craufords—who, to do them justice, had small skill in aught
save hard strokes, but plenty of that.  For even to this day
there is small civility or scholarship about Kyle Stewart and
King's Kyle.

Now there was no mistaking but that we came home
with our fingers in our mouths, and the countryside jeers
at us of Cassillis and Culzean were many as the leaves of
the summer trees.  Nor could I win belief that I had been,
by command of the Earl, at the house of Kerse along with
the Minister, instead of on the green inch of Dalrymple by
Skeldon haughs.  For, believe it who will, there are many
right willing to have a catch at me; though, God knows,
I had never gone out of my way to put a slight upon
any man, nor yet thought more highly of myself than I
ought to think.

In time, however, the bitterness died down, and at
Culzean things went their wonted quiet way.  It is true
that Nell Kennedy never so much as looked the way I
was on.  I heard that she went about telling everyone
whom she thought would carry the tale to me, that I had
gotten the Earl's sword for procuring the sow of Skeldon,
and carrying her over Doon water on my back.  But this
was no more than spite, easily seen through, and I minded
it not.  For everyone in Carrick knew the cause why I
had gotten the blade from the Earl, who, indeed, is not a
man to give aught for naught, nor yet to bestow where, with
honour, he might withhold.

But to balance the beam, Marjorie was kinder to me
than ever she had been, so that I thought of a surety that
her heart had at last been touched by love.  But as it
chanced, I was to get news of that before I was greatly
older.

As the thing fell out, one night I had been somewhat
late out of bed, visiting of a friend whose name it does not
advantage to set down here.  And in the morning, while
yet it was dark, I was returning by the rough shore tracks
to the coves, from whence I had to clamber warily up, in
order to reach my ladder of rope which depended, as of old,
from the overhanging turret of the White Tower.

As I stood to breathe a while in the quiet of the cove,
I was aware of voices that spoke above me, for the sea was
quiet and the moon dipping down to the setting.  My
thoughts were running at the time on treasure-seeking, for
among the things I had had on my mind that night there
was the matter of the losing of the Kelwood treasure in the
House of the Red Moss.  Thinking that I might learn something
of importance, I hasted to clamber in the direction from
which came the voices.  And as I glided along the foot of
the rocks in the black shadow, I came almost without
warning upon two who stood close together.

I could not go back.  I could not go forward.  I could
only retreat sideways as far as the rock would let me, and
even then I stood within a few feet of the speakers.

At the first words I knew them.  It was Marjorie
Kennedy of Culzean talking with Gilbert of Bargany, the
enemy of her house and of us all.  The blood settled
sharply chill about my heart, and the bitterness of death
seemed to come upon me.  The maid to whom my
heart had gone out, to whom I had looked up as my liege
lady, was standing here in midnight converse with the
sworn enemy of her race and of her father.

But I had no time for consideration—none for deciding
what I should do.  I was no eavesdropper, yet for my life I
could not go forth and confront them.

I could hear Gilbert Kennedy's words.  They were
pleading and passionate words.

'Hear me, listen to me, Marjorie,' he said, and I could
see his uncovered head turned towards her where she stood
black between me and the sea, 'I love no one but you.  I
have sought none but you.  Ever since I was a stripling lad,
like your young Launcelot Kennedy, have not I given you
worship and service?  Why then do you hate me, despise
me, turn away from me?'

As I listened my heart rose again in hope.  'Your
Launcelot Kennedy,' he had said.  It might be that I,
even I, was the cause why Marjorie turned from him as
he said.

'Gilbert,' said Marjorie Kennedy, and her voice was like
the still waters of a sheltered sea lapping on the wet sands,
'I do not turn from you.  I am not proud with you.  If I
were, would I be here to-night?  But in spite of this I am
trysted to another fate.  If there is to be any use in my life,
it is that I may become the sacrifice that is to compose this
quarrel.  And it cannot be with you for husband.'

'And wherefore not?' said Bargany fiercely, striking
one hand into the hollow palm of the other.

Marjorie put out one of her own hands as if to restrain him.

'I will put you to the test,' said she; 'if I were Lady
Bargany, would you submit to John, Earl of Cassillis, and be
his man, setting aside all your ancient quarrels, and
acknowledging him as your liege lord?'

'God forbid!' said Bargany, promptly.

Marjorie put out her other hand for him to take.

'And I like you the better for it, Gilbert,' she said
impulsively.

Bargany set her fingers to his lips, and held her hands as
if he could never let them go.

'Then,' said she, 'since this bitter strife and the killing
of friends must somehow be stopped, and since you would
not stop it even for me—who am I that I should not be at
my father's command, to give and to take, to be sold and
bought like a beast in the market-place?'

'Who talks of buying and selling?' interrupted Bargany,
roughly.  'Give me but a look of your eyes, and I will carry
you to my house of Bargany, and see if any dare to take
you from the safe keeping of Gilbert Kennedy.'

'And my father?' said she, speaking very quietly, but
clearly, so that I heard every word.

'Your father,' answered Bargany, 'is a good man—too
good for such a crew.  He has married one daughter to the
young Sheriff of Galloway.  Wherefore not another to his
cousin of Bargany?  Is not Kennedy of Bargany, even
though he be an enemy, better than any noltish Galloway
laird?'

'Ah,' said Marjorie Kennedy, softly, 'but there is another
reason—'

'Tell it me and I will answer it,' said Bargany, with a
swift fierceness, for I think he imagined that he was making
head against her scruples.  But I had heard her speak in
that still way before, and could have told him different.

'Isobel Stewart, bower-maiden to the Queen, and the
Earldom of Carrick—they are surely reasons enough!' said
Marjorie Kennedy.

Bargany started as though an adder had stung him.  For
a moment he seemed bereft of speech.

'Who has been lying to you of me?' he said, almost
under his breath, as though the night air had suddenly made
him hoarse.

'Nay, think again,' said Marjorie; 'is it not true?
Better a soiled bower-maiden of the King's court and an
earldom with her, than poor Marjorie Kennedy of Culzean
in her smock!'

I never heard her say a spiteful thing before nor since—but
when it comes to the matter of the Other Woman, all
women are alike.

Bargany stamped his foot in very anger.

'A fig for dignities, and a rotten fig for Isobel Stewart,'
he cried.  'I love but you, Marjorie Kennedy!  Will you
come to me, so that you and I may face the world together?
For it is a black world and needs two hearts that can stand
by each other.'

Then betwixt me and the sea (as I have said) I saw
Marjorie knitting and clasping her hands as if her spirit
were wrestling within her.

'Yea, Gilbert,' she said, very gently at last, 'it is as you
say, a black, black world.  But neither you nor I are going
to better it by the breaking of trysts and engagements!'

'And what tryst have you?' he demanded sullenly.

'I am trysted to sorrow,' she answered, 'trysted for ever
to want that which most I desire, and to have that which
most I hate.  Gilbert Kennedy, take my hand this once and
hearken.  You and I are too greatly like one another to be
happy together.  We are not mates born for smooth things.
Sorrow is our dower and suffering our weird, and the pity of
it is that we must dree it apart.  I think we are both "fey"
to-night,' she said, breaking off with a change of tone.
'We had best go within.'

'Within?' said Bargany, scornfully, for he bethought him
that he could never enter the house of Culzean as a friend.

'Now, Gilbert,' said Marjorie, 'be a man and forgive.
Be a man also to Isobel Stewart, that she may know you a
truer man than she has ever met in King's courts—ay, truer
and nobler, as I think you, than the King himself.  And let
me go my way....'  She covered her face with her hands
and stood a space silent and bowed.  'Let me go my way!'
she said again.  And so would have gone from him.

But Gilbert Kennedy had her in his two arms and was
kissing her mouth, and that often and passionately.

'No,' he said, 'I will not let you go.  I will take you
in spite of all—though there were at Culzean a thousand
fathers—at Cassillis a thousand earls!'

She withdrew herself from him with quiet dignity, yet
without anger.

'But you will not take me in spite of one Marjorie
Kennedy,' she said.

Then at this, quick as a musket flash, Bargany turned
on his heel and tramped angrily down the shingle of the
shore, his sword clanking and his spurs ringing, as careless
who might hear as if he had been crossing the paved court
of his own house of Bargany.

And Marjorie Kennedy stood still and watched him go,
her hands pressed to her bosom, as though it needed both to
still the dreadful beating of her heart.

'I love him!  I love him!' she cried to the stillness,
when he was quite gone.  'Oh, that he might trample me,
that his hand might slay me, so that in death he might lift
up my head and say once again, "I love you."'

And so she also passed away within.

Then I, in my corner, where I had been an unwilling
hearkener, set my face between my knees and thought that
the world would never be bright again.  For I had heard
that which I had heard, and I knew now that Marjorie, my
Lady Marjorie, would never know love for me while the
world lasted.

Nevertheless, I rose up and clambered aloft to reach my
rope ladder.  I climbed over the rocks, thoughtlessly,
heedlessly, and I scraped my shoe so that it sounded loud in
the still night.  Suddenly I saw something bright above me,
the flicker of a white robe.  I had nearly fallen, thinking
that the appearance might be a spirit of the darkness.

'Dinna be feared, night-raker,' said a voice I knew well;
'it is only Nell Kennedy.  Think ye that none can climb
up the W hite Tower besides yourself?'

I was so greatly astonished that I could not speak at once.

'What may you be doing there at this time of the
morning, Nell?' I said at last.

'Just like yourself—trying to find a quiet way to my
bed,' said she; 'but I must hasten, or I shall be late to let
in Marjorie.'

'What Marjorie,' said I, pretending that I knew nothing
of the matter.

'Lie to other folk gin ye like, Spurheel,' said the
madcap, contemptuously, 'but dinna think ye can lie to
Nell Kennedy.  I saw ye come from the hole down by
the Cove.'

'But what do you here, Nell?' said I, for it might
be that the mad lassie had a lad, and it seemed a terrible
thing that she should be so misguided at her age as to meet
him alone by night.

'Maybe I was down by seeing Kate Allison, the Grieve's
lassie,' said she.  'Do you honestly think, Spurheel, that
Helen Kennedy would permit a sister of hers to gang
jooking here and there about the shore wi' a bonny young
man at the dead of nicht all by her lone?  It is not
very likely.'

I said no more.  It was not easy to argle-bargle with
Nell Kennedy.

'And now betake yourself up the rope to your garret,'
she said, 'and I will follow after, for I must let our
Maidie in by the east door or it grows light.'

I motioned her to go first, but she turned on me in great
indignation.

'Hear ye, Spurheel, up wi' ye!  And if ye so much as
set your nose oot o' your window when I am on the rope,
it will no be telling you.'

So I climbed up and shut-to the window, and long before
I was settled in bed I heard the two sisters talking softly
together in the room beneath.  So I knew that Nell
Kennedy had carried out her mad ploy.





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.. _`THE ADVENTURE OF THE GARDEN`:

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   CHAPTER XIV


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   THE ADVENTURE OF THE GARDEN

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I need not tell all the reasons why my well-beloved and
kindly master, Sir Thomas Kennedy, had grown to be hated
with a deadly feud by all the ill-conditioned of the Bargany
faction, saving indeed by Gilbert Kennedy of Bargany
himself.  For one thing, my master was the man of the
best and wisest counsels among all the supporters of Cassillis.
He had many virtues, being well-liked wherever he went
for kindliness and courteousness.  Also he was a man of
good principles and religion, so far as the times permitted,
and indeed somewhat beyond, as he found to his own bitter
cost or all was done.

Still more, my master Culzean was never one to suspect
evil of any man, and was ever prone to cover wrack
and ruin by over-trust and graciousness.

The first act of a great and wide conspiracy to compass
his death was now to be played, for Thomas of Drummurchie,
the brother of young Bargany, was not of so lofty
a spirit as his chief.  Indeed, to speak plainly, he was no
better than an assassin and a common bully.  He caused all
the country-side to lie in terror for fear of him, being great
with none, save only with the Lairds of Auchendrayne,—which
was a strange thing considering their outward profession
of strict honour.

It happened that there was a worthy knight, an
indweller in the town of Maybole, Sir Thomas Nisbett
by name, who was a crony of my master Culzean.
Now, it was the practice for the gentry of the
neighbourhood during the winter, to enter in and dwell within the
town of Maybole in many pretty and well-built houses of
freestone, diverting themselves during the dead time of
the year with converse together in each other's houses.
These stand for the most part in the chief street of
Maybole, and have fine gardens attached to them.  Of them
all, that of the Earl of Cassillis, is the largest, but the
one belonging to my master Culzean is but little behind it
in beauty and convenience.

But Sir Thomas Kennedy bode little about his house in
Maybole, chiefly because his lads and lasses loved most to
remain at Culzean, where the cliffs are and the sea spreads
wide, clattering pleasantly on the rocks, and with the birds
blithely swirling and diving about it all the year round.  And
of this I also was glad, for to live in a town is a thing I cannot
abide for any long time, being bred to the life of the hills
and to the wind in my face.

Now, on this New Year's Day, it so happened that this
Sir Thomas Nisbett had invited my master, being, as I say, a
crony of his own, and of an age with him, to sit down at
supper in his house in Maybole.  So Culzean took horse and
a small attendance, of whom I was the chief, and rode over
to bide the night in Maybole town, meaning to lodge in his
own house, and in the morning return to his Castle of
Culzean.

My master was a mightily curious man in one particular.
He could not abide any repair of people coming and going
with him on his journeyings.  And if in a quieter time he
had gotten his will, he would have ridden here and there
without any attendance whatever—so kindly and unsuspicious
of evil was his nature.  On the New Year night he had
bidden me to remain within doors, because, as he said, he
knew his way home full well from Sir Thomas Nisbett's
house.  Also, I suspect, he wished me not to observe
whether he retained his usual walk and conversation, after
seeing the New Year in with the Provost and the other
Sir Thomas, for the custom of Maybole was exceedingly
hospitable.

New Year's Day had been dark and gloomy.  The
promise of oncoming foul weather was in the feel of the
raw, drooky air.  No sooner was it dark than a smurr of
rain began to fell, very wetting and thick, so that even with
torches it had been impossible to see many paces.  We
reached our lodging at the town house of Culzean before
the night had set in, and as the supper was at six of the
clock, it was no long time before my master took his way
to Sir Thomas Nisbett's house.  He left me seated by the
fire with a book of chronicles of the wars to read.  As soon,
however, as he had issued forth upon the street, I took my
bare sword in my hand, and by another door I sallied forth
also.  For in such a town as Maybole there are always ill-set
folk that would gladly do an injury to a well-kenned and
well-respected man like my master.  And much more now
when the feud had waxed so hot and high.

But it chanced that Sir Thomas, so soon almost as he set
foot over the doorstep, greeted his fellow-guest, the Provost
of the town—who, as became his office, had with him one to
hold the tail of his furred gown out of the clarty mud, and
also a lad with a torch running before him.  Nevertheless, I
followed on in that darker dusk which succeeds the glare of a
torch.  On our way we had to pass through the garden
behind the house of Sir Thomas Nisbett, which was full of
groset bushes, divided by high hedges of yew and box.  I
came softly after them, and abode still by the gate when the
Provost and his train had passed through with our good knight
in their midst.  The pair of them were talking jovially
together as they went, like men with toom kytes that
know they are going in to be filled with good cheer.

'I declare I am as hungry as a moudiewort in a black
frost,' said the douce Provost.  'I haena seen meat the day.
What wi' hearkening to auld wives denouncing ane anither
for kenned and notour witches, and sending men of the
tribes of little Egypt to the Tolbooth, my life has no been
my ain.'

My master laughed loudly and heartsomely.

'It is weel to be hungry and ken o' meat,' he replied, in
the words of the well-kenned proverb.

And the pair of them laughed with their noses in the air,
easily mirthful like men that strengthen themselves with the
comfortable smell of dinner blown through an open door.

But I question much whether they had laughed so
heartily if they had seen what I saw at that moment.  And
that was a face looking over the height of the yew hedge—a
face wrapped about the mouth with a grey plaid and with a
grey brimmed hat pulled close down over the eyes.  As the
flickering of the torch died out at the entering in of the
house door, I saw the man raise his hand in a warning and
forbidding gesture, as though he made a signal to men who
could see him, but who were hidden from my sight.

This was enough for me.  I resolved that those who
plotted evil behind backs should have to war with Launce
Kennedy, who, at least, was no mean foe, and one not given
to wearing his eyes under his coat.

Not for a moment after this could I leave the garden,
for one of the villains might have gone to the window and
shot at my master through the glass—as one had done years
before to good Maister John Knox (who, as I have heard
tell, reformed religion in this land) on an evening he sat
quietly reading his book and drinking of his ale in his own
house in the High Street of Edinburgh.

So I got me into an angle of the garden and climbed a
wall, which, being grown with ivy, was a good and safe post of
vantage.  From thence I could overlook the whole enclosure.
After a little my eyes became better accustomed to the
darkness.  The lights from the windows also made a faint
glimmering athwart the hedges, and I could distinctly see
men darning themselves into their hiding-places, and getting
ready their pistols and hackbutts.

Even as I sat there on the wall and froze, a plan came
into my head which sent the blood surging through my veins,
like the tide scouring the gut of Solway.  I remembered
that Sir Thomas Kennedy was at no time very active on his
legs, and what with the income in his knee and the good
wine under his belt, he would assuredly be in no key for
running when he issued forth.

Also they were certainly many who lay in wait for him.
I counted at least five moving about in the faint light.
So I mounted the top of the ivied wall, and slid down the
outside, landing heavily on my hinderlands in a ditch.  I
stole round to the gable door of Nisbett's house, and told
the manservant that I had come to see my master, whereupon
they permitted me to go up to the room on the first
storey, where the guests were already set down at the banquet.
I knew well that it was no use speaking to my lord, but I
did venture to call out the host, Sir Thomas Nisbett, whose
head was stronger and whose heart more readily suspicious
than those of the Laird of Culzean.

Him I told how the matter stood, whereupon he wished
to speak to the Provost and to call the town officers.  But I
assured him that these determined assassins in the yard could
render an account of the town guard twice told over.

'So,' said I, 'I have this to propose to you in a word.
When the time comes for the guests to depart, you will
detain my master—and the Provost, too, if you can.'

'Ere I have done with them they will not move far to-night,
or my name is not Thomas Nisbett,' said the host,
nodding his head, for these were the manners and hospitalities
of the time.

'And you will lock them in a secure place till the morning!'

'But,' said Nisbett, 'will not the villains attack my
house?  If it be as you say, they have assurance for
everything.'

I told him that they might very well do that, but that
if he gave me a mailed coat with plate sleeves, and also
kneecaps of steel, together with my arms and cap, I
thought I could make a race for it and carry them all off
along with me.

'But, laddie,' he cried, 'ye gang to your death!'

I told him not so, for that even when accoutred I was a
notable runner, and could course like a hare.

'And in any case, better Launce Kennedy be dead than
Culzean, or the Provost and yourself, Sir Thomas Nisbett.
What would happen to the town and countryside then?'

'Ay, better that,' he said very sententiously, at which I
could scarce forbear but smile, for the very simplicity of the
man was such that he not only counted his life worth more
than mine, but expected me to do the same.  However, it
was not concerning him, but of my master and my master's
children that I thought.  What mattered little to a
Kennedy of Kirrieoch, mattered greatly to Sir Thomas
Kennedy, Tutor of Culzean.  Yet I know not that I had
any great fear of failure, for I had thus far won off
scot-free, even when in the general engagement our faction had
gotten the worst of it.  And so I thought to do always.

The evening wore on like eternity, and I had many a
thought in my heart, though but few of them were sad or
waesooie, for I was too young.  Most of all I prayed that
I might bear myself well, and in some shape at least carry
the matter through without dishonour.

When the Provost and my master had well drunken and
eaten yet more, their host stole away from them on a
pretext, and came to the chamber where I sat in darkness,
planning how to make my way through the garden.

He brought me presently the equipment of which I had
need, and of his own accord added another pistol of
admirable French workmanship.  For France is ever the country
for good ordnance of all sorts—from the pistolet which Sir
Thomas Nisbett gave me to the cannons that dang down
the Castle of Saint Andrews about the heads of Normand
Leslie and his crew.

'Gin ye live ye kin keep the pistol,' he said, as one that
did me a vast kindness.

Then over my steel cap I set the great broad hat of Sir
Thomas of Culzean, and did his cloak about me.

It was now the time to go, and I tell you true, my heart
beat a pretty tune to dance to as I stood at the back of the
door—with my host hiding well in the rear, lest they should
nick him by firing as the light within showed me plain in
the doorway.

So I ordered the lamp to be removed and the door to be
opened.  Then my host bade me adieu in a loud, hearty tone,
and said that he would come round and visit me in the
morning.  It was with a bitter sort of joy, not wholly
unpleasant, that I heard the door clash sharply to behind me.
I had my sword in my right hand and my pistol ready bent
in the other.  And I bethought me how many would have
risked the same wager of battle.

There was a light flickering somewhere in the town—belike
a party passing homeward with torches from a merry
making, or some of the bonfires lighted for the inbringing
of the New Year.  I could see my friend of the beckoning
hand now standing erect with his plaid about him.  He was
the same I had seen at the burning of the Bible when I was
but a boy in the courtyard of Ardstinchar, and, I doubted
not, the Grey Man of our later troubles.

I knew that the sharpshooters would be placed in the
alleys of the garden.  Indeed, I had seen them pass to their
situations, and observed that they had their hackbutts carefully
pointed at the path along which I must pass.  So instead of
walking directly down the main road to the gate, I made
believe to stumble on the threshold, and to recover myself
with an exclamation of pain, in order that I might divert
them into waiting till I should come their way.  For I must
perforce pass by the mouths of their muskets so close that
they could not miss.

But instead of taking the main avenue, I darted sideways
along the narrower path which led round the garden's edge,
and there, cowering in the angle, I waited for what should
happen.  In their hurry and surprise I heard one hackbutt
go off with a crash, and the light from the touch lit up the
garden.  Then in the darkness that followed I ran further
down the walk towards the outer gate.  In the midst I
came upon a fellow who kneeled with his musket upon a
stick, trained upon the middle path by which they had
hoped that Culzean would come.  Then with my sword I
stuck the hulking villain through that part of him with
which I came most readily in contact.  What that
might be, I declare that I know not until this day.  Only
I judged that it could not have been a very mortal one, by
the vigour with which he cried out.

Then indeed there was confusion and deray to speak
about.  I saw the form of the Grey Man, whom I had observed
directing the ambush, rise from the further dyke-side.  He
spoke sharply like one that cries orders, and at the word
many men came rushing pell-mell to see what was the cause
of the hideous outcry on that side of the garden where I was.

But I overstepped the carcase of the rascal into whom I
had set my good blade, and most circumspectly made my way
down the side of the wall unseen of any.

But when I had advanced as far as the way out by the
single gate, my fate came, as it were, to the stern and deadly
breach.  For there were marksmen who had their pieces trained
on that place.  With my own eyes I had seen them set
themselves in position.  Nevertheless, the noise behind waxed so
imminent that I drew a long breath, and sprang at the
opening.  As I went through, ten or twelve pieces at the least,
both pistolets and hackbutts, were loosed off against me.  I
heard the bullets splash, splash all about my legs and body,
and one that had bounded from the lintel of the door-post,
dunted me on the breastplate, which it was a God's mercy I
had minded to wear.  Yet for all I escaped wholly unscathed.

Outside the gate there were two fellows that withstood
me, and I had small time to ask whether they were friends or
foes.  So, to make siccar, I speered no catechisms of them,
but only shot off my pistol into one of the thickest parts of
one, setting the muzzle almost to his belt, and with yet more
gladness gave the other a sound iron thrust in the shoulder.
For all my life I have loved the point more than the edge—and
a thousand times better than the powder and lead—which
is an uncertain hit-or-miss thing at best.

I cleared the yett, sprang through, and there I had it
down the High Street of Maybole with the bullets spelking
about me like hailstones, and chance night-wandering
burghers scudding for their doors like conies on the sandy
knowes.

I heard the fierce rush of men behind me, and looking
over my shoulder I saw some ten running my way with their
swords drawn in their hands.  So I knew that it was likely
there would be one among them who could outrun me,
having war-gear upon me and that not all mine own.  With
that I undid the cloak of the Laird of Culzean, my master,
and let it fall; and so much lightened I sped on till, near to
the house of one Matthew M'Gowan, they fairly ran me
to earth.





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.. _`A MIDNIGHT LEAGUER`:

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   CHAPTER XV


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   A MIDNIGHT LEAGUER

.. vspace:: 2

The place of my refuge was a summer-house set in a garden,
and mostly made of wood.  But it had three feet of stonework
about the walls, which chance fortifications, as I think,
saved my life.  Then I praised the forethought with which
I had brought with me abundant powder and shot in the
horns I had slung at my girdle.  I also remembered to
thank Providence for misdirecting the bullets as I ran out
of the garden door.

Here in this small child's playhouse it was my fortune to
stand such a siege as mayhap never man stood before.  And
of that I shall tell, so that all may judge and see whether
the reward which the Earl of Cassillis afterwards obtained
for me, was at all out of keeping (as some allege) with the
services which I, Launce Kennedy, sometime esquire,
rendered to him and his house.

Yet I did the thing for love and by no means for
reward.  Ay, and largely without thought also.  For such
was the spirit of the times, that wagers of battle were
accepted lightly to spite one and overpass another, like
children that play Follow-my-leader upon the street.

So I lay in my summer-house, behind the low breastwork
of stone, while above me the bullets rattled through
the frail woodwork like hailstones that splash into still
water.

Lying thus prone, I charged my pistols—a thing which,
from long practice, I could do very well in the dark, and
gazed out through the open windows that looked every
way.  What I suffered from most was the want of light
upon the approaches of my castle at the top of the garden.
For I was placed upon a little hill, and the ground sloped in
every direction from me.  Yet even this advantage of position
did me little good, for the light was too uncertain to show
me those that might come against me.  And more than
all, this uncertainty put me in a sweat lest I should shoot
at shadows and allow the real enemy that came to invade
and slay me to pass harmless, so that they would break upon
me before I was aware.

Occasionally, however, the light that burned somewhere
in the town cast glimmerings over the garden, and then I
could see dark figures that crouched and scudded behind bushes
and sheltered ayont the trunk of every leafless tree.  After
that God-sent illumination grew brighter, I think it is not
too much to say that each time I got a fair chance at an
enemy, there was one rascal the fewer alive—or at least one
that had a shot the more in him.  It cheered me to see
them crawling out of the range of my ordnances as if they
had been few and I a host.

Most of all I aimed, with the deadliest and most prayerful
intent to kill, at the tall man in the cloak, whom I had seen
from the first directing the ploy.  Time and again I believed
that I had him, but upon each occasion it was some meaner
rogue that bore the brunt.

Thus I held my own with Sir Thomas's French pistol
laid aside ready for them if they came with a rush, and my
own for common use to load and fire again withal, till the
barrels almost scorched me with the heat.  Also I kept my
sword ready to my hand, for when it comes to the edge
of death, I put more confidence in my blade than in all the
ordnance in the land.  Though Heaven forbid that I should
speak against the pistolet, when that very night I had so
often owed my life to it.  My chief hope now was that the
Provost of the place, who had been a guest with Sir Thomas,
might escape and rouse the townsfolk.  The people of
Maybole loved not the Barganies greatly, but, on the
contrary, were devoted to the service of my master Culzean,
because of his kindliness of disposition, and the heartsome
way he had of calling them all 'Sandy' and 'Jeems,'
according to their Christian name, a thing which goes a far road
in Scotland.

It so happened just then that the fire that did me so much
good—which, as I afterwards learned, was lighted by one of
my enemies for frolic in the wood-yard of one Duncan
Crerar, millwright—burned up a little and cast a skarrow
over the garden where I was.  When it was at its brightest,
there came four fellows running up the brae all with their
swords bare in their hands, so that it seemed that I was as good
as dead, for it was manifestly impossible that I could
withstand them all.  But I minded the saying of a great captain of
the old wars, 'Stop you the front rank, and the second will
stop of itself.'  So I took good and careful aim with my
pistols at the two fellows that led the charge, and fired.  The
first of them tossed his blade in the air, spun about like a
weathercock and fell headlong, while the other, lamed in
his leg, as it appeared, tried to crawl back down the hill
again.  The two that came behind were no little daunted
by this fall.  Nevertheless, they still came on, but I cried out
as loud as I could, 'Give me the other pistols, Sir Thomas,
and I shall do for these two scoundrels also!'

At which they gave back in great astonishment and ran,
I make no doubt, to tell their masters that they had to do
with more than one old man well lined with sack and canary.
Then in the breathing space I charged my pistols again, and
cried to the fellow that was limping along the ground by
the back of my summer-house,—

'Link it, my lad, back to your master, or I shall put
another bullet in ye, in a place where it will stop you from
groaning and hirpling there at my lug!'

For I understood well that he desired to take me in
the rear.

At this moment there happened a thing surprising.  I
saw a tall, dark figure overleap a wall at the side from which
the shots came thinnest.  I saw it stoop and lay fire to
something that was darker than itself, when instantly there
arose from the pile of millwright's shavings and kindling
wood a clear light which caused all the garden to be seen
without any difficulty.

Then the tall, unknown figure, which seemed yet
unaccountably familiar to me, walked slowly up the middle walk
toward the summer-house, the pistols cracking all about, and
the bullets splashing faster than ever upon the roof and sides
of my shelter.

Then I saw who it was.

'Run for it, Robert Harburgh,' I cried.  'Man, you are mad.'

But I declare he never altered by a single pulse-beat his
deliberate advance.  At the door he paused as one that upon
the threshold would turn to kick a yelping cur.  Then
giving the sharpshooters a wave of his hand in contempt, he
entered and shut the door.

'Saint Kentigern's fish and a thousand devils,' said I, 'I
am not feared of any man, but there is no sense in
foolhardiness, Robert.  Come in out of reach of their bullets
this moment, thou fool!'

'Ah,' he returned to me, 'I had as lief die and be done
with it.'

'But then I would not, for my stomach is in good order,'
replied I, swiftly, 'so lie down on thy belly and at the least
help me to keep alive, for I am most consumedly anxious to
keep my body from proving leaky by the entering in of
bullets.'

So, obediently he laid him down, watching one side of
our cunning defences.  He told me that he had heard what
was a-doing—how that the Mures and Drummurchies, together
with Sawny Bean, the savage carl that was called of
the common people 'The Earl of Hell,' had gotten the Laird
of Culzean in a little summer-house in a walled garden and
were there worrying him to death.

'So,' said Harburgh, 'having nought better to do, I
primed my pistols and came.'

The firing upon us grew hotter than ever.  We seemed
at times to be closed within a ring of fire.  Yet neither of
us were the least hurt, save that a chip from the edge of a
stone, driven off by a bullet, had struck me on the cheek
and made it bleed.

When the fire which Robert Harburgh had lighted
burned up, we that were marksmen lost no chances at any
who showed so much as an arm or a leg.  And many of
those murderous rascals whom we did not kill outright (not
having a fair chance at them from their lying in shelter and
other causes), were at least winged and sore damaged, so
that we judged that there would be some roods of lint
bandage required about Drummurchie and Auchendrayne
on the morrow.

Outside we heard a great and growing turmoil and the
sound of many voices crying 'To the death with the
murderers!  Break down the doors!'

It was the noise of the people who had risen in the
night and were coming to help us.  For in a moment the
gate of the yard was broken down, and a rout of men in
steel caps and hastily-donned armour came pouring in.  And
it had been comical to watch the array, if our urgent
business had allowed.  For some had put on a breastplate
over their night gear; some fought like Highlandmen in
their sark-tails, which, on the night of the New Year, must
have been breezy wear; while others again had snatched a
hackbutt and had forgotten the powder, so that now they
carried the weapon like a club by the barrel.

Before these angry levies our cruel invaders vanished like
smoke, as though they had never been, clambering over walls
and scurrying through entries.  But it is reported that several
of them were sore hurt in thus escaping—indeed, here and
there throughout the town were no fewer than five dead and
six wounded, chiefly in the two gardens where I had been
compelled to discharge my pistols.

Robert Harburgh stepped out of the summer-house before
them all, stretching his limbs.

''Tis a cramped, ungodly place, friends,' he said.  'After
all, it is better to fight in the open and risk it!'

'Where is the Laird of Culzean?' cried some that knew
him not.  'If ye cannot show us the laird, ye shall die
forthwith!'

'Nay,' replied Harburgh, 'concerning that I ken not.
'Tis not in my province, being general information.  My
parish is fighting, not the answering of questions.  Come
hither, Launce, and tell them of thy master!'

Whereat I came forth and told them of the cruel plot
and the attack upon Sir Thomas at Nisbett's house.  But
they would not be satisfied till they had gone there and found
him.  Nothing would do but that he should show himself
unhurt and speak a word to them at the window.  Which,
being of short-grained temper and with a monstrous headache,
he was most loath to do.  But Robert Harburgh, who had
experience of suchlike, being before his marriage a great man
of his cups, poured water upon his head, and, having dried it
by rubbing, he brought him to the window, where he spoke
to the people as his kindly friends and neighbours, and
thanked them for their affection.

'Nay,' cried one, 'thank your own young squire, who
has to-night ta'en your life upon him.'

So the people of Maybole, for the honest and honourable
love which they bore us, abode under arms till the morning,
and searched all the town for the murdering ruffians of
Drummurchie.  Yet they found them not, for such always
have a back door to escape by.

In the morning, Sir Thomas called for his hat and cloak,
and when they were brought he started in wonder and cried,
'What, in the name of the shrunk shanks of the Abbot of
Crossraguel, is the meaning of this hole?'

Then Robert Harburgh said, ''Tis but an airy summer
suit that Launcelot wore last night, when he went forth
among those that sought to kill the Laird of Culzean.'

My master stared without comprehending.  But when
he fully understood, he clasped me in his arms.

'God knows,' he said, 'I would give my right hand, if
I could believe that I had a son who would ever do as much
for me.  Those I have are good for naught but golf and
stool-ball.'

Wherein by his hasty words he did his honest, silly lads
much wrong.





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.. _`GREYBEARDS AND DIMPLE CHINS`:

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   CHAPTER XVI


.. class:: center medium bold

   GREYBEARDS AND DIMPLE CHINS

.. vspace:: 2

One Sabbath morn there came an unwonted message to me,
as I sat lingering and idle in the armoury of Culzean.  I
had cleaned my own graith and oiled the pistols—which I
regularly did on the Sabbath morning whenever I did not go
to the kirk at Maybole.  Now, this particular day of which I
speak, I was idly conning the leaves of a song-book full of
trifling, vain, and amatorious lilts and catches—some of them
very pleasant, however, and taking to the mind.  It ought
to have been my psalm-book that I was at, God forgive me;
but since ballad-book it was, why, even so will I set it down
here.

And the message that came was by the mouth of a kind
of jackal or lickpot of John Dick's—who, for reasons of his
own, hated me, chiefly because I took no share in the foulness
of him and his subservient crew.  This youth was of so
little worth, that in all the transactions of this book he has
not once come into the narrative—though as I now
remember he was at the tulzie in Edinburgh, and also at the
flitting of the sow.  On both occasions he was the first
to run.

The name of him was Colin Millar, an ill-favoured,
envious, upsetting knave, compact of various ignorances and
incapacities.  And there needs no more to be said about him.

'There is a man wanting to see you down at Sandy
Allison's, the Grieve's,' he said.

Then he looked at me with the cast in his eye as crooked
as a paddock's hind leg, and says he, 'The tat will be in
the fire now, I'm thinking.  They tell me that it is the
Minister!'

I knew very well what the ill-tongued hound meant.
So right gladly without a word I set the knuckles of my
hand, Sabbath morning though it was, against his ugly face
in a way that would leave a mark for a day or two.

'Take you that, dog,' I said to him, 'and learn to keep
a more ruly member in your insolent head.  Think not that
you are John Dick, though you carry his dirty slanders.
As the wild boar gnashes its tushes, so the little piglings
squeak!'

And as he went away, lowering and snarling, I had a
mind to go after him and give him something more than
my knuckles.  For the thing he meant was a lie of the
devil, lighted at his furnace and spewed out of the reek
of his pit.

But as I went to the door there came a poor lad from
the stable with the same message—that there waited one for
me at the house of Sandy Allison, the Grieve.

So I knew that the dog Millar had not invented the
whole matter.  Whereupon I looked carefully to my gear,
did a new doublet upon me (because it was the Sabbath
day) and girt me with a sash of blue, coft in Edinburgh
and never before worn.  Then setting my sword in its
sheath, I went out through the woods, which were now
grown leafless and songless.

There was a brisk air of winter, crisp without rawness,
in the breeze, and I was glad to be out of doors; for since
the matter of the meeting with Gilbert Kennedy, which by
ill chance I had seen, both Marjorie and Nell came seldom
my way.  Which is, perhaps, why I looked so well to my
apparelling ere I went to the Grieve's house.  For a lad
wearies for the speech of women-folk, and if he gets not one
kind—why, he will seek another.

But now, when I come to think of it, I need not have
troubled so to deck myself.  For after the corner is turned
and the long lane leads straight to the garden of roses, a
woman cares not whether a man be clothed in dishclouts or
whether he glitters like a bridegroom in cloth of gold.

So when I came near to the house there issued forth to
meet me Kate Allison, which seemed to me like ancient
days come back, and my heart beat in a fashion I never
thought to feel again.  For a burnt stick is easily lighted,
and Kate Allison was, without doubt, both bonny and kind.
She was waiting for me at the corner of the barn like one
that has an assignation.  So when she came near me she
put her hands roguishly behind her, and said, 'Launce
Kennedy, you are a false, deceitful lad, and no true lover.  But
think ye not that I care a pin, for I have gotten a braw
lad of my own, and no thanks to you.  Ye can get the Lady
Marjorie to convoy hame next year from the Maybole Fair.'

And her speech made me glad, for she dropped me a
courtesy and pretended to march off.  So I knew full well
that if she had not been heart-whole and at ease about all
doubtful matters, she would have greeted me very differently.
So, as I say, I was glad.  Yet presently I liked it not so well
as I expected, for though men are often false to their loves,
they never understand how their loves can change from
loving them.  I knew well that Kate would, if not meddled
with, immediately return to tell me what had befallen, and
why it was that they had sent for me.

Which indeed was just what she did.

'We have gotten a mighty grave man here with us, who
came to our house last night at e'en.  We wanted to send
word to the castle to Sir Thomas; but the man said that he
had had enough of the Kennedies to last him his lifetime, and
that he would put up with us, if we could make shift to give
him a bed.  He is a man of a majestic and noble countenance,
and when he had come within, he took a Bible from his
wallet, and tairged us tightly on the histories of the wars of
the Jews and on points of doctrine.'

'Ye would be fit for that,' said I to her, laughing, 'for
most of our discourse has been upon points of doctrine and
practice—though I mind not that we touched upon the wars
of the Jews.  We had ever wars enough of our own.  Was
it not so, sweet Kate?'

And I would have taken her by the waist, for that is ever
the way, as I have just been reading in my song-book, to punish
a woman, when like a pretty scold, she slanders her love.
So, as the London stage catch hath it, I forgave her for it.
Yet for all she would by no means permit me to come near
her—which I was mortally sorry for.  Because though I
wanted her to change, I desired her not to change so mightily
as all that.

'Na, na,' she said, 'and that's by with.  Kate Allison
needs no general lovers.  Wear you your own lady's favours;
I can get them that loe me and none other, to wear mine.'

I pursued the subject no further at that time, meaning,
however, to return to it.  For a man likes not to see the
things which have been freely his slipping from him like
corn through a wide-meshed riddle.  It makes his mind linger
after things long past, and he begins to think them sweeter
than any favours that ever he had, even when all the garden
was most fully his to wander in and cull at his lordly pleasure.

Too soon for my liking, therefore, we came to the door
of the Grieve's house, which was but a wide kitchen with
two smaller rooms off it.  I heard a voice uplifted as it
seemed in prayer, and I bethought me with shame of
my so late mean and earthly thoughts; but I looked at
Kate Allison, and she was so pleasant to look upon that
I found excuses for myself.

Then the prayer being done we went in, and they told
the man in the inner room that that same Launcelot
Kennedy, for whom he had inquired, was come.

So in a moment there came forth from the inner chamber,
even as I had expected, Maister Robert Bruce.  He wore his
long, black cloak, and his fine, cloth coat showed soberly
beneath it.  His hat was on his head, which he doffed for
a moment to Kate Allison and her mother, and then set on
again.  He bade them excuse him, for that he had much
business to talk with me.  I followed him out, and as I
passed Kate, methought she looked disappointed that I
should go thus soon.  So, the corners of her mouth being
down, and her mother's back turned, I put my hand beneath
her chin, and plucked at the loose slip-knot of her bonnet,
which was a pretty quipsome thing that haymakers use, but
prettier on her than on any of them.  Whereat she flashed
forth a great, sharp pin and set it spitefully in my arm,
which also was a pleasing habit of hers.  But all was
innocent and friendly enough, and my only excuse for
thinking more of daffing with Kate Allison than of listening
to the grave converse of Maister Robert Bruce, is that
then I was nearing nineteen years of my age—which, as you
all do know, is a time when maids' dimples are more moving
than the wisdom of the sages.

That is all mine excuse, and, as well I wot, but a poor
one.  Yet when once Maister Bruce had me in the wood,
taking me by the arm, the majesty of his countenance and
the moving fervour of his voice so worked upon me that in
good sooth I thought of naught but what he said.

He told me that he was resolved to depart out of this
land of Carrick and Kyle, which might have been the
Garden of Eden if it were not inhabited by devils.  He
had come no speed at reconciling the parties at feud, even
as I could have told him before he began.

'When I had thought,' he said, 'that I had made some
way in softening the heart of Gilbert Kennedy, who vaunts
himself to be sincerely attached to me—and I do believe it—I
said to him that he ought, for the settling of the quarrel,
to give in his submission to his liege lord, the Earl of Cassillis.
In a moment comes the fire into his eyes, the anger grows
black in his heart, and all my good words are undone.  I
think you Kennedies are all of you possessed with evil spirits,
even as it was in the days of the Gadarene out of whom
Christ cast many devils.'

He paused a moment, and then continued,—

'So the name of the devils of Carrick is Legion, for they
are very many!'

Then, being sorry that he should so speak of those who,
after all, were my master's kin and in a manner my
own—for all the world knows that a blood feud is a thing
acknowledged in the Bible, as one may see when David
lay on his deathbed—I asked him how I could serve him,
in order that I might stay his abuse of that which he did
not understand.

'You may wonder,' he went on, 'that I choose to speak
in confidence to one that is but an esquire, and, I hear, as
ready with his sword in the quarrel as any of them.  But at
least you are not like the rest, occupied entirely with the
safety of your own skin, and unwilling to look the matter in
the face.

I told him that I did not wonder at all that he was willing
to speak to me, for that I could keep my counsel truly and
well.

'Faith, and I believe that,' he cried, 'if it were only
your self-conceit of being able to do it.'

But I understood not at all what he meant, for if there
is anything that I am conspicuously lacking in, it is this very
quality of self-conceit.

'Hear ye, then, and mark well my words,' said the
Minister of Edinburgh.  'There is a man in this country who
is at the root of all the blood and all the slaughter, and who,
if he be not curbed, will yet do tenfold more mischief.  Your
master thinks that he can bribe him to friendship; well, I am
no judge of men, if the man is to be bribed at any price
beneath the sole power and sway of all this wild country of
the west.'

'It is Gilbert Kennedy of Bargany that you mean,' said I,
for I own I was jealous of his good name, enemy though he
was.

'Gilbert Kennedy is but a hammer in this man's hand.
Your good knight here at Culzean is but a spoon for him to
sup with.  And the only man that sees through him (and
that but partially) is your joker-headed Earl, whose keen care
for the merks, the duties, and the tacks, makes him
somewhat clearer in the eye than the rest of you.'

'And who is this plotter?' said I.

He stopped and looked about him to see that none was
listening.  Then he laid his lips almost to my ear.

He whispered a name which, in this place, I must not
write, though afterwards it will be plain enough.

'It is simply not possible,' said I; 'the man you mention
is but a bonnet laird, as one might say, with a peel-tower
and a holding of half-a-dozen crofts.  Why, my master could
eat him up saltless, without turning out more than half a
parish of his fighting men.'

'Nevertheless,' said Robert Bruce, 'that is the man who
stands behind and makes the miracles work, as in Popish days
the priests were wont to do behind the altar.  Ye are but a
set of jigging fools here in Carrick, and the man that pipes
to you is the man I've told ye of!'

Then I thought over the matter—all that I knew of
the man.

'In truth,' said I, 'I am none so sure that you may not
be right.'

Robert Bruce smiled as one that waxes aweary of a
babe's prattle.

'For,' said I, 'I mind that I heard him endeavour to
win one by promises to the side of Bargany—'

'Pshaw,' said the Minister, 'he would as readily try to
win Bargany to the Earl's side, if it suited him to murder
them both together.  It is his plan to make them fight
each other till there are none left—to cut off the heads of
the taller poppies as in the ancient tale of Rome.  I tell
you this man has no side but his own, no desire but his
own profit, no end but to make himself supreme in Carrick.'

'And what can I, that am but a squire and a youth, do
in the matter?' said I.

'You are on the spot, Launcelot,' said the Minister,
kindly.  'I am in Edinburgh, and if things march as evilly
as they have been doing of late, it is likely I shall be even
further afield than Edinburgh.  But you can watch—you
can judge whom it boots to warn.  You can put in a
word—'

'I shall put in a sword,' said I, stamping my foot; 'put
it in deep—to think of such deceit and guile in a mere vassal
and understrapper of my lord's.'

'Launcelot,' said the Minister of Edinburgh, 'you begin
to make me sorry I trusted you.  I should have spoken to a
graver man.'

'Nay, sir,' I said, 'you mistake me.  I but mean that
if it came to the bitter bite of iron, the time for words
might go by.'

'Ay,' he replied thoughtfully, 'there is some sense in
that, but give not up the judicious words too early.'

So we betook ourselves gravely and staidly out of the
wood, and at bidding him farewell I received his benediction,
which he gave me with his right hand stretched out.  And
though I am tall and stand as erect as any man, yet the
Minister of Edinburgh overtowered me by half a foot.  But
I minded that not in him.

So I went to the castle armoury to bethink me, for after
what I had heard maids and bonnet strings were not to be
more in my thought that day.





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.. _`THE CORBIES AT THE EAGLE'S NEST`:

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   CHAPTER XVII


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   THE CORBIES AT THE EAGLE'S NEST

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One snowy day, I mind it was a Thursday according to the
day of the week, I had ridden to Girvan by the shore road.
I journeyed unmolested save that one sent a shot after me
as I passed the tower of Girvanmains.  But this not so
much, I think, with intent to do me an injury, as because
they saw my Cassillis colours, and could not let them pass
unchallenged by a yett of the Bargany folk.

But upon my return I got one of the greatest surprises of
my life, for as I rode gladly into the courtyard of Culzean,
lo! there was my lord out on the steps, with the noble courtesy
and distinction which none could assume so well as he, being
indeed natural to him, bidding farewell to a pair of guests
whom I never looked to see in the courtyard of Culzean,
save as it might be coming in decently, heels first, for the
purposes of Christian burial.

The two strangers were John Mure of Auchendrayne and
the young Laird, his son.  The old man was dressed as I first
saw him—in plain, fine cloth of blue without decoration.
He wore no arms or any armour that was visible—though
by the square setting of his body as he came down the steps
I judged that he wore a stand of chain mail underneath.
His son James, a cruel, loutish, hot-headed, but not wholly
ill-looking young man, was clad in the gayest fashion.  He
wore the wide, falling lace collar which Prince Henry had
brought in from France, and a pointed doublet and wide
breeches of the newest English mode.

It was John Mure who was speaking, for his son was
but a lout, and had little to say all the days of him.  He
waved his hand to the steps, by the door of Culzean,
whereon there stood Marjorie Kennedy, with her arm on
Nell's shoulder, both being pale as death, and seeming more
dowie and sad than I had ever seen them look before.

'It is to be the burying of strife,' cried Auchendrayne;
'in this loving cup I drink it.  The day of our love is at
the dawning, and the auguries of the time to come are of
the happiest.  To our next and sweeter merrymaking!'

And Sir Thomas, with his face one beaming smile of
pleasure, bade him a loving farewell, and told him to haste
back, for that cousins thus joined in affection could not be
too often together.

And all the while I sat Dom Nicholas as one that is
sunk fathoms deep in blank astonishment.

As Auchendrayne rode through the gateway, he waved
his hand to me, and turning to Culzean, where he stood
looking after them, he cried in the hearing of them all,—

'You have there the handsomest and the boldest squire
in all the south country, Culzean.  This is the bruit that I
hear of this young man everywhere I go.'

And so, still smiling and bowing, he rode away with his
son half a length of his horse behind him.

But I gave him no greeting, neither yea nor nay—but
regarded him with a fixed countenance.  For my heart was
like stone within me, because of the sorrow that I saw
coming on the house and could noways prevent.

Now the bitterness of this winter did not come till some
time after the New Year.  It was about the midst of
January when the frost bit most keenly, and the snow began
to fall most deeply.  The Culzean lads, James, Alexander
and little David (who was my favourite), caused the court
and out-buildings to ring with happiness.  Joy and peace
seemed indeed for a little to have come back to Culzean.
This was the first snow since David had donned the
trunks, and laid by the bairn's kilts—which are indeed
mortally cold wear in the winter season when it comes to
rolling in the snow.

David, as I say, was my favourite, and continually in my
loneliness a comfort to me, though I have not hitherto often
mentioned him, seeing that the young lads of Culzean come
not into my tale greatly, saving at this time.  Though, in
the coming day, they may into the tales others shall tell,
when we that now prank it so gaily are no better than the
broken shards of a drained pottle-pot.  But little Davie was
a merry lad, and I am glad that there is occasion for me to
name him in this history.

Davie was now manfully equipped in doublet and
trunk hosen of duffle grey homespun, so thick that his
brothers feigned that with a little trouble and propping
they stood up very well by themselves, when their daily
tenant had untrussed him and gone to bed.

And ever the snow came down.  It lay deep on all the
face of the country, but more especially it had swirled into
the courtyard of Culzean, so that the very steps of the door
were sleeked, and great wreaths lay every way about the
court.  The lads made revel in it, borrowing shovels from
the stables and throwing up the snow on either side, so as
to make narrow passages between the different doors of the
castle and the offices about.

I cannot set down, because that there is press of matters
more serious yet to be related, a tithe of the merry pranks
the rogues wrought in their madness.  They revelled in the
smother of the snow like whelps that are turned loose.  Yet
because there is none too much of merriment in this
chronicle, I shall make shift to tell somewhat of their
quipsome rascaldom.

It chanced one morning that Alexander, who was of a
mirthful mind, stood by a little door which led into the
house wherein our peats and turfs were kept for the fires,
so that it might not be necessary to bring a supply each
day from the peatstacks on the hill where the greater store was.

Whether Sandy's head ached from having eaten too
many cakes at the time of the New Year, I know not,
but suddenly it came into his mind that it might be a
desirable thing and a cooling, to stick his bullet head into a
mighty snowdrift which lay in front of the peat-house door.
So accordingly, for no particular reason, he bent himself into
an arch and thrust his head neck-deep into the snow.

At this moment came his elder brother, James Kennedy,
upon the scene, and his mood was also merry.

'Bless the rascal,' quoth he, 'whither hath his tidy lump
of a top-knot betaken itself to?'

So without loss of a moment the rogue made him a large
ball of snow, well compacted, and caused it to burst upon
the stretched trusses of Sandy's breeches, with a noise like
the breaking of an egg upon a wall.

Sandy snatched his head from the snow swift as a blade
that bends itself to the straight, and stood erect.  There
was no one in sight save little Davie, who danced at a
distance and laughed innocently at the jest.  For James,
the doer of it, had instantly dropped into a deep snow
passage.  Whereat Sandy, cured as to his head, but
villainously stung in the breech, turned him about in fierce
anger, seeking for someone to truncheon.  The lad Davie's
laugh annoyed him, and Sandy, being an adept at the palm
play, sent a snowball at his young brother, which took him
smartly upon the cheek.

Instantly Davie, poor callant, set up a cry of pain, which
brought his sister Nell upon the scene with all the furies in
the tangle of her hair.

'Ye muckle, good-for-nothing calves!' she cried,
addressing both her unseen brothers, whom she well knew to
be lying hidden somewhere among the snow passages of the
courtyard, 'I will bring Launce Kennedy to you with a
knotty stick, and that by my father's orders—clodding at a
bairn that gate, and garring him greet.  Ye think I canna
see ye, but if ye dinna come oot decently, I will come and
bring ye.  Ye may think black shame o' yoursel's!'

And this I do not doubt that James and Sandy did.  For
to be flyted upon by a lass, lying prone the while upon one's
stomach in a snow bank, does not make for self-respect.  So
both the lads began to crawl away as best they might from
Nell's dangerous neighbourhood.  It jumped greatly with
my humour to watch them from the upper window of the
armoury which looked abroad over the court.  All unwitting
they approached the one to the other with their heads down,
and at the corner, each running with full speed upon his
hands and knees, they knocked their skulls together soundly,
with a well-resounding crack which pleased me.  Instantly
they clinched and fought like wild cats, biting and fisting in
the snow—till their father, attracted from the hall by the
noise, came down and laid upon them both right soundly,
with the great whip wherewith the dogs were beaten when
they were trained for hunting.

All this was excellent sport to me, but the best was yet
to come.  In a little thereafter I saw Nell, who was a merry
lass when there was nothing upon her mind, come quietly
out of the side door that led to the kitchen places, with
David in her hand.  She set him within a small flanking
tower, which in old days had been loop-holed for arrows.
Then she locked the door upon him, taking the key with
her.  Before she went she handed the boy two or three
snowballs made from the wet, slushy snow, where the
sunshine had caused some drops to melt off the roof and fall
from the eaves.

Thus she went to the corner, I watching with joy the
while from the window of the armoury.

'Jamie, Sandy,' she cried, 'come hither, lads.  There's
something here for your private ear!'

At first the boys would not move, still smarting and
sulky from their father's training-whip.  But in a little they
came, and Nell enticed them with the repeated promise of
'something for their private ear' (the artful minx!), till she
had them exactly opposite the little window where David
was posted with his weapons of offence.

Suddenly from the arrow-slot there came a discharge of
artillery.  The providence that helps the weak put pith and
fusion into little David's arm.  As though it had been the
smooth stone of the brook that sped whizzing to the brazen
front of Goliath, the first moist shot of David's ordnance
plumped with a splash into the ear of Sandy.  In an instant
I lay upon the floor in the laughter which comes only from
beholding silly things.  For there below me were James and
Sandy Kennedy each dancing upon the point of their shoon,
and with their little fingers digging in their several ears
to excavate from thence the well-compacted slush wherewith
little David had taken his fitting revenge.

Nor was the occupation made easier for them by the
vexatious commentaries of their sister Nell, who repeated
over and over again to them, between her bursts of laughter,
'Did I not tell you that if ye came to the corner of the
tower ye would get something for your private ear?  This
will learn you to let wee Davie alane!'





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.. _`BAIRNS' PLAY`:

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   CHAPTER XVIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   BAIRNS' PLAY

.. vspace:: 2

There remains yet one other of their pranks to be told, and
that only because it is knit into the story, and so must be
unravelled along with it.

The pair of elders, after this defeat at the hands of Nell
and little David, took counsel together, and might sooner have
hit upon something to their mind, but that James, as was
usual with him, stood in an attitude of cogitation, having his
mouth very wide open.  Whereat Sandy, whose wits were
brighter, could not, even for the sake of the alliance between
them, refrain from dropping therein a snowball which he had
ready in his hand for any purpose that might arise.  This he
did with the same neatness and adroitness with which he
would have dropped a ball of worset yarn, when the caps
were on the green for the game royal of Bonnet-Ba'.

It took some time and a mighty deal of struggling on
the ground before this treachery between friends could be
arranged.  Also much thrusting of snow down the backs of
doublets and holding it there till it melted—together with
other still more unseemly and uncomfortable proceedings.

Then the reconciled allies entered the castle together,
promising peace, and fell into talk with young Davie, who
stood within the great door in the inviolate safety of the
hall.

'Do you want a merk?' said Sandy, tempting him with
the sight of one, which at that day was great wealth.  'It
will buy store of peaches, and pears, and baked apples at
Baillie Underwood's in the High Street, preserved cherries
also, and marmalit of plums.'

Then said Davie, 'A merk I want, indeed, as does
everyone, but you are not the fellow to give it me.  Therefore
quit your pother, for I know that you would only make
friends to get me apart, and so work mischief upon me.'

A wise boy David.

'As I live I lie not,' said Sandy, taking a great oath.  'I
will give you the merk, if ye go down after dark to the
barn, and passing through the great door to the lesser door
at the back, shut and bolt it with its bar of oak, and so return
the way ye went.  If ye do this, sure as death, I lie not, I
will give you the merk.'

Little David, who had ofttimes been deceived of his
brothers, considered upon the offer a while, and at last he
said to Sandy,—

'As sure as death ye might lie, though twice ye have
said it; but give the merk into the keeping of Launce
Kennedy, that will not tell lies, at least not for such freits,
and then I will take your dare, and go shut the further
door of the barn.'

They came up therefore to me to the armoury, James,
Sandy and David all together; and as soon as I heard them
coming I went from the window and sat by the fire, that
they might not suspect I had observed aught of their matters.
Then, when they revealed the plot to me, I bade Sandy be
careful what he did, for it was growing dark, and I
misdoubted that they meant to fright the child.  So I feared
them with the threat of their father, and as little David
lingered while his brothers went lumbering and shouting
down the armoury stair, I put into his hand a short
blackthorn cudgel which the young Sheriff of Galloway had
brought with him over from Ireland.

'If ye see anything more than common, hit it as hard as
ye can with that,' I bade him.

And so little David passed out.  I could not see him far
across the yard because of the fall of the gloaming, but on
his return, all a-drip of sweat and in a quivering tremble of
agony, he told me what had befallen him.

'It was bitter cold,' he said, 'and I will not say that I
was not feared, for I was.  Yet, so long as the door stood
ajar, there came a ray of light through it, and my heart was
cheered.  But presently it was shut to, and I had all the
way to go alone.

'But I heard the cows in the byre rattling at their hemps
through the rings, and as I kenned, pulling at the meadow
hay in their stalls.  And that at least was some company.
So I went on and the frosty snow squeaked under my feet.
I came to the great door of the barn.  It stood open, vast
and terrible as the mouth of a giant's cave.  But I thought
of the marmalit of plums, and in I went with my heart
gulp—gulping high in my throat.'

I nodded at the little fellow, for many a time had I felt
the same, and said nothing about it—when I was much
younger, of course.

'So,' said he, 'I went through the barn in which was
such hay and straw, till I came to the midst of it.  Here
I stopped to listen, for I could hear a noise, indeed many
noises.  However, it was only the black rattons firsling
among the straw.  I felt a thousand miles away from
home, an orphan, and very lonely—nor did thinking on
marmalit of plums now bring comfort—at least, none to
speak of.

'But, nevertheless, because I thought of the taunting
and japing of James and Sandy, I took my way to the
further door that looketh upon the old orchard.  The
black corn-stacks shut out many of the stars, but those
that were left tingled and shone cold.  I thought I had no
friend nearer than one of these.  I was much afraid.

'Yet nevertheless I shut the back door and barred it—barred
it good and strong with both bolts, and set a corn-measure
at the back for luck.  This being done, I turned and
took but one step towards the great door, through which I
could see the snow shining like a mist.  Then my heart
stopped, and I tried to cry out very loud, but, alas! I could
not cry out at all.

'For there was Something in the doorway.  I could see
it against the snow.  Something that crawled on the ground
with dull, horrid eyes, set wide apart, and that turned a
shapeless, horned head slowly from side to side, moaning and
yammering the while.

'I thought I should die.  Then I feared that I should
not die before the thing took me, for it slowly invaded the
barn till it filled all the doorway.  By this I knew that I
should indeed be devoured.  Nevertheless, I minded what
it was you said before I went.  So I thought that, having
a stout stick in my hand, I might as well die after having
smitten a good stroke as not—'

'Bravo, young David!' cried I; 'that is the right
spirit of battle.'

'So I took the blackthorn in both hands,' he went on,
'and swung it about my head as you showed me in the
hagging down of trees.  With that I struck the horrible
thing fairly between the eyes.  Then leaping over it I ran,
how I know not, for the house door—where I laughed and
wept time about till Nell brought me here that you might
bid me stop.  Now I want the merk.'

So I gave him the merk, took down the dog-whip from
the nail where it hung, and went out to look for Jamie and
Sandy—for well I knew that this had been one of their
tricks to frighten the boy, and I was resolved that they
should take a thrashing, either from me or, what they would
less desire, from their father—who, though a kind enough
man till he began to lay on, was apt to be carried away with
the exercise, and to forget bowels of mercy.

But when I got upon the snow by the door, Sandy came
running to me, fairly crying out with terror.  He had the
hide of a muckle bullock, which had been killed that day,
trailing from his waist.  His face, in the light that fell from
the lamp in the hall, was a sight to be seen.  There was a
lump on his brow, between the eyes, as large (to a nearness)
as a hen's egg.  All his face was a-lapper with blood, so
that for the moment I thought that the lad had really been
killed.  But when I pulled him up to the armoury, and got
him washed, I found that the blood was only that of the
bullock, whose hide he had wrapped about him in order
that he might crawl on the ground and fright his brother
David.

And I had there and then taken him to task with the
dog-whip (for indeed he might have bereft the child of
reason), but the sight of his own wordless terror smote upon
me, so that I desisted—for that time at least.

For a while Sandy could not speak by reason of the fear
which blanched his face, and caused him to hold by my
coat even when I went across the room.  At last however
he found tongue.

'There is a man,' he stammered, 'a man with a drawn
sword, standing at the barn end in a grey cloak, and a wild
beast crouching beside him.'

'Barley-break, flim-flam,' said I, for I believed not a word
of it, 'your head is muzzy with your carrying the bullock's
head and horns, and serve you right had David given you
a warble on it twice as big.'

'No,' gasped Sandy, 'it is not fantasy.  I saw the man
clearly.  He stood against the sky in a grey cloak, and the
beast crouched and held a lanthorn by him.  Oh, Launce, I
fear I have seen the Black Man, and that I shall die.'

'Seen your granny's hippen-clouts!' said I, roughly,
for I was angry at his senselessness.  'Lay raw beef to your
beauty-spot, my man, sleep here with me, and I will forgive
you the licking with the dog-whip.'

So by little and little I got Sandy soothed down till he
went to sleep on my bed, moaning and tossing the while.
Then I set me down to think, alone, on the window-sill
above the courtyard, for I had long since handed David over
to the care of Nell.  Sometimes for convenience, I slept
in the armoury, for Sir Thomas had trusted me with
everything since I had proved myself in the wars.

I saw well that evil was somehow intended against the
house of Culzean, and that something terrible walked in
darkness.  I resolved that I should find out what it was or
die.  Yet I liked not stealthy adventure so much as plain
cut and thrust, and wished that I had had Robert Harburgh
with me.  But I knew that, though brave as a lion, he
somewhat lacked discretion, and so might spoil all.  There
was nothing for it, therefore, but to go out alone.





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.. _`FIGHTING THE BEASTS`:

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   CHAPTER XIX


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   FIGHTING THE BEASTS

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Having shut and locked the armoury door behind me, I
stood a great while very still on the steps in the black
shadow; for nothing could I see, though I looked till my
eyes ached.  So I set out with my sword bare in my hand,
and my left hand hafting an easily-drawn dagger.  I declare
if I had only known for certain that the thing which
troubled the house was naught but flesh and blood, I had
not cared the tickling of a Flemish poulet.  For I was
growing to rejoice in adventure, believing that my own luck
was to win through in safety whatever might befall to
others.  Indeed I never loved a leg-lagging, grease-collecting
life, like that of a burgher or a cellarer.  But rather to strip
and lay on till the arm dirls with striking—that is, in a just
cause, of course.  Although sometimes, if your chief so
command, one must strike without inquiring with too
queasy a conscience, like a mere yea-forsoothing knave,
what may be the cause for which ye are set to drive the
steel.  For it is soldierly to strike first and inquire the cause
after—that is, if the man live.

But I ride the wild mare whenever I lay the reins on
the neck of my goose-quill.  And since I love to keep the
pages even and the lines straight, anything that will serve
to fill up the tale of my day's doing goes down.  But
pleasant writing maketh not always good or full-mattered
reading.

I stood therefore awhile outside the armoury door and saw
only the drifted snow and the line of white roofs against a
dark sky.  So, having little hope of discovery by waiting like a
dancer outside a ring, I stepped lightly down, being shod in
soft double hosen without leathern shoon, so that my feet made
no noise on the frosty snow.  About the house I stole, gliding
from shelter to shelter, till I came to the edge of the cliff,
where I could hear, but not see, the breaker waves crisping
and clapping upon the shore.  At such a time the sea is
black.  But so much blacker was the night that I saw it
not even when I looked straight down upon it.

Turning, I made the circuit of the castle, but still found
nothing.  Then I minded me how it was by the barn that
Sandy had seen the vision which had affrighted him.  So I
set teeth and gripped blade tighter, and took my way to
the barn door.  It stood wide and vacant, gaping at me like
an open sepulchre.

I will admit that it required all my courage boldly to
go in, for it is hard to enter that which is the blackness of
darkness to you, with the knowledge that all the while you
stand the fairest of targets in the doorway.  But because, as
my father had told me, it is ever better to pursue than to
flee, I stepped within with elbow crooked for the thrust, and
dagger arm cleared of the cloak.

But it was as silent in the barn as elsewhere.  I did not
even hear the rats of which my little David had spoken.  I
began to think that I had been as needlessly and as childlessly
alarmed as he.  Then all at once and quite clearly I
heard voices speaking together at the outer corner of the
granary.

So I went near to a convenient wicket that I might
listen, and my very heart and life chilled and thickened,
because that the voices were those of our Marjorie and
someone else who spoke low and sober—not quick and
high like Gilbert Kennedy.

Then was my heart full of disgust that I should find her
whom I had loved and worshipped engaging in another
midnight tryst, and one that might be no better than a paltry
intrigue.

So angered was I that I stole to the door, meaning to
break out upon them in violent speech, caring little in mine
anger what should happen.  But as I came to the edge of
the hard-beaten threshing-floor, Marjorie Kennedy came to
the door swiftly.  Turning in front of the barn, and standing
with the shawl thrown back from her head, she spoke to
the man she had left, whom as yet I saw not.

'Remember,' she said, 'I promise no more than the bare
fact.  I tell you I choose the grave before a bride-bed, the
worm before such a husband!'

But the man to whom she spoke uttered no word,
though he had come nearer to where in the dusk of the
doorway I stood with my sword bare in my hand.  I could
see him plainly now—all but his face, for the tide of darkness
was on the ebb.  He was the tall, cloaked man whom we
knew as the Grey Man.

Behind him, at the angle of the wall, crouched a black
mass which yet was human—because, even as I looked, it
took something from under a coat, and rose erect beside the
Grey Man.  As Marjorie vanished these two figures moved
towards my hiding-place in the barn.  I had no time to
do more than glide within, pull a sheaf or two from the
mow, and thrust myself, like a sword into its scabbard,
within the hole I had made amid the piled grain.

Even as I looked, their dark figures filled up the square
of greyness which the open barn door made against the
snow.  I saw them enter, feeling with their hands, as though
to grasp something, yet not making any light to guide them
in finding it.

Then indeed I was disquieted, and my very bones became
as water within me.  For if there is anything trying to the
flesh of mortal man, it is to lie still and be groped for in the
dark by unknown and horrible enemies.  I had a nightmare
sense of powerlessness to move, of impotence in the face of
peril.  I knew that when the blind groping inhuman horror
took me by the throat, I should not be able even to cry out.
It was like a dream of fever made real.

A moment after I heard a man's voice speak in a
fierce whisper.

'Ah, here it is!  Give me your hand and put strength
to it.'

Then in a moment, like the breaking of a dam, the fear
quite went from me.  They were but common-place robbers
after all, and I a craven and a coward to lie still while my
master's goods were being stolen before my eyes.

I leaped out upon them without waiting to think, for I
was not feared of a dozen such.

'Hold!' I cried.  'Stand for your lives, gutter-thieves,
or I will run you through!'

I stood in the doorway with my sword and dagger in
hand, and as soon as I felt one come against the point of my
blade, I let him have it with all my might, for it was not a
time for half-measures.  Then, though I heard the answering
cry of wounding, there was no time for further action,
for something came at me with a rush like a wild beast of
the wood, and the snarl of the springing heather cat.  Now
there are many things that a lad of eighteen or nineteen
may do—things of worth and daring—but he cannot stand
against the weight of a strong and well-grown man when
he leaps upon him.  Therefore I cannot count it to my
shame that now I was overcome and overborne.  Once and
again was I smitten, till I felt the iron, as it had been fire,
strike me here and there.  And though I felt no pain, there
was something warm, which I divined to be my own blood,
running down.  Then I knew no more.

When I awoke I was in the Grieve's house, lying on a
bed.  Sir Thomas Kennedy, my master, and the Earl
himself were bending over me.  They had unclasped my
hand, and now stood back in wonderment at what they
found gripped in it.

'It is the key of the treasure chest of Kelwood—the
key with my father, the King of Carrick's seal graven upon
it!  Where could the lad have gotten it?'

Yet of a certainty they had taken it out of my
tightly-clenched hand, which had been fixed upon something ever
since they found me on the barn threshing-floor, where I lay
senseless in a pool of my own blood.


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.. _`THE SECRET OF THE CAIRD`:

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   CHAPTER XX


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   THE SECRET OF THE CAIRD

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It was, I can avouch, a strange experience for me to lie on
my back in the Grieve's house all through the long days of
spring and summer.  Kate Allison and her mother were
tirelessly kind.  The Grieve himself generally set his head
past the door as he went and came from his meals, crying
mayhap something of the day—that 'it was warm,' or that it
was 'a wat yin,' and thinking it the height of a jest to
say to me, 'An' what kind o' weather hae ye below the
blankets?'  For with kindly-natured country folk a little jest
goes a great way, and serveth as long without washing as a
pair of English blankets.

Then in the forenoon Sir Thomas would come in from
the castle, opening the hallan door and walking across the
Grieve's kitchen as unceremoniously as he would have done in
his own house.

'My lad, they have made a hand of you, but we will
dowse them yet for that!' was one of his stated encouragements
to me.  'Let me see the clours—hoot, man, they will
never mar you on your marriage day!'

And so, kindly and smiling, he would pass out again,
walking with his hands behind his back as far as I could see
him along the arches of the woodland.

Then would Marjorie come to the door, and inquire for
me of good Mistress Allison.  But she never accepted of
her hearty invite to remain—or, at least, to enter and see the
invalid.  Gently would she ask after my well-being, and
being assured of it, as gently would she go her way—her
fair face looking so white and sorrowful the while, that I
was wae for her, and for the unkenned secrets of her heart
into which God forbid that I should pry.

But that which cheered me most, I think, was the kindness
and warm-heartedness showed me without stint, both by
Nell Kennedy and Kate Allison.  They were no longer
flighty and sharp of tongue in speaking to me, but rather
spoke freely and sat much in the kitchen, with the door of
my room open so that I could see them, nipping and scarting
at one another like kittens in their wantonness, which
was a great diversion and encouragement to me on my
weary bed.  And there we had no little merriment, for
Nell Kennedy would be saucy and miscall me for my
laziness and sloth—also for my lack of appetite, which she
called 'dainty and dorty,' meaning thereby that I wanted
finer meats than they had to give me.

Also, though she was no maid for gossip, Nell would
bring me all the clash of the castle-town and farm-town, all
the talk that was gone over in the mill, while the thirlage
men waited for their grist.  Where she got it to tell me
I cannot imagine, but it was all like sweet wine to me that
could hear naught most of the day and night, but the birds
singing without and Mistress Allison clattering wooden
platters within.

Also (and that was the kindliest thing she could have
done, and touched my heart most of all), she brought to me
all my war-harness and accoutrements.  My sword, which
she had cleaned herself after the scuffle in the barn; the
dagger I had dropped when I caught and clutched the key
of the Kelwood treasure, wherever that had been gotten—the
pistols; the fine new hackbutt which had just come
from the town of Ayr, and which Sir Thomas had given me
for mine own, as he would have given a child a toy.

'Give the bairn its plaiks, then,' said Nell, as she laid
them on the bed.  'Would it love to play with them?
Then it shall!'

She spoke in an enticing and babyish way that diverted
me, and warmed me too, when I thought she had so much
kindliness for me.

So I said, 'It is monstrously well done of you thus to
divert me.'

'Hoots,' she said, 'see what else I have brought you.'

And with that she took from her pocket all the
apparatus of cleaning my pieces and sword, besides the links
and buckles of Dom Nicholas's harness and equipment, the
sight of which put me in a fever to see him again.  Never
was anything kindlier done.  Also, she brought me from her
father's scanty library such books as she thought I might
care to read; though, indeed, I read but little, never
having been greatly given to lear—save, as it might be,
books of songs, troll-catches, wits' recreations and such like.

But amongst others she brought me a French manual of
fence, which gave me infinite pleasure.  For with her help I
could spell out the instructions, and the plates of positions I
was fain to imitate with my two rapiers, till I had hacked
and scarred all the four posts of the bed most grievously.
And Mistress Allison declared that it was not safe for
anyone to come within the outer door.

But one day my bed-fast practice-at-arms stood mine
hostess in good stead, for which afterwards she gave me full
thankfulness.  It chanced on a certain noontide of heat that
all were at the hayfield.  Even Kate and Nell had gone to
toss the hay, which is a pleasant thing to do in good company,
but, i' faith, ill enough to think on as I lay tossing my weary
body, and cursing the luck that tied me here in a dull
room—vexed with heat, the weight of bedclothing, and the broad
buzzing flies which would light on the corner of one's nose,
each time that sleep was on the verge of flapping down
silently with his black wings to bring a welcome shortening
of the weary hours.  Mistress Allison stole about the
kitchen on bare, broad feet, flapping and slapping the flags
with them as she carried her cakes to the girdle plate, or
swung it from the cleek above the clear baking fire of
brown peats.  She thought me asleep, for I had cleaned all
my arms till I could see myself sitting up in bed, with my
pale face and towsed haystack of a head, in every square
inch of them.

Kate had brought me that day a book called *The Whole
Duty of Pilgrims*, but finding it full of religious reflections
and not tales of the Crusaders as I had hoped, I laid it aside
for the Sabbath day, as being more reverent and fitting.

All at once the outer door of the Grieve's house was
thrown back on its hinges, and a great sturdy caird
entered—mayhap an Egyptian sorner, or bold robber, such as
were vexing the realm at the time, or perhaps only a
common muddy rascal of the road.

'Mistress, I bid you good-day,' he said.  'I am hungry
and would have meat!'

Plain and quite short he said it—even as I have written
it down.

'In this Grieve's house of Culzean even gentry folk
say "An it please you," and "By your leave!"' replied,
with some indignation, the mistress of the dwelling.

'But then I will e'en help myself, without please or
leave either,' cried the villain.  And with that he opened
a leathern wallet that he had slung over his shoulder, and
began to thrust therein, not only the scones, but anything
about the dresser and tables that his thievish fancy lit upon.

'Now, mistress,' said he; 'let me have any siller you
have in the house, and a well-pleased kiss of your
weel-faured moo' therewith, or else I must do my needs with
you!'

And with that he opened a great gully knife, as though he
would run at her.  Mistress Allison cried out with a strange
cry of woman's fear, which I who had been in battle never
heard the like of before.  Just at this moment I pushed
the bedroom door open with the point of my toe, and sat
there looking straight at the man, with a pistol bended in
each hand, and both of them trained point blank on the
rascal's heart.

I make bold to say that in all this realm of Scotland
there was not any man so exceedingly astonished as this
particular sturdy thief at that moment.

'Drop the knife, sirrah!' I commanded, as one that
cries his orders in a battle.

And the knife rang obediently on the stone floor.

'Kick it into the corner with your foot—  No, not
with your hand.'

And reluctantly he kicked the knife away from him.

'Now, my excellent good man,' said I, 'sit you down
and put your hands behind you.  There and thus, be still
where you are, quite in the middle of the floor and not
elsewhere.'

So he sat him down, and, keeping my pistols dead upon
him, I bade Mistress Allison tie his hands firmly with cord,
and give him a settle to lean against.  Thereafter I comforted
him with stern philosophy.

I told him of his wandering and uncertain life.  I showed
him conclusively how that he went ever in danger of the
hangman's whip, and that at the end there could only be
awaiting for him a shameful death.  I told him also that our
overlord of Culzean had the power of pit and gallows, and
that, on the return of the haymakers, he should be brought
out—when in an hour there would be an end of all his
misery upon the dule-tree, or tree of execution, which stands
by the great gate and bears medlars at any season, but only
for an hour at a time.

''Tis the most cruel and unjust treatment of poor, beset,
far wandering men!' said the man on the floor.  They were
the first words he had spoken since he threw down his knife.
I wondered he could speak so well.

'We have heard no complaints, so far,' I made answer,
drily, for the man's former insolence stuck in my throat.
And in especial the thought of what might have happened
to mine hostess or the maids, had I not been there upon the
bed with my weapons beside me.  So I kept him in torment
of mind for a space.

At last, as the afternoon ebbed away, and the hour of
sundown and homecoming wore on, his anxiety waxed pitiful.
He turned and twisted to free his hands, so that the only
way I could quiet him was to lift a pistol and point it at him.
But even that did not appear to soothe him for any length of
time.

At last he raised his head.

'Master,' said he, sullenly, but speaking not that ill, 'ye
have me, I grant, in the cleaving of a stick.  Now I will
tell you a thing you greatly desire to know.  Will ye promise
to let me go, and I will never meddle you more?'

'I do not mean that you should,' said I, 'nevertheless, what
is the thing that you can tell me?  And when I know, I
shall judge its worth—on the honour of a gentleman.'

'I can tell you,' said he, 'where you will find the
treasure of Kelwood!'

'What bald-crowned blethers!' I cried scornfully.
'Pray, how am I to know that you speak the truth?  Ye
may tell me that it is with the gold cup, at the end of the
rainbow!'

'It is true,' said the man, 'I might lie to you; but I will
not, for I need my life.  It is sweet to me as yours to you.'

'How can such a life be sweet?' I asked, daffing with
the man in my power—which was 'bad form,' as John Mure
himself sayeth in his history of the troubles.

'It is not a time to argue,' said he, 'but my life is as
pleasant as the trees that toss their branches, and as the free
life of the forest.'

'Too free altogether,' said I, 'thus to come in and threaten
the life and honour of a decent woman.  We must have such
freedom trussed and stretched on a tow rope.'

'I did but fright her,' said he, sullenly.

'That is as may be,' replied I, keeping my pistol trained
for his left eye-hole, 'and in any case it will be all the same
in two hours.'

'But,' said he, 'hear me concerning the treasure of
Kelwood.  Ye have conquest the key.  I can tell you
where the box itself is.  For if I win clear this time, I must
escape over seas from the vengeance of the Grey Man.'

'But you may lie even as you have stolen, and I fear me
murdered also, for by your talk you are one of a murderous
set.'

'Of the lying you must e'en take your chance—even as,
after telling you, I must take my chance of your cutting my
bonds and letting me go.'

'You have a gentleman's word,' I answered him.

'And how much is that worth in Carrick this day,' he
said harshly and bitterly, 'even with a bond to back it?'

'Mine,' said I, with what dignity I could muster, 'is
worth as much as truth itself'—which, I grant, was but a
windy saying.

'I believe it, and I will trust it,' said he.  'The treasure
of Kelwood is in the cave of Sawny Bean, on the seashore
of Bennanbrack, over against the hill of Benerard.'

And not another word would he say.

So when Mistress Allison had locked herself in the milk-house,
and advised me that the haymakers were in full sight,
I caused my man to roll himself to the door of the bedroom.
There with my sword I cut the bonds.

'Now,' said I, 'take the door sharply, without so much
as going to the other side for your bundle or your knife, and
then the woods are open to you and the world wide.'

'I thank you, master,' he said civilly.  'When you go for
the treasure, I counsel you do not call on Sandy by your
leasome lane.'

And with that caution he betook himself into the glades
of the wood.





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.. _`MINE ANCIENT SWEETHEART`:

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   CHAPTER XXI


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   MINE ANCIENT SWEETHEART

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After he was gone I cast about in my mind, and, for the
life of me, I could not decide whether the fellow had been
lying to me or not.  It was indeed a thing to be wondered
at, how this chance scoundrel should know (what I had
thought known only to my Lord of Cassillis and my master)
that after the fight in the barn I had carried away, clenched
in my hand, the key of the treasure chest of Kelwood.

Now, as was natural after this encounter, the goodwife
of the Grieve's house could not make enough of me.  Indeed,
if anything, she made too much of me, for, instead of
suffering her daughter and Nell to entertain me as before, while
she went about her work, she thought it her duty as soon
as one of them came in and sat down, to leave that which
she was about, and come and sit with us for company.
Now Mistress Allison was a good woman and agreeable of
her tongue, but I did not feel the necessity for this byordinar
kindness.

Yet it was not easy to alter it.  Then in the evenings
came Robert Harburgh to see me.  At first he came once
a week while my wounds kept me weak and fretful.  Then,
as I grew better, he came twice.  And when I was able to
sit up, it came about that he would arrive every night and
bide till bedtime—so that at last I was almost shamed to have
him sitting there, and feared that he might be burdensome
to Kate Allison and her mother.

For Robert Harburgh had but little to say, but he ever
looked and proved kindly.  Also he brought me many
things from Maybole and elsewhere—oranges and wine
that had been shipped to Irvine from foreign parts,
neckerchiefs also for Kate and her mother.  A quiet,
down-looking fellow was Robert, something dull of the
uptake, and with little to say for himself; but a most
noble sworder, and wholly without care for his body
when it came to the fighting.

Now it seems a strange thing that I, who had so long
played the lover to Kate Allison, should be laid by the heels
in her father's house, hearing the whip and frisk of her gown
about the chambers all the day.  And I still loved to hear it,
for she was a bonny lass—and kind, kind to me.  Also her
eyes were pleasant, and had both mischief and tears in
them—not like Nell Kennedy's, that held only mischief
and scorn—save once, as it seemed to me, a little while
when I was deadly fevered, and when Dr Low of Ayr,
the Earl of Cassillis's own physician, ordered me
herb-drinks, and shook his doting wiseacre's head over me like
a most melancholious billy-goat.  Then for a little Nell's
eyes were quiet and sorrowful.

But it did not last.  For by the time that I could get
a scheme laid to take advantage of the gleam of kindness,
she was again but mine own ill-set lassie-boy of a Nell,
and we were throng at the sparring and quarrelling just
as usual.  But, as I say, Kate Allison was wondrously
kind to me.  Many a night when the weather was hot,
and my wounds paining me as though they would break
again open, would she sit by me with clear caller water
from the spring, tirelessly changing the soft linen cloths.
And when the drops of fever-sweat stood on my brow, she
would touch them gently away, and lay her own cool
cheek against my forehead.  Ay, and when I put my
hand up and drew down her face, she would kiss me right
frankly upon the lips.  Yet, as I judged, not quite as of old.
But I thought it might be the illness that made the difference,
for with being sick in body and feverish in mind, nothing
tastes the same.  And so I thought it might be also with kisses.

But after I had grown stronger, I shall ever mind me
of one night when I got a horrid awakening.  It was a
quiet gloaming.  Kate Allison and I had the house to
ourselves—to which, speaking for myself, I did not wholly
object.  I lay stretched upon the long oaken settle, on
cushions which Nell Kennedy had brought from the great
house.  Kate sat beside me on a stool and leaned an
elbow on the oak's edge.  She was unwontedly silent, and
sometimes I touched her cheek lightly with my hand.  It
was a most pleasant night, and my mind was full of pity
and consideration for her.  I bethought me that, though
doubtless I could have looked higher, I might do worse
in time than think of settling down with a sweet and
pleasant lass like Kate Allison.  It was also touching to
me that she should never have wavered from loving me, all
the time that I had been forgetting her and thinking of
others.  But that, I said to myself, is the way of women.

We were silent a great while, with the silence that
needs no speech, and my heart had grown melting and
kindly to the young lass, even as it had been in old days.
All of a sudden she spoke.

'Launce,' said she, 'I'm going to be married!'

She never moved her head off my shoulder, leaning with
her elbow on the edge of the settle, and looking away from me
out at the door.  Neither did she draw her hand from mine,
but rather settled it the more kindly, nestling it in my palm.

Yet anyone might have knocked me off the oaken settle
with a straw.

'Married!' said I.  'Ay, Kate, lass, of course you are
going to be married.  'Tis what you and I must come to.
I assure you I oftentimes have been thinking about that.
There are not the makings of an old maid about you!'

This I said and waited for the answer of her eyes, in
order to laugh again and make my jest.  But she did not
look at me.  I do not think she heard me.

'I am to be married on Thursday!' she said calmly.

'Kate Allison!' I said, trying to turn up her head that
I might look into her eyes.  I thought to see the
make-believe in them.  But as women know how to do, she evaded
me without seeming to be conscious of it.

'Why, Kate Allison, sweetheart!' said I, 'how can I be
ready by Thursday, laid here on my back, with only you to
care for me?'

'I am to be married on Thursday to Robert Harburgh!'
she said.

Then I drew my hand away, and sat as erect and stern
as the settle and my sickness would let me, for it is hard
to appear dignified and like a soldier, lying on a couch and
wrapped in women's shawls.

'I am deceived!' cried I, 'mine own familiar friend, in
whom I trusted, has betrayed me, coming to steal that
which was dear to me when I lay most weak and weary.'

And I think I made as if to rise, for I had an idea that
I must go and get my sword—though what for, I cannot
now imagine.  But Kate Allison gently put me back on the
pillows, and sat down beside me, taking one of my hands again,
laying it against her cheek, and drawing at the same time her
stool nearer to me.

I tried to withdraw my hand from hers, but being weak
she masterfully kept it, so that the tears sprang to my eyes
for very helplessness and anger.

'You have played with me and deceived me, Kate
Allison,' I cried, as soon as I could command my voice;
'you have forgotten the old days and all that we were to
one another.'

Nevertheless Kate Allison never winced but let me say
my say out.  And by this I knew that the old days were
gone indeed.  She was mightily set in her mind.

'Launce,' she said gently, 'Launce, dear sweetheart,
hearken—I am fond of you.  No lass in Carrick but would
like you for a lad and a lover, even for your very feults,
which are what all may see.'

What she might have meant I have even yet no idea.

'Ye are perfect for a lad that comes courting, and I
liked ye fine—ay, and like ye yet.  But I saw lang syne that
the lads that court best are not the men that marry best.'

'Women are all traitors!' said I, with indignation
tingling through my body; 'they kiss and they forget.  And
then in a trice they go kiss another—'

'Ay,' replied Kate Allison, with a little more gravity,
'and I mean to have a short word with you on that very
thing.'

She paused for a moment, and looked staidly and
thoughtfully out of the window.  I believed at nineteen that I
wholly understood all women.  But now I know that when
I am twice that and more, the simplest seeming of them will
be able to wrap me in her daidly-apron, and sell me in the
market for green cabbage.

'Listen, Launce, my dear,' she said.  'I was but a
Grieve's lass, and not unbonny of my face, so you courted
me.  You longed after kissing, being a heartsome lad with
a way with you and a glint in your e'e.  And so you kissed
me, and in my youth and folly I said ye not nay.  But you
went over the hill to the Boreland and you kissed Grace,
and you kissed the lass at the house of the Red Moss—and
you thought that I would never know it.  And more, you
expected that none else should ever come near to kiss me.
Ay, and would have waxed mightily indignant and flashed a
brave sword had any dared, for that is the excellent way of
the lads that come courting—but not at all the way of the
men that wise women marry.'

I was mazed and confounded before her, but could not
answer a word, for the thing was as true as if she had read
my heart.  Where had the young lass so learned the ways of
men?

'Forgotten your kisses, Launce?' she went on.  'And
what of them?  I count kisses but as the X's and O's that
bairns make on the flags with soft cam stone—gone when
the game is over.'

'The home-coming from the fair at Maybole and the
kisses that you and I then kissed,' said I, bitterly, 'were these
X's or O's?  I rede ye tell me!'

'Launce,' said Kate Allison, 'we dreamed a pleasant
dream, you and I.  We have awaked.  It is a new day.
We wash the night fantasies off our faces, and are ready to
meet the morning with the sunshine in our eyes.  Together
we have sipped the cream.  It is time to drink the milk.
We have gathered the flowers—let us look to the fruit.'

'Kate,' said I, more kindly, 'when did you think all these
things?'

For the lassie made me marvel with the aptness of her
speech, and ashamed with her plain saying of things that I
had hardly named within myself.

'Ah,' she said gently and wisely, 'the thoughts of a lass
when a lad comes courting her, are more than she tells with
her mouth.  For many a kiss is honey-sweet on the lips, but
bitter as gall in the heart.  Yet so has it not been with
yours and mine.  We loved and we part, even as the
way-gaun of the wind that kissed the apple blossom in the
spring when the year was young and glad.'

She made to rise from her seat.

'I must go,' she said.

'To go meet Robert Harburgh and to kiss him.  I
thought I knew his whistle!' said I, with my heart raging
angry and disconsolate in spite of her fine words, which I
could not answer.

'Ay,' she said, rising and setting her lips tenderly to my
brow, which I pettishly turned away, being weakly sullen,
'even so—to meet Robert Harburgh and to kiss him.'

And with that she passed to the door.  She turned ere
she went out to say a last word.

'And you, Launce, my lad, will also one day desire to
leave kissing comfits and find abiding love.  And you need
not go far afield to look for it either.'

Thus I was left alone with a heaving heart.  And I am not
ashamed to say that I wept bitterly for poor Launce Kennedy,
who had none to care for him in all the wide lone world, in
which he was now so sore wounded and cast aside like an
old shoe or a broken sword.

But even as I wept and pitied myself, Nell Kennedy
danced in, merry as the morn, and brought a great spray of
belated hawthorn to set in a dish of water to keep the room
sweet.

And I declare I never knew the young lass look so
winsome before.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A MARRIAGE MADE IN HELL`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXII


.. class:: center medium bold

   A MARRIAGE MADE IN HELL

.. vspace:: 2

When Robert Harburgh came in to see me in the evening,
I was chill enough in my reception; but since he was of a
calm temper, though so great a sworder, I might just as
well have embraced him, for all the difference it made
to him.

'So,' I said, without giving him more than time to sit
down—for all my days I must ever fly headlong at a thing
and have done with it—'so you are going to marry Kate
Allison?'

'She was proposing so,' said he, as calmly as when he
had walked across the yard to the summer-house, with the
hackbutt bullets splattering about him and the guns going
crack-crack down the hedgerows, like the thumbs of a class
of bairns when the dominie asks a question.

'So,' said I.  'And you were thinking, maybe, that
that was the action of a friend when your comrade was laid
by the heels?'

'I was thinking so,' said he, looking out of the window
at the trees.

'Did you not know,' I cried, for I was angered beyond
words, being weak, and taking ill with the cherry being
thus snatched out of my mouth, 'did you not know that
Kate Allison was my lass before she was yours?  Did she
not tell you that?' said I.

Now, had I been myself, I should not thus have told
left-handed tales on a lass, even though I believed with some
reason that she had deceived me.

'I was not deprived of the sight of my eyes,' said he,
very quietly.

'And you mean by that—?' said I, trembling with
anger.

'That I did not need telling that you had been courting
the lass off and on for a year or twa, and that she took
it not ill.'

'And, in spite of that, you made up to Kate Allison
when I was lying sick unto death upon my bed?' I asked
him bitterly.

'How long may you have kenned Kate Allison?' said
Robert Harburgh to me in his turn.

'Six years or so,' said I.

'And did you ever, in all that time, ask her to marry
you?' he inquired.

'No,' said I, not seeing what he was driving at.

'Then,' said Robert, very drily, 'I did, though I kenned
her not six weeks.  And I would not wonder,' he went on,
as though deep in meditation, 'I would not wonder but that
is the reason why she is going to marry me.'

So I turned over in bed, being deep in the sullens, and
Robert Harburgh went away, saying only, 'Now ye are
angry, Launcelot, but ye will find us both good friends, and
blythe will we be to see you at the five-merk lands of
Chitterlintie which my Lord Cassillis is setting to Kate and me.'

However, as things fell out, the wedding was not to be
on the Thursday, nor yet for many Thursdays, for Robert
was bidden ride with the Earl to the Inch, his new house in
Galloway.  Hither he went to set pressure on the country
lairds, who were his feudal holders, to gar them pay the
dues which he, Grab-siller John, thought had been too long
overlooked by his forebears.  As the business was likely to
prove a troublesome one, he sent for Robert Harburgh to
ride with him.  So, without so much as stopping to
dismount, for the message came when he had been on duty,
Robert Harburgh rode away.  And if you will believe it,
he went without so much as kissing his sweetheart.  He
leaned down and shook hands with her!  But as for me,
I marvelled how she bore with that, for to my certain
knowledge she liked the other not so ill.

Just as I was daily getting stronger, I received another
shock which had, I think, even more effect on me than the
other.  One morning there came Sir Thomas down from the
castle, and I could see that he was full to the teeth with
news, for he walked with great confidence, and swung a
little stick made of two twisted stems of ivy which I had
given him, very quaint and curious.

'It is all done with now,' he said, as soon as ever he had
gotten himself seated; 'there are to be no more ill times in
Carrick, and kinsmen's blood shall not flow any more in the
West.  John Mure of Auchendrayne and I have settled it all
between us.  His son and apparent heir, James, is to marry
to-morrow with my daughter.'

I stared at him, stunned and dumbfounded.

'Ay,' he said, 'it is short notice, but young folks, ye
ken—and my daughter would not hear of a great wedding;
only what was fitting and plain.'

'Your daughter?' I said, steadying myself, though my
heart was like to break, for I thought all my friends were to
leave me together.

'Ay, Marjorie,'said Sir Thomas, 'she is a quiet like lass
and speaks little, but when I put the matter of the marriage to
her, she said only, "If it will staunch the feud, I am ready to
marry whomsoever you will—Sir Thomas Tode, gin you
like!"  But that was only her daffing, for, as we all know, Sir
Thomas is married already.  And even if he were not,
marrying him would be neither here nor there in the matter
of the Cassillis and Bargany feuds.'

For my good master never saw far into a whin bush all
his days, though accounted by most to be a wise man.

On the morrow, which was the day of the ill-faured
wedding, I put on my complete accoutrements for the first
time.  I had Dom Nicholas saddled, for I felt strong once
more, and greatly desired to be away from the place.  So
I stood by the gate as the party from Auchendrayne came
in, and saluted them, as was my duty.  Then I was riding
away alone down by the shore road, when I heard in the
distance the sound as of an approaching cavalcade.

Bridles were jingling, stirrups clicking, and spearheads
making points of light, while the white foam went blowing
back from the hard-ridden horses.  When they rode up, I
saw that they were as trenchant a set of blades as ever a man
might wish to set eyes on.  And at the head of them rode
young Gilbert Kennedy of Bargany.

So, not knowing whether they came in peace or war, I
set myself upright on the back of Dom Nicholas, who was
of so great freshness with kicking of his heels in the park,
that he was ill to keep at the stand.  Nevertheless, stand I
did in the midst of the outer gate, so that I should know
whether they came in peace or war, and to have time to cry
to the porter, even if they rode roughshod over me.

And though I was weak, and knew not what might
happen, it was a joy untellable to be somebody again, and to
gar men reckon with me.

But, being pale, I fear I made a poor figure to stand in
the gate and withhold so many.  For during my captivity
the hair on my face had begun to grow in a manner that
was surprising, and proved a constant trouble to me to keep
shaven.

'Halt!' I cried to them.  'How come you to
Culzean—in peace or boding in fear of war?'

'But to wish the Tutor luck on his birthday in passing,'
said Gilbert, 'and then to ride on to the help of John, Earl
of Cassillis.'

So, much astonished at what had befallen, and especially
at his last saying, I fell in behind him, and the word was
given to ride forward.

But Bargany called me to come beside him, and asked
me of my health.  I replied that I had been long time sick
of a wound, but that I was now recovered, and above all
things desired action, being sicker far of the doing of
nothing.

Whereat he laughed, and said, 'Be cheerful, and if ye
want blows, I will ask the loan of you as a hostage from
your master.'

Then, seeing the stir about the doors, and the serving
men running every way with flagons and dishes, he said,
''Tis a great stir for naught but the Tutor's birthday.
What may be the occasion?'

Then, with my eyes secretly upon his, I told Gilbert
Kennedy that the Lady Marjorie was to be married that
day to James Mure of Auchendrayne.  I never saw a man's
countenance change so suddenly.  The fire sprang to his
eyes, and died out again like dead tinder.  The heart blood
flushed hot to his face, and, returning, left him pale as a
maid in a decline.

Then I minded how I had taken the matter myself.
Yet I was sorrier for him, because I knew that he had loved
her longer and better than I.  But nevertheless he tossed
his sword hand in air, and cried, 'We are in time for a
bridal, brave lads; this is more than we bargained for.  Let
us go greet the bride and wish her joy.'

And this I grant was a better way than sulking and
self-pity in the greenwood, which would have been mine that
day, had I been left alone.

With that he put the horses to the gallop, and we rode
through the narrow pass of the drawbridge by two and two.
The roar of the horses passing over was as the roar of the
sea when the storm drives up from the west on the Craigs
of Culzean.

As we came by the corner of the terrace, I saw him give
a look at that window of the White Tower which faced to
the landward.  It had been the Lady Marjorie's, and now
was to be hers no more.  Then I saw him look down on
the fretting sea, as it tumbled white on the pebbles and
rocks by the Cove.  And I knew why he looked there, and
I knew more also, for I remembered what I had heard
Marjorie say after he had gone clanking down the shore in
his anger and pride.

Yet all the while Bargany rode light-hand upon his
bridle-rein, the pride of his horsemen clattering behind him,
gay with the music of hoofs and the dance of red and
white pennons.

I wondered not that, as they said, he took the eyes of
ladies wherever he went.  So that the Queen's bower-women
quarrelled concerning him, till Her Majesty said,
'I shall have no peace till I take him for myself.  But
what would James say if young Bargany were to sing
"John, come kiss me now," beneath my bower window?'

But more than all ladies' favours I envied him such a
brave repair of horse to follow him.  For Culzean was
too poor, and the Lord of Cassillis too near the bone to
keep any such array of mounted gentlemen.

For hackbuttmen, and footmen with spears, were more
to our Earl's mind, being better in the time of war, and
a deal cheaper in the days of peace—which even in these
troubled years were so many more than the days of
fighting.

As we rode up, and the Bargany squadron halted with
a great spattering of sand and tossing of the heads of horses,
the wedding folk were just coming out.  First of all there
issued forth the bride, our Marjorie, the Marjorie that had
been ours, on James Mure's arm—he that now was her
husband.  And behind them came the Minister of Maybole
and Sir Thomas, walking together very caigy[#] and jocose.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Friendly.

.. vspace:: 2

But Marjorie's face was like stone, though the bitterness
of death overpast was gone from it.  I trust mine eyes
may never see such a look of reproach and pain in any
human face, as was in hers when she saw Gilbert Kennedy
sitting his horse in front of the squadron, upon the gravel
stones from the seashore that were laid before the castle
steps.  But Gilbert only saluted her, and cried aloud as
was customary, 'Luck to the wedding and health to the
bride!'

Then ran Sir Thomas to him and took his hand, bubbling
over with kindliness and pleasure.

'The feud is staunched indeed, when I see Bargany
once more in peace at the house of Culzean, even as my
good friend the Laird of Auchendrayne said it would be.
What might be your kindly errand?  And will ye not
light off your beasts and bide to feast with us.'

'I cannot,' said Bargany.  'The Earl of Cassillis is
besieged in the house of Inch by the Lairds of Galloway,
and I ride to his assistance.'

Then she that had been Marjorie Kennedy turned to
him, and said, 'And will ye indeed consent to staunch the
feud for John Mure's sake, that would not do it for mine?'

Which seemed to me a strange mode of speech to be
spoken in the hearing of a husband on his wedding day.
But I had forgotten that none held the key to the utterance
saving Gilbert Kennedy and myself.

'The staunching of the feud is neither yours nor mine,
Lady Marjorie,' said Bargany, bending very gently toward
her, 'but I cannot bide still in my house at the town of
Ayr while a Kennedy of Cassillis—my enemy though he
be—is dared, outfaced, and threatened by a pack of
Galloway lairds.'

'Are they, then, ill men and far in the wrong?' said she.

'On the contrary, they are good men and in the right.
But that does not hinder me from standing for my name
and house against every other, even though that house be
foredoomed to fall, because it is divided against itself.'

Then he turned to my master, saying to him, 'For this
one time, and as a pledge to my Lord the Earl John that I
mean his good, will you permit Launcelot, your esquire, to
ride in my company—he that hath so oft ridden well against
my folk?'

'Gladly,' said Sir Thomas, 'but the lad has been ill.'

'It is no far ride, and the boy needs but change of air
and foes of mettle to strengthen his sword-arm against.'

So in a trice I was ready to follow my house's enemy.

As I turned I saw John Mure of Auchendrayne standing,
looking in the dignity of his white hair most like a
saint, though contrariwise I knew him to be that which I
will not name.  I heard him say to my master, 'Ye see, did
not I tell you?  This marriage brings all good things
already.  And this is but the beginning.'

'Nay,' replied Sir Thomas, 'indeed it is most gratifying
and well done of you.  Who would have believed a week
ago that to-day Bargany would have saddled his steeds and
mounted his men to ride to the succour of John, Earl of
Cassillis?'

And I saw my good, simple master raise his hand and
clap Auchendrayne upon the shoulder.  Then, for very hate
and loathing, I turned away.  Even as I did so I saw the
eye of John Mure on the watch, and I knew that he understood.
For his glance was like a rapier-thrust when your
enemy means killing.

Ere the horsemen turned to ride away, Marjorie came
down the steps to where Bargany sat his charger, and
slipping a ring off her finger she handed it up to him.

'For your Isobel Stewart!' she said.

And though I saw it not, I am as certain as if I had seen
the crest and posy upon it that the ring was his own, one
which he had given her in some past day when they had far
other hopes than to part in this fashion on her wedding
morning.

Then, with a quick cry of command and the gallant
clatter of hoofs, we rode away.  And that was the last
parting in life of Gilbert and Marjorie Kennedy, who had
been lovers ever since they were bairns, and had linked
themselves together for man and wife with chains of yellow
gowans upon the braes of Culzean.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A GALLOWAY RAID`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   A GALLOWAY RAID

.. vspace:: 2

As you may suppose, it was no grief, but the reverse, for me
to ride away with Bargany to the South, and leave behind
me the drear house of Culzean upon that dismal day of doom
and sacrifice.  Nell Kennedy I saw nothing of, though, as I
learned in the aftertime, she saw me.  For she too had fled
from the house, being unwilling to have aught to do with
such a deed of cruel wrong as the marrying of her sister,
that was the flower of the West, to an oafish lout like James
Mure.

'Not but what our Maidie can stand up for herself.
And if she gets not her own way, sorry am I even for James
Mure!' said she.

It was from the branches of a thick plane that Nell
watched us ride away to the house of the Inch, and noted
me as I cantered by Bargany's side.  Of which, had I known
it then, I should have been fain.  For, wild ettercap as she
was, I now counted Nell Kennedy almost the only friend I
had left.

And as we went, Bargany told me of the Earl's message
brought him by James Young, the Minister of Colmonel.
And in especial how he had telled a great lie to win through
the men of Galloway—in which sin it was then uncommon
for a minister to be found out.

'Not but that my heart is with the lads of Galloway,'
said Bargany, 'but after all, Gibby Crack-tryst is the first of
the Kennedies, and I shall not see him put down, whatever
be his deserts, by Garthland and the Sheriff.  If Cassillis is
to go down, Bargany shall go with it; and all Galloway,
twice told, shall not accomplish that!'

Although I felt chilled by the dull, unheartsome day we
had left behind us, I can tell you I thought no little of
myself to be thus riding in comradeship with Bargany at my
elbow.  For though I had so ridden with the Earl once or
twice, yet I counted ten times more on Bargany.  Forty
horsemen were of our company, and mine was the weariest
body among them all.  For it was my first long day, after
my sickness with harness on my back, and pulses beat
where my wounds had been, so that I feared that they would
break out afresh, and I have to be left behind.

At last we stayed our steeds at a small tenant's house
called Craigaffie, a little way from the Inch, where a vassal
of Bargany's dwelt.  Him we sent to meet the Earl and tell
him that we were there—also to bid the Galloway men
come to an arbitrament, if so they would.  For they had
enclosed the Earl back and front in his own house of the
Inch, so that none could pass—save indeed one that knew
the byeways and outgates as did this Peter Neilson of
Craigaffie.

Presently there came back from the Earl a message most
piteous, for he knew the men of Galloway had him fast; and
he was afraid for the safety of the rents and mails that he
had with him in silver and minted gold—far more, to do
him justice, than he was anxious about his own skin.
Bargany was his dearly-beloved cousin, his eame, his saviour.
He would keep friendship with him more than with any
friend he had all the days of his life, for this notable
deliverance he had wrought.  He was to come and put himself in
the Earl's hands after he had sent the lords of Galloway
about their business.  The Earl's plighted word would be
his security.

At this Bargany gave a smile, and set his thumb over
his shoulder at the forty swords that were riding behind him.

'These,' said he, 'will be the best security that John,
Earl of Cassillis, will not harm me when I go to visit him
in his castle of the Inch.'

It was no long season before there came MacDowall
of Garthland and Sheriff Agnew to represent the men of
Galloway, and never in my life, save when I went as
herald to the great house of Kerse, did I see such an
exchange of high civilities.  It was as the meeting of
heroes, when compared to the double-dealing and deceit of
our break-tryst Earl.  More than ever, I wished that I had
been born on the other side of the score.  But it hadna
bin to be.

Agnew the Sheriff was a tall man, with dark hair quickly
frosting to grey, a hawk's nose, a long arm good at laying
on, and a biting tongue which he knew well when to hold.
The Laird of Garthland, on the other hand, was red of
beard and brown of hair, altogether a man well set,
beginning also to be well-stomached with good feeding and
sleeping on benches of the afternoons.

It was Garthland who saluted first, for he came of the
oldest race in Galloway—save, perhaps, it may be, the
MacCullochs of Ardwell.  But the eagle-nosed Sheriff was
the chief spokesman.

'Greeting courteously to you, Bargany,' he said.  'This
is a pleasure unexpected.  Over on our poor shire-side, the
erne of the hills neither mixes nor mells with the quarrels
of the carrion crow.'

'I greet you well, Sheriff,' said Gilbert Kennedy; 'but
say your say plain out, without bringing all the birds of the
air into the matter.'

'Plainly then,' said the Sheriff, 'the matter is this.
The Earl has moved the law against us for rights his
father granted us years agone, rights that have never been
questioned, and when we will not yield to him, he uses his
influence with the King to make us traitors.  He sends his
low-born officers to remove us from our kindly homesteadings,
and from the castles where for centuries our forefathers
dwelled—ay, before one stone of Cassillis lay on the top
of another.'  And the fire glinted in the Sheriff's deep-set
eyes, till, with his eagle's beak, he looked himself the very
erne of which he had spoken.  He went on.  'Then comes
he himself, with a force of forty horse, to reduce the
unbroken baronage of Galloway.  He summons us to the court
of doom, and lo! we come to this yett with a hundred
gentlemen, and as many more footmen that but wait to be called.
We have obeyed his mandate to the letter, whereat he sulks
within gates.  Then we send him word that we are at the
trysting-place, and that we will be most glad to see his face.
But for some reason or other that I cannot guess at, he
comes not; but withdraws himself into the house of the
Inch, where presently he remains.  And we, being bound
to see that no ill befalls him within our borders, have set
ourselves down to be the warders and the protectors of
him and of the castle.'

So said the Sheriff, and made his courteous amend.  And
to him Bargany replied,—

'But, Lochnaw, ye know well that ye have no warrant
thus to shut up the Earl of Cassillis, immuring your lawful
feudal superior and defying ancient custom.'

Then spake the red-bearded Laird of Garthland.

'If it come to that, we are bound to you and not to the
Earl, Gilbert Kennedy.  Ye are bound to maintain us in
our rights!  Am I to lose my auld and kindly office and
possession, which I have held in direct line from Uchtred,
Lord of Galloway?  Of a truth, no, Bargany!  Ye are
of a conscience overtrue for work of this kind.  Ye will do
to me your honourable duty, as your predecessors have ever
done to mine in time past.'

And having said his say with dignity, the red Garthland
held his peace.

I could see very well that Bargany was ill at ease.  He
liked not the errand he had come on.  Blows were very
well, but to be process-server sat heavy on his stomach.
I heard him mutter,—

'That I, Gilbert Kennedy, should be doing John of
Cassillis's dirty work!  For none other sake than Marjorie's
would I do this thing!'

But he took up his parable with the Lairds of Galloway.

'Hearken, Garthland and Lochnaw—if, as ye say, I am
above ye, well do ye know that the Earl is by law above
us both.'

He paused for a moment, wry-face, as though he had
swallowed the bitterest drugs of the apothecary.  And I
saw the Sheriff smile a smile as bitter every whit.

'Hearken to me.  If my lord continue to do ye wrong,
and will not use you kindly, by mine honourable word in the
hearing of all these friends, I will not only leave his
lordship—I will maintain you to the last drop of my blood.
But if ye pursue my lord to take his life, seeing that he has
sent for me to aid him, I will defend him to the uttermost
of my power.'

Then said the Sheriff, 'Bargany, we are honourable men
and peaceful.  We are not here to attack the Earl, but to
defend ourselves in that thing in which he would do us
wrong.'

'I will deal straightly with my lord,' said Bargany; 'be
content, and leave the outcome to me.'

'We are content,' they replied, both of them as one.
'We ken a man when we front him, for we ourselves are
men.  We will abide your judgment, whatever you may
command.'

So in a trice Bargany had gotten the Earl to promise
all good things, and the Galloway men were satisfied.
Thereafter they all dined together with my lord in the
house of Inch, and parted very merry.  And the men of
Galloway convoyed us northward to the braes of Glenap,
where the whole force and retinue of Bargany's servants and
friends met us.  Thus was the Earl released from durance,
and his promises were loud and many, so that we were all
well-contented.  And I thought that the old feud was at
last come to an end.





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.. _`THE SLAUGHTER IN THE SNOW`:

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   CHAPTER XXIV


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   THE SLAUGHTER IN THE SNOW

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But, alas! I was never more disappointed, shamed, deceived
in my life.  For no sooner was our Earl back in his own
messuages and domains, and behind his lines of hackbuttmen,
than he resiled from all his promises—both to the Galloway
men, who had done so honourably in the releasing and
convoying of him, and (what seemed to me worse) also to
Bargany, who had pledged himself in honour to satisfy the
Sheriff and Garthland.  For after all, a lie told to a loon of
Galloway is not like one to a man's own kin and country.
Though, of course, a man that is true all through the web,
will not tell a lie to any.  But such men are few, at least in
the shire of Ayr where I dwell, and in Edinburgh to which
I have at different times voyaged.

But Bargany, as was natural, was fierce in his indignation
with the crack-tryst Earl.

'For,' said he, 'he has made me, that am a man of my
word, break faith with men of a like pattern, even with
Uchtred MacDowall of Garthland and the Sheriff of
Galloway.'

So after all this tangled business, instead of peace, as my
deeply-deceived master had supposed when he gave over his
daughter to the traitors of Auchendrayne, there issued
at the last naught but feud, more deadly and hateful than
ever.

The Earl, who, to do him justice, was no coward as to
his own skin, went hither and thither between Cassillis and
Maybole, and even south to Auchneil, riding freely as
though he had been within his own borders all the time.
And the traps that were laid for him by Auchendrayne and
Thomas of Drummurchie, the Laird of Bargany's barbarous
brother, were too many to be told.  Yet for the sake of the
new alliance, such as it was, Culzean meddled not at all with
the matter, though doubtless it was a source of infinite
bitterness of spirit to him.

Then all of a sudden there came upon us the eleventh
of December, which is a day yet remembered in Carrick,
because of the many brave lads that pranked it in pride in
the morning, and who yet lay stiff in their war gear or ever
the early winter gloaming had fallen.

We at Culzean got our warning from the Earl's man,
John Dick, on the night before, how it was the order that
we were to gather at Cassillis yett and ride with them back
to Maybole town all in a company.  John Dick told us, but
with even more than his customary surliness and unwillingness,
that the cause of this raising of the clan was, that two
days before Bargany had ridden past the gate of Cassillis,
where the Earl was—stopping not at all, but riding by with
pennons flying in despite, which was held a deadly insult to
his feudal superior.  So Earl John had sworn to be equal
with him on his return.

It was such a day of snow (this eleventh day of
December) that even in the midst of the fight, when the
hackbutts were talking and the steel ringing, a man could
scarce see whither he was going.  At times so thick was
the drift, that when a man struck at an enemy with his
lance, he could not tell who it might be that opposed him,
whether friend or foe.

But when, very early in the morning, we rode out to
the muster, the oncoming storm had not yet begun.  The
air was bitter cold, blowing from the south-east, so that it
drove in the faces of the Bargany folk all the day.  Now,
as of late years it had been customary with him, my Lord
of Culzean was not able to ride with us.  For the chill
weather unmanned him, and he could do nothing but hurkle
over the fire, with a lad to rub his swollen feet and stiff
knee-joints.

So it befell that once more I had the leading of our
good lads from the sea border.  Right merry we were
as we rode forth, for the matter seemed to us no more
than a good adventure.  None thought that the issue
would be so grim and bloody as it proved.  We were
but half-way to Maybole when we came suddenly on
Auchendrayne himself and John Dick, the Earl's
messenger, in close converse—which I thought a strange
thing, seeing that Auchendrayne was so great a favourer
of the Bargany faction.  So soon as they saw us come
in sight they parted, and John Dick rode away over the
fields, but Auchendrayne came towards us, riding easily
and pleasantly as if to market.

'A good day to you,' he cried.  'Whither away, armed
*cap-à-pie*, so early?'

'We ride to meet my lord, and to do his bidding!'
I said, making my words brief and curt, because I liked
not the man, for all his fine figure and commanding
presence.

'Your master Sir Thomas, is, I hear, laid by with his
ancient trouble.  I asked John Dick concerning him.  Tell
him that I grieve to hear of it.'

'Without doubt, you were on your way to visit him,'
I said, with mockery in my manner of speech, for it
was a strange thing to meet John Mure on the wrong
side of the town of Maybole at daybreak of a winter's
morning.

'Without doubt,' he answered readily; 'but now that
I know of his weak state of health, I need not trouble him
this day!'

'There is the greater need, Laird Auchendrayne,' I made
reply, 'that you should go on and cheer him with your
pleasant discourse.'

He answered to that not a word good nor bad, but
turned his horse and rode away to the right, making, as
I guessed, a detour to avoid my lord and join our enemies
of Bargany.

It was early in the morning of this famous eleventh of
December (as I have been told) that there was a goodly stir
and commotion in the town of Ayr.  Gilbert Kennedy had
resolved that he would ride that day to Bargany by way of
the town of Maybole.  Sorely and often they of his faction
tried to dissuade him, but he was set immovably on it, as
he was on anything to which he had once made up his
mind.

'Think ye,' he said, 'that I am feared of John, Earl of
Cassillis, or of all the Kennedies of the shore edge that ever
scarted other folk's siller into their wallets like
sclate-stanes?'

'Ye needna be feared,' said his brother Thomas, the
Wolf of Drummurchie, 'but ye surely have enough of
sense to take care of your pelt.  Even a swine has that
muckle.  Do you think that Cassillis, and those that are
with him, have not as much sense as we?  They will be
standing by some roadside where we have to ride by, and
they will have holes cutted out, I warrant you, long or this,
to shoot us in the by-ganging—-even as we did for Earl
Johnnie at the limekilns of the Dalgorrachies.'

But that debauched villain, the Laird of Benane, and his
little-wit sister, moved him to that pride, to which also his
own heart ever too easily inclined.  So, in spite of all
entreaty, Bargany leaped on his charger and rode forward
himself, with only ten or twelve horsemen as a first vanguard.
Behind him there came other seventy, making in all the
number of fourscore armed men on horseback, all good
riders of mettle.  Some of these were such burghers of
Ayr as had a soul beyond the ell-wand, and could follow
a foray and bend the pull of a pistolet with any man.
For I have learned that all townsfolk are not nidderlings,
as once I thought in my hot youth and little knowledge.

Now, so soon as they were well mounted there were
two at Bargany's muster who rode away to warn my Lord
of Cassillis by which way Bargany should come, so that he
might be in array.  The traitorous names of them were
William Cunningham and Hew Penandgow, against both
of whom Auchendrayne had warned Gilbert Kennedy.
But Bargany had taken no heed, for he said, 'Never yet have
I seen the time when my right arm could not keep my
head against kings and earls, let alone pock-puddings and
Penandgows!'

'Nor like I this day's work,' said Auchendrayne, 'for
I see not here the weight of men to do your turn and carry
you through.'

Yet all the time he was plotting that Gilbert Kennedy
should no more ride home to Bargany, and that John Mure
should rule the land in his stead.

It was not long before they came to the bridge of Doon.

There they stayed awhile, and Bargany set his fighting
men in array.  And, as was the custom, he made an
address to them—of which I have heard much and often,
for all men minded it as the speech of a brave man.

'Sirs,' he said, so that they could all catch his words,
'I am here to protest, before God, that I seek neither the
life nor the dishonour of my lord.  But I desire only to
ride home to my house in peace, if he will let me.  But if
not, I look to you all to do your duty as becometh men.
He that is willing to do this, out of love and kindness for
me, let him tarry with me to the end.  But if not, let him
leave me now at this present!'

And they all answered, 'We will die in your defence if
any dire hurt or pursue you!'

So being well agreed, they of Bargany rode forward.
They were divided into two companies, and their faces were
set toward the gate of the town.  And now it befits that
I speak of the things which I saw with my own eyes, and
of the noble muster that we of the Cassillis faction made on
the knowes outside of Maybole.

I mind well how the Earl's spies came riding in with
the news that Bargany had ridden out of the town of Ayr,
and what joy was in the hearts of most of us that were
there, when we heard that with him he had but eighty
men.

Earl John was so full of pleasure that his countenance
shone, and he cracked his thumbs like a boy, seeing his
enemy already in his power.  He rode here and there
among us, and saw to it that all the hackbuttmen had
good-going matches, and all the footmen practicable spears
and pikes.

When we gathered in the High Street of Maybole the
snow was just beginning to fall, and presently it came
driving up from the south, so that we had it on our backs
all through the fight.

I was put in the very forefront of the muster with my
twenty horsemen.  For, save and excepting those of
Culzean, and the few that surrounded his own person and
were his gentlemen (as Robert Harburgh and others), my
Lord of Cassillis counted not many horsemen, but rather
spent his means upon providing hackbuttmen with the
latest species of ordnance.

Nevertheless, gallantly enough we rode forth from Maybole,
with the hackbuttmen and spearmen coming on foot after
us.  The street was full of them as far as one could discern
through the oncoming storm, rising and falling like the waves
of the sea.  Yet was our soldierly figure a little spoiled by the
falling snow—at least to the eyes of the women that looked
down upon us in droves from the upper windows of the houses.
But, of course, a soldier cared nothing for such a trifle.

When once we got outside the town, my lord bade his
men line the hedges and banks, so that the hackbuttmen
might have both rests for their pieces and shelter for
themselves.  On the other hand, the Laird of Bargany hid few
hackbuttmen, for he said, 'It is not the arm of a gen'leman.
Comes a bullet of lead and be he lord, prince, or peasant,
Childe Roland or base craven, there is no difference and no
remead.'

No sooner were we set, all under cover, than our spearmen
upon the left and we upon the right, discerned the
host of Bargany beginning to crown the opposite knolls.
And through the pauses of the storm I could see the leaden
glint of their spears, and hear the words of command.  It
was indeed a picked day for a grim fight to the death.

At the head of all Gilbert Kennedy rode, behind him
the Wolf his brother, and the Laird of Auchendrayne wearing
a long cloak, for it was a stormy day and he no longer
a young man like the others.  Then it was that my heart
rose against the fighting, and I had no such gladness in it
as was usual with me, all for the sake of young Bargany,
whom I loved.  Yet as soon as I set eyes upon John Mure
of Auchendrayne, I felt the iron grow in my veins and
the hot anger mount to my head.  Of its own accord my hand
gripped the spearhilt, for this day, by the Earl's command,
I was again to lay a lance in rest.  But I had now learned
the game and art of it, and took lessons no longer from
anyone.

'If the Lord prosper me this day, I will make an end
of one false rogue!'  So I vowed, solemn as if I had been
in the kirk on a Sabbath day.

Then the two forces drew so close together that we
could see and hear one another—that is, before the snow
swept down, blotting out faces and forms, friend and foe
alike.

Immediately there began the challenging and taunting,
as is ever the way in these clan battles, where every fighter
knows everyone else, and has met him at kirk and market
a score of times.

Then Patrick Rippitt, that was ever a wild lad, cried
out for provocation to the Laird of Bargany's younger
brother, with whom he had some quarrel about a lass.

'Laird of Benane, Laird of Benane, this is I, Patrick
Rippitt, that took your hackbutt from you!  For thy latest
love's sake, come down to the hollow and break a tree
with me.'

For that was his manner of challenging his enemy to
fight with lances.  And again, 'Then for all thy loves
sake,' cried Patrick, which made a laugh, for Benane's loves
were comparable to the snowflakes for number, and eke for
the lightness—but by no means the whiteness of their
characters.

'For all thy loves' sakes, come down, and I will gar thy
harns clatter!'

But Benane was silent and returned no answer, albeit
the moment before he had been giving Bargany counsel to
ride forward at the charge.  But Benane was a man, debonnair
but feckless, a weighty man with his tongue, but thewless
and unable of his hands.

Long ere this the men of Ayr were keen to be at the
shooting.  But Bargany held them in, saying, 'I will go to
the length of my tether in eschewing all cummer and
bickering, so far as I may.'

And with that he wheeled about his force off the knows
of the Lady Carse, and went down by the bogside of Dinhame,
to see whether a way might be won in that direction,
without coming to the bloody arbitrament of battle.

But my lord the Earl cried out, 'Ware ye, there on
the left.  They would turn our flank and take us at
unawares!'

So he spread out his hackbuttmen, and made them race
down the ridges over against Bargany's men, till they won
to the foot of the Bog of Dinhame.  There on the edge
of the moss was a wall of turf, or, as the country folk call
it, a 'fail dyke,' so our hackbuttmen, coming to it, first
lined it, and then began to fire on Bargany, who was
somewhat disconcerted and taken aback at their alertness.  I
galloped round to the right, to make safe the wing with
my little band of horse, for I feared we might be suddenly
assaulted by the whole band of eighty.

However, as it happened, the sudden shooting of our
musketeers threw their lines into confusion, some of them
halting by a little burn-side that was at the bog-foot.  This
staying of the charge gave further courage to our musketeers,
who had full time to plant their rests and make their matches
ready.  Our pikemen also gathered at the back of the turf
dyke and levelled their weapons over the heads of the kneeling
hackbuttmen, so that it had been as vain for the whole
company to have charged upon us, as for them to have
attacked the walls of Calais.

Nevertheless, I saw them muster again boldly and come
at us.  I caught the trampling of their horses as they
gathered speed.  The fire of our musketeers flickered out
here and there adown the line, for it was a dark afternoon
and the flashes could clearly be seen.  I saw sundry horses
go down and heard men fall, the iron plates of their mail
clashing on the frost-firmed ground.  Some of those who
started most gallantly reeled in their saddles, threw up their
arms and fell backwards, while their horses galloped riderless
away, for that is the manner of men's falling who are
smitten by the bullet as they ride.

The Wolf of Drummurchie was down.  I hoped that
he would rise no more, for he was a most cruel beast and
the bane of many lives.  Indeed, from before the fire of our
musketeers, all trained marksmen, the riders of Bargany
who had been so proud, fairly melted away.  Thus was
Earl John justified of his dependence upon powder and lead.





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.. _`MARJORIE BIDS HER LOVE GOOD-NIGHT`:

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   CHAPTER XXV


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   MARJORIE BIDS HER LOVE GOOD-NIGHT

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I was just rejoicing that the battle was well over, and that
the victory remained with us without great shedding of blood,
when to my infinite astonishment I saw a little dark cloud of
five or six men disengage them from the deray, and charge
straight at the thickest of us.  They seemed to come
suddenly out of the midst of the battling snowstorm, for
the driven flakes beat so in their faces, that had it not
been shed from their armour they would have been fairly
sheeted white in it, as indeed were the trappings of their
horses.

In a moment more they were amongst us—Bargany himself
first of all, with Cloncaird and James and Andro Bannatyne,
and behind them, with his sword bare, Auchendrayne
himself.  Yet I opine he came not willingly, but that his horse,
unaccustomed to noise, ran away with him.  By what freak of
madness they resolved thus to charge, as it had been an army
in position, it is beyond me to tell.  In a moment these five
were in the midst of the slicing steel and the flame of
ordnance—the snow-flakes driving in their eyes and their
swords cutting a way through the white drift to reach the
foe.

Never was there such a fight—at least, not in this land,
for there were but five of them to near a hundred of
us!  So that I saw no honour in the battle, and besides, it
went hard with me to have to smite that Gilbert Kennedy,
at whose side I had ridden so blithely all the way to the
house of the Inch.

But I spurred Dom Nicholas forward with a kind of joy,
toward the mound where Auchendrayne had managed to stay
his horse just outside the heady rush of the fight.  I saw
that he meant to watch what the end might be, but I was
determined that I should give him more than he bargained
for.  So I couched lance, and crying, 'A Kennedy!'
held at him, swinging a pistol point-blank as I came,
and throwing it away as I gripped the spear.  And this
time at least I might well have been called Spurheel, for I
rowelled Dom Nicholas most vigorously.  I came upon
John Mure with a surge, so that I clean overbore him with
a lance-thrust in the thigh.  I cared not a jot that he was
old.  The devil was older than he, and besides, if he wanted
not to stand the chance of battle, he might even have bided
at home for the quarrel was none of his.

And it had been telling all of us if I had stayed to finish
him.  When I think of the ill the man did afterwards,
and how for years he had been bringing many to their deaths,
I can bite my thumb for letting him off scot-free.

But, like a fool, I contented myself with the lance-thrust
and the chance pistol bullet I sped at him in the heat of the
fight.  For I never could abide the cruel slaying of the
wounded, which is practised even more in these private wars
than in the great affairs of nations.  And this over delicacy
has often stood in the way of my advantage.

So I turned, and left Auchendrayne lying on the ground.
As I came back I heard Bargany crying out, 'I fear we are
too few!  But have at them till we die!'

There was but one that fought with him, all his other
companions being stricken down.  And in a trice he alone
was left on his horse.  Nevertheless, it was with a light
hand on the rein and a feat touch of the heel, that Gilbert
Kennedy kept his head, though the blows fell like hail on
his armour.  There were three that he held at arm's length—all
the while crying out for the Earl, and trying fiercely
to break through the spearmen, who stood like a fence about
the person of Cassillis.

'Where is my lord himself?' he cried.  'Let him now
keep promise, and come out like a man to break a tree
with me!'

So went the fight of the one against many, and such
deeds of valiance saw I never any man do in this realm of
Scotland, though in my time I have seen so many brave and
worthy things done.  For Gilbert Kennedy attacked Patrick
Rippitt and Quintain Crawford with strokes that nearly
dang them senseless, crying at each blow, 'Bargany!
Bargany!  To the rescue, Bargany!'  But ever as he
raged through the fight like a lion, I saw John Dick
watching him with a poised lance in his hand.  And while
Gilbert was at blows with Rippitt and Big Quintain, Dick
raised the spear and sent it quivering at him, with an art
which I never saw any man master of, save only himself.
Gilbert Kennedy had taken no note of him—for, as I heard
afterwards, Auchendrayne had told all that were in the
camp of Bargany, that John Dick was his man, and his paid
intelligencer in the host of the enemy.

The poised lance struck young Bargany full in the neck
and stayed.  So in the midst of his foes, and striking at them
to the last, he fell, who was the bravest man of his age.  And
at his overthrow there fell a silence for a space, and the battle
smother cleared.  Only the snow fell and scarce melted on
the face that was already white and set in death.

We crossed our spears and made a bier with our cloaks,
whereon we laid him.  Then very gently I drew away
the deadly lance, though the wound bled not much, but
inwardly, which was worse.  We thought to bear him to
some castle of his own folk, as it might be to the house of
Auchdrayne.  But the Earl John came and looked at his
foe and kinsman as he lay on the snow with his eyes closed.

'Carry him to my castle at the town end of Maybole,'
said he, 'for that is near by.'

Now I thought that not the best place in the world for
the young man's recovery, but, being bidden, it was not
mine to reply, but only to obey.

We came to the portcullis gate of Maybole, and were
bearing him in upon our shoulders, when down the road
to the town there came, riding like the wind, first a lady
and then a man that followed hotly in pursuit.  When
they came nearer, I saw that the lady was she who had
been Marjorie Kennedy, and that the man riding after
was her husband, James Mure.  At sight of us who bore
the soldier's bier slowly on our spears, Marjorie leaped
from her horse, and left it to wander, bridle free, whither
it would.  But a page seized and held it.

She came swiftly to where we were carrying our burden
on the crossed lances.

'Is it Gilbert Kennedy?' she said.

We told her ay.

'Lay him down under the gate,' she commanded, 'I
would speak with him.'

'But, my lady Marjorie,' I said, as gently as I could, 'I
fear that he is dead already.'

'Then I would even speak to him dead,' she cried.  'Lay
him down!'

Her husband came up to take her by the hand as if to
remove her, but she turned on him in white anger, swift
and flaming.

'You that have never yet dared to lay a hand on me, is
it like that you shall begin now?  Go, look to your father;
cravens that shun the battle ought not to brawl with women
in the gate!'

And without further remonstrance James Mure slunk
away, like the very pitiful rogue that he was.  I could have
kicked the cur, and wished there had been fewer folk
there—for I had done it too.

Then she that had been so proud and haughty to young
Bargany when he was alive, took the fair, wounded head in her
arms, crouching beside him in the dun, trampled snow, while
the flakes blew in upon her unbound hair.  She crooned and
hushed him like a bairn, while we that had borne him stood
wide from her, some turning away altogether.  But, because
I knew all and loved her, I stood near.

'Gilbert,' she said, 'noblest and dearest, never doubt but
that I loved you—never loved but you.  Though I flouted
you oft, and ever sent you empty away, yet I loved you
and none other.  And I want the world to know that
I loved him—ay,' she said, turning her face up to us all
defiantly, 'ay, and loved him with clean hands, too, for he
that is dead never knew it.  But I desire you that were his
enemies in life, to know that I, Marjorie Kennedy, honoured
myself by loving the noblest man and the fairest—not that
thing there, who by cozenance bought me, as cattle are
bought in the market-place.'

She laid down his head very gently, taking a fine silken
scarve, soft and white, from her own neck.  And in the folds
of that which was yet warm with the warmth of her pure and
gracious bosom, she wrapped from common sight the head
of him who had died without knowledge of her love.

Then she kneeled low down upon her knees, clasping
hands and holding the last fold of the napkin ere she
covered his face from sight.

'Ah, best beloved,' she said very gently, yet so that I
could hear, 'fare thee well!  So have I never said farewell
before.  But ever scornfully, being in fear of mine own
heart's treachery.  Lie you there that wert the noblest man
the sun shone on, of adversaries the most fearless, of enemies
the most chivalrous, of friends the truest, of loves the
sweetest—lie you there.  Those that hated you were many.
But there was one that loved you—ay, and loves you, and
ever shall love you!  Lie you there, heart that never feared
aught but God and dishonour and a lie—heart that never
took favour from man nor refused one to woman.  See, I will
touch your lips—those sweetest lips that never of my own will,
have I touched before.  The earth be kind to your body,
sweet.  The heavens receive your soul with honour, and the
angels that warred with Satan and vanquished him, stand
up at your entrance to give you room!'

She smoothed the cloth upon the face with mighty love
in the caressing of her finger tips.

'Good-night, dear love,' she said, lifting it for the last
time and kissing his brow.  'It is sweet, even thus in death,
to tell thee that I love thee!'

Then, when Marjorie had done bidding her love farewell,
we lifted the crossed spears, and setting them again
on the shoulders of men, we carried Gilbert of Bargany
away.





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.. _`DAYS OF QUIET`:

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   CHAPTER XXVI


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   DAYS OF QUIET

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I ran back to bid Marjorie return with us to Culzean,
where at least we could keep her safe.  She stood where we
had left her, looking at the place where her love had lain.
The marks of the crossed spears and certain drops of blood
alone remained on the snow.

At the sound of my voice she started as from a dream.

'Ah, Launcelot,' she said, looking at me strangely, as
though I too had been dead and in a newer life had
unexpectedly confronted her, 'do you think that I, who fear
not fifty in the highway, fear one or two in the house of
Auchendrayne?  My work is not done there yet,' she added;
'till it be, there I shall bide.'

And with that she mounted and rode away.  Never did
I see a cavalcade ride home in such fashion after a victory.
There was not a man of us from Culzean but went with
his head hanging down like a little whipped cur.  And when
we told Sir Thomas he was like to break his heart, for
he was a kindly man, and had ever a great affection for
Bargany.

And Nell, when she heard it, went out and stopped the
boys that played at ball and shouted in the tennis-court.
Also, to keep them sober, she set them to learn their
religion—of which, in common with all in that country side (save
perhaps my master) they had great need.

But strange to tell, after the grief for Bargany's death
was a little by-past among us, there befell the quietest and
most gracious time that ever had been in the house of
Culzean.  It was like the coming of joy after the
rain—the warm rain of pity which thawed our winter-frozen
hearts.

Yet the things that happened during these months were
many.  First of all there was the marrying of my pretty cruel
Kate to Robert Harburgh, who had at last gotten leave to
depart from the Earl, and the down-sitting to settle on.
So the day came that I had looked for to be so bitter to me,
and lo! it was not bitter at all; for I stood beside Nell
Kennedy in white, who was Kate Allison's best maid, and
it was indeed a sight comely.  Then it was that for the first
time I honestly judged Nell to be more beautiful than her
sister Marjorie, of which I have often thought since.

When all was over, and Nell and I had done racing
and throwing of old shoes after them, as they rode away
together to their well-furnished house of Chitterlintie, it
chanced that she and I walked home together.  We were
silent a long while.

Then said I, 'Nell, do you remember how it was our
daily use to quarrel?'

'And so it may be again,' she said, tossing her head.

'I wonder where the rope is, and the tow-steps that
used to dangle from the White Tower?' she asked after
a moment.

'They are e'en there yet,' I said, 'if it be that you
desire to go and see your lad.  But be more timely, I pray
you, in your homecoming, for now you have no excuse in
the way of sisters—'

Then I remembered, and was shamed.  However, Nell
paid no heed, but seemed to be thinking of something else.

'Nor have you now any excuse for going down by to
Sandy the Grieve's,' she said, giving me tit for tat.

'Nell,' said I, 'we are very good friends, are we not?

'Ay,' said she, drily, 'brawly do I ken the reason of that.'

'And what may the reason be?' I asked of her.

'Just that I am all there is left,' she said, so quickly that
I declare the saying took the wind from me, like a sudden
blow where one's breath bides.  Nor do I yet know the
answer to that, for on the surface of the thing there was
certainly some reason in what she said.

'Oh, I am not proud,' she went on, 'and you and I
are good friends and good company.  I am e'en content to
be Mistress Do-no-better!'

'Nell,' said I, going nearer to her, and taking her
hand, 'Nell, you and I are now to be more than that.'

But she drew her hand away with a jerk.

'Try a new way of it,' she said; 'I am not taking
Mistress Katherine Allison's cast-off sweet speeches!'

So that base little wretch Kate Allison had been at the
telling of tales!

After this I saw no better way out of the bog than to
withdraw myself from her, and walk apart in that silent
dignity, which, upon occasion, I have at my command.

'No, Launce,' she said, standing up with her hands
behind her and her mouth pouted, 'you are a good lad
enough, but simple.  I knew that I would send you into
the sulks.  That was the reason I said it.  If you take
me for a sweet confection that melts in the mouth, you
mistake me sorely!'

But I made no answer, not indeed having any to make,
and so marched off by myself.  Yet for all Nell's ill-treatment
and scorning of me, I did not grieve any more for
that minx Kate.  For, as I was no long time in discovering,
the pretty traitress had told Nell many of those sweet
things I had said to her.  I never imagined that girls told
such speeches and love-makings the one to the other.  I
had aways believed that a lass kept her own secrets, and
only told other people's.  It was, indeed, most true what
Nell had cast up to me.  I was but a simple lad.





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.. _`ON THE HEARTSOME HEATHER`:

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   CHAPTER XXVII


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   ON THE HEARTSOME HEATHER

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Now I must tell during this time of Sir Thomas Kennedy.
He seemed altogether another man.  He had ever, indeed,
been kindly and generous, forgiving and unsuspicious.
But during these spring months of the year after Bargany's
death, he seemed to ripen like a winter apple when it is
laid by, till there was no more sourness in him anywhere.

Oftentimes he would come and cause me to read to him
out of the Gospels.  Aforetime it had always been from the
Old Testament, which I had ever thought the more
interesting, till Sir Thomas that spring showed me other
of it, making me read through the Holy Gospels.

Indeed, to talk with him and watch his life was better
than any sermon.  I declare that before I understood his
character and thought, I knew not that religion was aught
more than the colour of a faction—a thing to fight about,
like the blood feuds of Cassillis and Bargany, concerning
the wrong and right of which not one in a thousand knows
anything, and still fewer care.

Yet for all his increasing gentleness there was naught
unmanly about my lord, but ever the bearing and speech
of a most courteous knight.  He had a great love for noble
and sweet music, and often diverted himself on the viol,
upon which he played most masterly.  The scurril jest,
indeed, he would sharply reprove; but his heart still inclined
to wit and mirth, and his countenance was constantly
cheerful.

Specially this was so when he and I, with Nell and
little David, rode south to Galloway, where we were to
abide a long season with Sheriff Agnew.  For Marget
Kennedy, his eldest daughter, was married to the young
Laird, the Sheriff's son, and abode at the castle of Lochnaw.
Now in these days the air of Galloway, brisk yet kindly,
suited my master better than the sea winds which were
ever blowing about Culzean.  And what was more to him
than all Galloway was not so torn by feuds as Carrick and
Kyle.  And a man held not his life ever in the palm of his
hand, as a tavern drawer does an unsteady cup which at any
moment may be spilled.  Nevertheless my good master found
an infinite sadness in this, that in a wide realm of men that are
called Christians, I, Launcelot Kennedy, should have come
to the years of manhood with no better opinion of religion
than that it was the rag of faction.  And this, too, with
ministers in mostly every parish, with preachings and
communings, and all the outer husk of godliness.

But during this springtime, Sir Thomas showed me
quite other of it.  But yet I gave not in to all his argument
about the Kingdom of Peace.  For I answered that I was
his soldier and servant, and that time and again it had been
so ordered by Providence that fight I must—for the safety
and honour of my master and eke for mine own, this being
the sphere of life in which my lot had been cast.

'I object it not,' said Sir Thomas; 'defence and the
appeal to arms are lawful.  But I have lived many days,
and I think shall not live many more.  Yet never have I
seen the lasting success of them that make the appeal to
the sword.  Truly does Holy Writ say, that they that flee
to the sword shall perish by the sword.'

And as we paced together he read to me much from
his little Bible, and bemoaned his sins and evil life, especially
how that he had been overtaken in the house of Sir Thomas
Nisbett on the New Year's night of the attack.  I wished
that I dared tell him that I had arranged the matter with
his host for the saving of his life.  But I judged that
repentance is no bad thing for young or old, so I e'en let him
repent his fill and bemoan as he would.

Few places more heartsome have I seen than the tower
of Lochnaw.  First, it stood near to an inland loch, where
ducks squattered and splashed, instead of being like Culzean,
set amid the thresh of winds and the brattle of the sea.
Then the Sheriff and his children were well agreed, and
friendly with their neighbours, so that it was a proverb,
that the wolves and the lambs lay down together in that
countryside.  For if you stirred an Agnew, you had all
the wolves of Galloway on your back!  But in truth the
Agnews were somewhat strange 'lambs,' though their name
bears that signification.

'We are called Agnews because we have so often been
fleeced,' said the Sheriff once in his pleasantry.

But I told him that was bad sense though good wit—because
in the hills we shore not the lambs till they had
grown to be sheep.

'Ay, well,' said the Sheriff, twinkling with his eyes,
'shear my son Patrick there, for he is now sheep-muckle,
and has been so silly as to mix himself with the unruly folk
of Carrick.'

I had indeed great pleasure in the house of Lochnaw.
It is a fair place, with walls, moats, and drawbridges all
about—very proper for defence—so that there be no artillery
set against it.  But to my thinking the mounds might now
very well be levelled and turned into walks and terraces, as
has been done at Culzean.

I sat down daily with the family at table, and was in
all respects as one of them.  For the Sheriff said, 'Ye are
not to be strange with us—for my wife comes from within
sight of Kirrieoch Hill, and likes dearly to listen to the
tongue of the muirland border folk.'

'Ay,' said my Lady Agnew, for I will not call her
the old lady, seeing that she had kept the heart that was
within her young, 'ay, and I have not seen any folk to
better them on these fat, profitable Rhynns.'

'That,' said the Sheriff, 'was what I thought when I
went to the Minnoch side for a wife.'

And very gallantly he lifted his wife's hand to his lips,
like the noble and courtly gentleman he was.  And to this
day the Agnews have ever been proud of their wives.  And
with reason.

'Hearken to these young folk,' said Lady Agnew, as the
noise and tumult of much laughter and daffing came up to
us.  'Hark to them.  Is it not good to be young?'

'And therefore it is good to be my Lady of Lochnaw!'
said I, for I determined to show that there were folk in
Carrick that could be gallant as well as Galloway Agnews.

'Hoot, Culzean,' cried the Lady Agnew, 'how have ye
brought up your squire, that he cannot see a well-looking
woman, but on the instant he maun begin to court her?'

'What,' cried my master, 'the regardless loon—and that
before her husband's face, too!'

'That, at least, is not a Galloway fault, at ony gate,'
said the Sheriff, smiling, 'for Galloway ever behaves itself
before folk, and courts only behind backs and slily by the
licht of the moon.'

'Ye talk havers, Andrew,' said his wife.  'Never did I
meet you behind backs all the days of our courting.'

'Na,' said the Sheriff, 'but your father, honest man, was
sair troubled with deafness, and your mother was blind, and
lame o' a leg forbye.'

'Haud your tongue, guidman.  Have some mense afore
the young man, for he looks a sober chiel and blate.
What should he have to do with lasses?  At his years!'

Here Nell Kennedy broke out in peal on peal of laughter,
and when they asked her the reason,—

'It was but at Launcelot's face when my lady praises
him for being blate.  He looks as innocent as our grey cat
Grimalkin, when she has eaten all the fish for supper.'

I wish that I could dwell longer on these sweet, peaceful
days in Galloway, but the spring went on apace, and Sir
Thomas was summoned back to Culzean.  His nephew the
Earl urgently needed his advice, and wrote to him to say so.

'The Earl makes you many compliments,' said the Lady
Lochnaw.

'Ay, ay,' said Culzean, 'Earl John was aye a great
spender with his tongue, even as was the daddy of him.'

So we were bound to ride away from this kindly and
merry house of Lochnaw, and much did I desire to return
thither.  Never once did we speak of wars and stratagems
while we remained under that roof, but all of friendship, of
lusty daffing, and of leasome love.

But when we mounted I bade farewell to all with a wae
heart.  I envied the Sheriff greatly, for he had a wife whom
he loved in age as in youth, and yet whom he knew wherein
to be the master of—a thing, I take it, which makes home
happier than all besides.  I thought within me that Patrick, his
son, had set himself a harder field to plough in his Marget.
Yea, already methought he had let the reins slip from his
hands—which, after all, is no strange thing, considering that
she was own sister to Marjorie and Nell Kennedy, of whose
stiff necks I had oft had experience.

Ere we went, the Sheriff said a word that amused us all.
'When I came to be Sheriff,' he said, 'I found my father
at the horn, outlaw and rebel, for refusing to pay teinds
to cover the back of a bishop's lady with silks and satins.
And when I die it looks like that I shall see my son at the
horn for cleading of his wife according to the degree of
a queen.'

For young Patrick Agnew liked better than all to be for
ever gadding about after the merchants of France and the
Low Countries, who knew his weakness so well that they
would come from far to sell him stuff for the decking of his
lady—who, when all was said and done, was nothing to
compare to Nell or even to Marjorie, her younger sisters.

So we departed, almost heart-broken to leave the sweet
place of Lochnaw.  And the Sheriff rode with us to the
village of Stranrawer—a long, clarty, Irish-looking street
with pigs and bairns running about it, set on the shore of
a fine loch.  Here Sir Andrew and his retinue bade us
farewell, and so turned them and rode away back to the
homely steading of Lochnaw.

Now, upon our homeward journey it was the great
good pleasure of the knight, my master, that we should ride
up the Minnoch Glen to visit my father and mother, whom
I had not seen for long.  Sir Thomas put it, that it would
be well that we rode not directly by Ardstinchar and near
to Bargany along the shore road, for the folk of Bargany
were cruelly set against us.  Nevertheless, I knew that the
real reason was that he wished me to see my mother.

So we struck across the moorland country of Wigtonshire
to the head of the Loch of Cree, which is a vast, wild,
swampy place where many waterfowl congregate, and where
duck and seagull build their nests.

As we breasted the swelling moors, we came in sight of
the mountains that were dear to me, for I was hill-bred and
loved them—so that I could have ridden on, carolling like
a lark, had I been in any other company.

But Sir Thomas and Nell knew what was in my heart,
for as we rode up Minnoch they looked at each little thatched
cot-house, and asked what it might be called—which was
most amiable of them, for I loved to tell over the well-kenned
names, though the hearing of them could not possibly have
pleasured Nell or her father.

When we came to the brow of the hill, along the side
of which runs the track to the Rowan Tree, I begged of
them that I might ride a little way in front, in order to
prepare my father and mother for their reception.  Really,
I went because I did not wish them to see me meet my
mother, for I knew that I was bound to weep.

But it fell not out as I had expected, for the dogs that
were about the farm came barking and youching round the
corner, and I saw the rough head of our herd laddie looking
out of the barn.  Then he scudded across the yard like a
hare, and, anon, there came my mother forth, with a white
hood upon her head, and girt about with her apron—even as
she had been when, as a boy, I used to come pelting home
from the hills, hungrily looking for a piece and a slockening
drink of milk.

So she came own the little loaning to meet me, nearly
running in her eagerness, I declare.  And there, at the
gate-slap, I leaped down from Dom Nicholas and took my
mother about the neck, greeting like a great silly bairn.
But for my life I could not help it.  Yet I need not have
cared, for Nell and Sir Thomas were admiring something
on the hills, with their heads close together; and over my
shoulder I could hear him pointing out to her the road to
Straiton, and the way across the hills to Girvan—so they
observed not my weakness.

Then came Sir Thomas forward, and I presented him to
my mother.  Whereupon he greeted her by the name of
Lady Kirrieoch, for that was a title of courtesy to a
laird's wife.  And though Kirrieoch is but a little place
and a wild, uncouth holding, yet Sir Thomas walked by my
mother's side, leading his horse and talking, with his hat in
his hand all the while, as if she had been the Queen of Scots
herself.

And as I looked steadfastly away towards the wind, so
that they should not see that I had been weeping, and also
to let the air dry my eyes (for such weakness is ridiculous in
a man), Nell came riding by on her palfrey.  She cast a little
glance about her to see that none observed, a look quick and
timorous.  Then she leaned over and gave me a light little
pat on the cheek with her hand—a thing she never did
before, but which I liked very well.

Then came out my father to meet us at the door, and
Sir Thomas took him by the hand heartily.

'You and I, Laird,' he said, 'are not so young as we
were at the King's muster on the Boroughmuir, and when
you held the colours of Cassillis, even as your son does this
day.'

'No, Sir Thomas,' said my father, 'brittle bones, slack
sinew, thin-sown hair have come to us both since that day,
when it was my good fortune to serve with you and under
you.'

'Ah, Kirrieoch,' replied the Tutor of Cassillis, 'I envy
you here on your high and heartsome muirs, where the wild
cats are your greatest enemies, and naught more dangerous
than the erne ever stoops to slay.'

'It is a gye hard struggle at times,' replied my father,
'with Launcelot away and only two old bodies left with the
serving men.'

'Ah, bide a wee,' said the Tutor.  'I have made it my
business to see that in a little, when the lad has won his spurs,
you shall have Launcelot back with something worth while
in his pouch, and a handle to his name as good as the lave of
us.'

'I am glad that you have such good reports to give of
him,' said my mother.

'Oh,' said the Tutor of Cassillis, drolling, 'I am none
so sure of that.  He has enough conceit of himself, indeed.
But in his presence we will not say more.'

And then my mother set the table for us with her own
hands, though Sir Thomas insisted that she should not; but
with all due acknowledgment of his courtesy, my mother
continued the work with dignity and grace.  Besides which,
I question whether at the moment Susan, the byre lass, was
dressed fitting to come into a room where there was the
company of great folk.

But it was more than pleasant to see Nell rise to help
my mother to spread the cloth and lay out the silver spoons.
We had the best of muirland fare—mutton of the sweetest,
black-faced and small, toothsomely fed on the sweet, tender
grasses that nestle among the heather-knowes.  Also we
had sweet milk, oaten cake of a rare crispness, a kebbuck of
rich cheese, and butter, as the Scriptures say, in a lordly
dish, for the vessel was of silver, and had upon it the
ancient arms of the Kennedies.

The Tutor picked it up and looked at it.

'These are the bearings of my great-grandfather!' he
exclaimed, much astonished.

'Yes,' said my father; 'and he was also my grandfather.'

'Bless me!' cried the Tutor of Cassillis; 'I knew not
that we were so nearly related.'

And all through the remainder of our stay he called my
father 'cousin.'  And as for Mistress Nell, there was no
end to her merriment on the subject.

'Now we shall fight more than ever,' she said, 'for we
Kennedies always fight with our cousins.  And I must find
the handle of the hayrake with which I used to beat my
cousin Philip.  It will serve excellently for drubbing
Launcelot, my new sweet coz!'

At last we rode away, and Nell Kennedy kissed my
mother lovingly when we bade farewell, so that my heart
warmed more than ever to the lass.

Waeheartedly enough we left the little white housie
behind us, sitting blythsome on its brae above the white
stones of the burn.  And in my imagination to this very
day, whenever I am away from the Minnoch for long, rises
a clear picture of the water-side as we saw it that morning—a
wide valley filled to the brim with sunshine and the stir
of breathing airs, the whaups and peesweeps beginning to
build, and keeping up all the time above our heads a brave
welter of crying and the whistle of eddying wings.

'I wonder not that sometimes you grow homesick,' said
Nell Kennedy.  'When you are distracted and morose, I
shall now know the reason.'

So we came in due season to the house of Culzean, and
there we found all well, with James playing tennis
contentedly in the court; and Sandy, up at the stables, acting
the big man and giving his orders as large as my lord.





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.. _`WARM BACKS MAKE BRAW BAIRNS`:

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   CHAPTER XXVIII


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   WARM BACKS MAKE BRAW BAIRNS

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It was the morning of the 11th of May, and we were on the
morrow to take our journey to the town of Edinburgh.  I
had advertisement the night before that I was to ride to the
town of Maybole to meet John Mure of Auchendrayne,
and on my master's account to appoint a tryst with him at the
Duppil, not far from the town of Ayr, for my Lord
desired not to pass through that place, knowing that many of
the faction of Bargany abode there.  But Sir Thomas ever
believed that Auchendrayne was of those that wished him
well, because of the marriage and of all that had passed
between them.

So I had to ride on this mission that I loved not over
well.  But I had nought to say.  For whenever I spake to
the Tutor concerning John Mure, he would clap me on the
head and say, 'Ye are overcareful and suspicious, Launcelot.
John Mure and I are fathers of the same pair of bairns,
wherefore, then, should we not be as one—even as they?'

Poor man—I could not find it in my heart to tell him
of the happening beneath the town-gate of Maybole, when
James Mure's wife bade farewell to Gilbert Kennedy of
Bargany, as he lay there dead on his enemies' spears.

So at early morning I rode as I was bidden to Maybole
to meet the Laird of Auchendrayne, who, as my master
knew, had some business there.  But it so fell out that I
missed him, for he had lodged all night in the town at the
Black House, which belongs to one Kennedy of Knockdone,
a friend of his and of the Laird of Newark's.

I was loath to ride all the way after him to Auchendrayne,
and so bethought me that I should get the loan of a
laddie from my crony, Dominie Mure, out of his school at
the foot of the Kirkwynd.  My way led me by the Green,
where it was sorely in my mind to try a stroke of the ball.
But I remembered me that Sir Thomas bade me be soon back,
that I might be ready to ride with him on the morrow's
morn to the town of Edinburgh by Duppil and the Ford
of Holmestone.  So, though I saw some brisk birkies
licking at the ball, one of them being Laigh-nosed Jamie
Crawford that had his nose flattened with the stroke of a
golf ball on the hills of Ayr, I refrained me for that time
and went to seek a boy.

But I saw none on the Green, saving some raggedy
loons playing kick-ball, whom I did not like to trust with
so important a message.  I went on, therefore, to the
schoolhouse.  And as I went it cheered me to think on Dominie
Mure and his humours, for he and I had been gossips of a
long season.

The schoolhouse of Maybole was a curious building
tacked on to the rear of the kirk, with vaulted passages of
timber, in which were doors which could on occasion be
opened, so that the school itself might be used as an addition
to the kirk should the latter be crowded.  But in my time
the space was but seldom in demand.  It was an age of iron,
and men's minds craved not naturally that which was
peaceable and good.  The old Papistry had passed away, but the
new religion had not yet grown into the hearts of the people.

I came to the schoolhouse door.  The noise of conning
lessons that used to go humming all along the Kirk Vennel
was louder than it was wont to be.  Indeed, I thought that
of a surety Dominie Mure had gone as far as the change-house
for his morning glass of strong waters, wherein I did
that worthy man an injury.  The dominie's Highland pipes
lay on the desk before him, the great drones looking out
like eyes at the scholars.  They were the recreation of his
leisure, for he had been in his youth in the savage North,
and had learned to be no ill-considered performer even in
the country of pipes and pibrochs.

I looked within, and there, mounted upon two desks
and a chair, stood the Dominie with his head through a
round hole in the boards of the roof, and all that one
could see of him convulsed with animation.

The bairns below were in a great consternation, crying
out that this one and that other was misbehaving—that
Robin Gibb was pinching, or that Towhead Kennedy
was in the act of some piece of villainy which remained
unexpressed, for the obvious reason that the heavy hand
of Towhead Kennedy had prisoned the information within
the mouth of the tale-bearer.

The school of Maybole was an apartment nearly square,
with a dark, well-hacked oaken writing-desk running round
two sides of it, and benches set cross-ways on the floor,
where, when the peace was undisturbed by internal war,
the bairns conned their tasks from worn copies of the
Bible.

At the far end of the school was a wooden bar a foot from
the floor, and a little behind it another.  This was called the
hangman, for it was the post of judgment to unruly boys,
who were called upon to kneel over the first bar and grasp
the second, thus putting themselves into a proper position
for the operations of the fiery and untender little Dominie.
The desk of the master had a framework behind it, in
which were half-a-dozen birch rods, carefully kept and
oiled, even as I keep my stands of arms,—for the callants
of Maybole have ever been unruly, and so remain to
this day.

Dominie Mure was in stature the least, but in learning,
I can well believe, the greatest of dominies, for he was
never without two or three scholars in the Latin.  It was
whispered by the malicious that he had been trained for a
clerk in the old days of the Roman Church, but made a
false step, and so had to turn dominie.  Taking the words
at their usual meaning, I utterly condemn and reject this
lying, malicious explanation, for Dominie Mure was the
least handsome man in Carrick.  He was little, scarce
bigger than many boys of twelve and fourteen who sat
in his class in the New Testament—which was naturally
the class beneath the Old Testament.

His hair grew all over his head and face, grey, wiry and
rough, like burned heather.  Out of this tangle a pair of
humorsome eyes looked, and a stout nose projected like the
angle of an overgrown and ruined building.  His arms were
long, and so strong that he could lift any lad in the school
into the air with one of them, while he gave him 'paikie'
with the other.  So fierce and fiery was the little man, that
no one of the great stalwart loons who came in the winter-time
dared to try their pranks upon him.  He would fly at
them swift as the wild cat springs, and beat half-a-dozen
black and blue before they had time to rally.

What he was now doing with his head through the
ceiling I could not well imagine.  But there was a great
noise aloft and a rushing of feet, while the master made
desperate dives hither and thither, like a man in deep water
and not well able to swim.

Beneath, one little rascal of a bare-legged loon rose from
the seat where he had been sitting squirming at his copy.

'The Dominie is lost!' he cried in great pretended
alarm.  'Oh, sirs, where is our Dominie?  Look in the
ink-horns, lassies.  Look in a' your pouches, laddies!'

And so all the ill-set vagabonds rose and began to search
the ink-horns, the dinner wallets, and even in the rat holes
for the master.

But at this moment there was a crash, and first one and
then another pair of legs appeared dangling through the
ceiling, wildly kicking.  The head of the Dominie returned
through the hole in the ceiling, and he cautiously descended.
His face was damp with perspiration from his exertions aloft,
and he had his longest and stoutest birch rod, which was of
the thickness of one's forefinger, in his hand.  There was a
great streak of soot across his nose—which indeed was about
all that there was for it to cross, the rest of his face being
but a grey tangle of hair.

Dominie Mure came forward to where I stood by the
door.  He greeted me right heartily, and not the less when
I told him on whose account I was there, for he had often
been summoned over to drink a pint with Sir Thomas at the
inn or in his own town house, because my master ever
loved all learned men.

'Bide a wee,' he said, 'till I attend to these rascal loons.
They climbed up through the hole in the ceiling, when I was
at Deacon Gilroy's funeral, to get the store of balls, knuckle-bones,
chuckie stones, and other things the bairns throw up
there.  I kenned well they would fall through.'

So the Dominie took a much thinner and suppler bundle
of birch, gave it a draw through his hand and a swish or two
in the air, which made the dangling legs kick more wildly
than ever—it might be with pleasure and it might be with
painful anticipation.

Dominie Mure walked to the place and set a chair for
himself to stand upon.

'Wha belangs thae legs?' he asked of the scholars.

'They are Tammy Nisbett's,' said the school with one
voice, 'we ken by his duddy breeks!'

'And whose limbs are these—to whom do these legs
belong?' he continued, pointing to certain red objects that
twinkled in frantic endeavours to be free.

'Jock Harrison's,' answered the school without a
moment's hesitation; 'they are clouted wi' his mither's
auld petticoat!'

Then the master did his office affectionately upon those
parts of Tommy Nisbett and Jock Harrison which of their
own accord the adventurous loons had exposed.  The
thwacks resounded through the school, but the yells mostly
ascended through the roof.  Then, when he had finished
his pleasure—for I saw by his eye it was no unwelcome
task—he put up an arm, and without circumspection
pulled the squirming urchins through the rotten boards.

'Thomas Nisbett,' he said severely, 'your faither is an
householder.  He shall pay for the damage done to the
ceiling of this schule, which is the property of the Session
of the parish, of which I am clerk.  And your faither can
take the price out of your breeks himsel' at his leisure.'

He then hauled the other down in the same manner.

'Jock Harrison, I'll never trouble your puir mither
about the siller for the repairs.  She has enough to do with
ten like you.  But I'll e'en pay your hurdies the noo, and
quit your mother and you too, at the one settlement.'

Which having done, he laid down his bundle of rods,
dusted his hands, and commended himself to me to know
how, and in what manner, he might serve my master.  I
told him that if he would write a letter to John Mure
of Auchendrayne to bid him meet with Sir Thomas at
the Chapel of St Leonard's by the sandhills of Ayr, on
the morrow's morn at ten of the clock, and send it to
Auchendrayne by one of his most trustworthy lads, it would be
no small obligation.  And furthermore that I would await an
answer here in Maybole, having other business to transact.

'Good faith, Master Launcelot, I will do that—and
gladsomely,' said the little Dominie.

So, having brought the school to order and set the
classes to their work, he squared himself at his desk, and
wrote fairly and elaborately as I told him.  For the little
man prided himself on his penmanship—which, indeed, Sir
Thomas ever said was better than that of any law scrivener
in Edinburgh.

I reminded him of this, and Dominie Mure could hardly
contain himself for pride.  How strange that so small a
thing should set up some men!

Then, when he had finished and addressed it in the
Italian manner, he called out, 'William Dalrymple, come
hither!'  And, from the close-built ranks of the older
scholars at the wall-desks, a plump-faced, ruddy boy arose.

'This,' the Dominie said, 'is the son of a widow woman,
and a steady lad that will truly do your message and bring
you word again without delay or falsehood.  He is called for
a nickname Willie Glegfeet.'

So to William was delivered the letter and sundry copper
coins for running the errand.  Whereupon he took up the
Vennel and through the High Street on the way to
Auchendrayne like a hunted hare, for, as his name
imports, he was wonderfully nimble of his feet.

Having thus delivered my message, I thanked the
Dominie very heartily, and went to the play of the golf
green till the messenger should return.

I had an excellent game, but, not playing with mine
own clubs, I was beaten (though not at a great odds), by
the young Laird of Gremmat, whose chin was hardly yet
better of the cleaving it got on the fatal day at the Lady's
Carse.  But this interfered naught with his putting.  Now
gaming on the green is uncommonly fretting to the temper,
and more especially when you are losing with a man like
Gremmat, who cries and shouts at every good stroke of
his own and dispraises yours.  Yet, owing to the well-kenned
equality of my temper, and also because he was not
yet fully recovered of his wound, I did not clout him over
the sconse with my cleek, as I certainly was in a great
mind more than once to do.

We were yet hard at it, and the afternoon wearing on
apace when I saw the little Dominie coming toward us
with the boy William Dalrymple by his side.  The schoolmaster
held the letter in his hand and gave it back to me.

'William Dalrymple says that he found not the Laird of
Auchendrayne in his own house, and has therefore brought
back the letter.'

I looked at it a moment, turning it over in my hand.

'It has been opened,' said I.  'See, the wax is gone,
and there are finger-marks within.'

'So, indeed, it has,' said Dominie Mure.  'Boy, if you
have opened it I will tan you alive, outside and in.'

Whereat the boy began to weep.

'I have said what I was told to say,' he cried, and for
all we could do, nothing more could we get out of him—save
that a dark man, faced like an ape or a wild beast, had
come some way home behind him and sorely terrified him.
So we sent the boy back to his mother, and, bidding
farewell for that time to the Dominie and to young Gremmat,
I fared along the way to Culzean to make me ready for the
long journey of the morrow.





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.. _`THE MURDER AMONG THE SANDHILLS`:

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   CHAPTER XXIX


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   THE MURDER AMONG THE SANDHILLS

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It was broad day and a pleasant May morn, when my
master and I said our farewells at the gate of Culzean.
With my own hands I had saddled for Sir Thomas his
warhorse.  But he, coming down arrayed in his plain suit of
dark Flemish cloth, bade me take him back to the stable
and get instead a pacing palfrey, which he loved because
Marjorie had used to ride it.

Then he kissed his bairns, for the lads and Nell stood by
the door on the landward side, watching us with earnest
eyes.

'Keep the castle, James,' he cried, 'till I come back!'

'Ay,' said Sandy, 'we will keep it for you, faither.'

For Sandy came ever to the forefront, setting himself
naturally before the slow and quiet Jamie.

Then Nell came near and kissed her rather.  But she
and I only looked the one at the other as friends look, for
at least before folk we did not so much as touch hands.

So down through the woods Sir Thomas and I went
sedately and quietly, now into little caller blinks of morning
sunshine which glinted straight and level between the trees,
and anon coming out upon a bare knoll as into a room with
a removed and spacious ceiling.  For there at our feet was the
plain of the sea, sparkling and blue, beyond it again the hills
of Arran, and to the south the shoulder of the Craig of Ailsa,
heaving its bulk skyward like a monster of the ocean stranded
in the shoreward shallows.

Very pleasant was my master's discourse as we went, of
the wonderful peace that he was going to bring upon the
land of Carrick from his dealings with the King and Council
in Edinburgh.  Specially he spoke with thankfulness of the
present friendship of Auchendrayne, of the young Bargany
who should for long be under tutors and governors, and of
our own Earl, now tired of the feud and eager for a lasting
peace.

'It needs,' said he, 'but that one should take on him all
the burden and heat of the day, and carry the matter
through.  And I, that am no warrior, but a quiet man
dwelling in mine own house and fit only for daunering
about mine own fields, may be able to do more in the
matter than many battalions.  For I have some influence
with the King—a man that loves grave discourse upon
occasion.'

So pleasantly talking together in this fashion, speaking
ever the kindliest things of the enemies of his house, and
all the time making many excuses for them, Sir Thomas
kept his palfrey at the amble.

Presently we came to the castle of Greenan, which
stands on a sea crag, and looks right bravely over the Bay
of Ayr and down upon the little town thereof.  It belongs to
Kennedy of Balterson, a gossip and well-wisher of Culzean's.

'Now,' said my master, 'I must see if Balterson is at
home.  I think truly that he is, for there is a reek coming
up very freely from the lum.  Now John was ever a big
eater and a long lier abed in the mornings.  What a
pleasantry if I should raise him from between the blankets!
It would be a great cast-up all the days of his life.'

So we lighted down in front of the castle yett.  I tied
the horses together, and walked about the cliff edge, looking
out to sea and over the sands of Ayr, thinking of many
things.  Mostly my thoughts ran on the treasure of
Kelwood, and whether I should ever win it.  Of Nell,
too, and what she meant by patting me on the cheek
when we met my mother, of the Tutor's words to my
father that one day I should have a handle to my name
and a down-sitting as good as any.  Plenty of pleasant
things I had to think about that caller morn in May, as
indeed a young man of spirit ought to have.

And it was not very long before Sir Thomas came forth
arm in arm with John Kennedy of Balterson, a grave and
portentous man of heavy figure, richly arrayed, more like the
provost of a town than a country laird.  And these two paced
up and down the narrow terrace walk of Greenan Castle,
turning and returning, wheeling and countering as on the
quarterdeck of a ship.  But of the matter of their discourse
I know nothing, though I guessed it to have been concerning
the making up of peace between the feudal enemies in
the lands of Carrick and Kyle.

It was near to ten of the clock, and already close upon
the time which had been appointed for the tryst with
Auchendrayne, that we mounted at the yett of Greenan to
ride on our way to Holmestone Ford.

'Sorry am I,' said my master, 'that I have not spoken a
word with John Mure ere I go.  But I know his loving desire
for my success, and he well knows my affection for him.'

We rode down from the castle crag of Greenan, and
presently came out upon the links.  These are here all
sandy, cast up into rounded mounds and hills, and bitten
into by the little pits and dungeons, called of them that
play at the golf, 'bunkers.'

'Launcelot, ride a little way in front.  It approaches
the hour of noon, and I would do my devotion and meditate
a little alone,' said Sir Thomas to me.  So I drew myself
a bowshot before him, riding upon Dom Nicholas, and
taking my hat in my hand.  I rode easily, enjoying the
sea breeze that cooled my brow and tossed my hair.  I
wondered if ever the time would come, when I also should
be thinking about my religion at noon of a fine
heartsome day.  It seemed a strange time enough for a hale,
well-to-do gentleman to set to his prayers.

Presently I saw a man standing upon my right hand somewhat
above me upon the crown of a sandhill.  And he raised
his hand as one that cried to clear the course in the game, so
I thought no more of the matter.  But I looked round,
thinking perchance that he cried to my master, who was
riding with bared head and holding his little red Testament
in his hand.

Suddenly, even as I looked at him, I heard the sound of
shots behind me, and, turning Dom Nicholas, I saw my
master reel in his saddle, with white blowing puffs of
gunpowder rising all about him, from behind the desolate
sandhills among which the murderers had hidden themselves.
Drawing my sword, I set spurs to the sides of Dom
Nicholas and galloped towards them.  I was aware, as I rode,
of my master lying on his back on the sand, and his palfrey
galloping away with streaming mane.  A little black
crowd of men stood and knelt about him, and I saw the
flash of steel again and again as one and another of them
lifted a knife and struck.

I yelled aloud to them in my agony and bade them wait
till I came.  So they hasted to make front against me, some
of them leaping on their horses and others biding a moment
to put as it had been booty into their saddle wallets.

It was Thomas Kennedy, called the Wolf of Drummurchie,
that withstood me as I came thus furiously upon
Dom Nicholas.  With him I first crossed swords, while
one, James Mure of Auchendrayne, held off a little warily,
watching to win in at me when I should give him
opportunity.  With the corner of my eye I saw the same
man whom I had at first observed making the warning
signal.  He held up his hand as before.  Then he leaped
on a horse which he had by him in a hollow of the
sands.  He was, as I noted, a tall man, with a hat pulled
low over his eyes, and he wore about him the long grey
cloak which had been so fatal a sign to us of Cassillis.

But ere I could see more, I was in the thick of the
murderers with my sword.  I struck and warded, not
knowing what I did, but only striking, with the anger of
blood in my eye, till I gave Drummurchie a cut on the
shoulder, which made him fain to shift his sword arm.
Then I wheeled and attacked Cloncaird as furiously, who
was a great mountain of a fellow, red of face and brutal
of heart.  And I had readily enough done for him, too,
had he been alone, for he was no man of his weapons.
But I could see plainly enough three or four others charging
pistols and training of hackbutts, making ready to take
an aim at me.  Whereupon I knew that there was no
use of spending my life for naught.  So, with my sword
red in my hand, I rode over the sandhills straight at the
tall man in the grey cloak; but such was the effect of an
ill conscience that he took his mantle about his mouth as one
that fears being known, and set spurs to his horse.  I had
not pursued far when I came to the top of a dune and saw
a little cloud of citizens that played at the clubs beneath
me.  To them I rode as hard as I could, with the murderers'
bullets splattering here and there and throwing up little
spirts of sand about me.

'Murder!  Foul murder!' I cried.  'Come hastily, for
the Tutor of Cassillis is done to death!'

One of the citizens held up his hand to me as if to bid
me be silent, for it was the putting stroke which his neighbour
played, and of its kind difficult, so that men held their
breath.  But when it was made and the ball holed, they ran
to me quickly enough, for, alas! murder was so common
in those days, that men took little notice unless he that
fell was one who was some kin to themselves.

Nevertheless, they hasted when I cried who was my
master, and who were the villains that beset him.  For the
players were all burghers of Ayr and feared that they should
underlie the angers of the Earl and of the King, if they gave
not ready help when this slaughter was done, as it were, at
their very gates.

Thus very quickly we came to my dear master.  He
was lying alone on his back quietly gazing up to the sky,
the red blood welling from many ghastly wounds.  All his
rich plain Flanders cleading was torn and disarranged by the
villains, who had not disdained to despoil after that they had
murdered him.

Yet there was some life left in him, and he turned his
head, smiling as if thankful (after the hateful faces of his
cruel enemies) to gaze at the last upon the countenances of
friends.  He was, as I thought, past speech; but he looked
about him in a certain curious way he had when he had lost
something, and, being absent-minded, knew not for the
moment what.  I showed him his empty purse; but it
was not that.  So I looked round and saw nothing but
some discharged pistols lying with broken lingels abroad
upon the sand, and the little book he had been reading as
his palfrey paced along.

So as soon as I showed the latter to him he put out his
hand for it.  Then he held it a moment, kissed it, and gave
it back to me.

'Be a good lad,' he said quietly and composedly.  'Fear
not for me; I go in friendship with all men.  Poor, poor
Cloncaird!' he said, thinking of one of his murderers whom
he had always befriended, 'it is a pity for his wife and
young family!'

Then he closed his eyes and we thought he had already
passed from us.

But presently he opened them again and looked toward me.

'Be kind to Nelly!' he said, smiling so kindly at me,
that my heart nearly broke.  He shook his head at seeing
my grief and the tears running down, for, indeed, I could
not withhold them.

'There is no need,' he said, reprovingly, 'no need for
the like of that ava'.  Be a brave lad, Launcelot, and just
as true to your God as you have proved to me, who have
been a loving master to you here below.  I am only wae
for the poor, misguided lads, that were so far left to
themselves as to lay me here like this.'

And with that there was but his body on the sands, for
the spirit of the gentlest master that ever a man served had
gone its way to its own Master.

But it was even as he said—for the end of such an one
there is no need of tears.

Then I stood up, and the terrible thought came in upon
me like Solway tide.  How—how shall I take him home to
Helen Kennedy—to his orphaned bairns, and to the stricken
house of Culzean?





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.. _`I SEEK FOR VENGEANCE`:

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   CHAPTER XXX


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   I SEEK FOR VENGEANCE

.. vspace:: 2

Ay, well might I say it.  How was I to face Nell
Kennedy—she that had with a long, kindly look committed
her father into my keeping that very morning?  Tenderly
we lifted the body, which in life had been so noble and now
was so pitifully mishandled.  The villains had despoiled the
dainty garmentry, torn the lace, and snatched the jewellery
which Helen Kennedy had set in place as, daffing right
merrily, she prepared her father (as she said) to 'gang worthily
and bonnily before the King.'  But the King he went before
was One, as he himself would often say, that looked not on
the outer appearance but on the heart.  And concerning that
last Thomas Kennedy need have had no fear that his would
not be well looked upon—for it was upright, and kindly, and
true, nor did it ever move to the hurt of any man in all this
world.  And as I took him up, I saw still more clearly the
black-hearted rage of the persecutors.  For it showed as
manifestly as any other fact the hellish intent of the murderers,
that they had taken time, even while I was in the act to
come at them, to despoil my master of his purse with a
thousand merks of gold therein.  Nay, his very ring of fine
diamonds they tore from his finger, and his golden buttons
of wrought goldsmith work were riven from his frilled
sark—one murderous loon snatching one thing and the other
another, worse than brute beasts of the field.

We laid him gently upon the back of wise Dom Nicholas,
that all the time stood like a statue, and then when everything
was ready, moved graciously and soberly away, as though he
had been well aware of the melancholy burden he bore.
Even thus we brought my dear master to the sea terrace
of Greenan which he had so lately left.

And when John Kennedy of Balterson heard the trampling
of the horse on the flags of the court, he came out
crying loudly and heartily as was the manner of the man.

'Wi' what's this, Culzean?  Are ye back again?'

So running to the door he stood with his table-knife in
his hand and a bit of his mid-day meal thereupon, astonished
beyond the utterance of words.

'What's this?  What's this?' he cried.  'Oh, sirs,
what foul wark is here?  Wha has done this?'

And I told him their names—at least so far as I knew
them.

'Thomas of Drummurchie!' he cried.  'It shall not
be the uplands of Barr parish that shall keep ye frae the stark
sword of John Kennedy of Balterson.  And thou, Walter
Mure of Cloncaird, that has so often sat in this house of the
Greenan, by the grace of God I shall lay thee as low as
thou hast laid my friend this day.'

But I begged Balterson to think of something else than
the taking of revenge—of which all in good time.  So
presently he got me a horse litter with two steady-going
beasts, and I walked alongside it with Dom Nicholas arching
his head and treading softly as if he also mourned.  Thus
we came to the town of Maybole, which was as our own
place.  And such dule and lament as there was that day saw
I never anywhere.

For the town had loved him as its liege lord, far more
than either John, Earl of Cassillis, or his father the King
of Carrick.  Such a congregation as met us at the town
gate!  The women all crying the cry of death, the men
cursing and calling vengeance.  The minister was there
to pray, and all classes and conditions were moved to
tears.

And ere we were well past the Foul Alley there were
twenty men on horseback to chase the murderers, with
John Kennedy of Balterson at their head.  But they might
as well have chased the wind, for by this time, with the
relays of horse that had been ordered for them, they were
safe among the wild Crauford country on the borders
of Kyle.

Of the sad homecoming to Culzean itself I declare I
cannot write at length.  At the entering in of the
woodland I left them, and upon Dom Nicholas I rode drearily
forward to do the bitterest day's work of my life—to tell
Helen Kennedy that I brought only her father's corpse
home with me.

And, as the chance befell, it was at least half-a-mile before I
reached the home gate of Culzean, just where one sees for the
first time the grey turrets sitting against the dimpled blue of
the incoming tide, that I was aware of Nell Kennedy coming
light-foot towards me, singing a catch of a song and swaying
a flourish of sweet may-blossom daintily in her hand.  I
have never rightly loved the white hawthorn since that day.
But as soon as she saw me she stopped her song and
clutched her fingers close upon her palm, for the flowery
branch had fallen at her feet.

'What is wrong?' she cried, when I came near to her.
But I could not answer till I had leaped from Dom Nicholas
and taken her by the hand.  She turned round, keeping me
at the stretch of her arm so that she might read the news,
good or bad, in my eyes.

'Is it my father?  Tell me,' she said very calmly.

'Nell, it is your father,' I said as quietly.  'They set
upon him and hurt him, even when he had sent me on
a little way before him that he might be alone at his
mid-day meditation—'

'Is he dead—tell me—is he dead?' she broke in.  But
I answered her not; for I could not.  So she knew, and
in an instant grew as pale and still as the man that was
passed from us.

'Take me to him,' she said at length.  And, seeing that
I still hesitated, she said, 'Do not fear for me.  I will do all
that a daughter of Culzean should do.'

'They are bringing him hither now,' I said.  'I came
hasting to tell you.  The feet of the horses that carry him
are even now upon the brae.'

Then, when I had told her all, I ended the tale with my
tears and with crying out that which was in my heart, 'Oh,
would to God I had died instead of him!'

'Launcelot,' Nell said, with a wonderful quiet, 'that is
useless, and not well said.  Be comforted.  None would
have done one-tenth so much as thou hast.'

'Bless you, Nell!' I said, for I had feared greatly she
would have broken upon me with bitter railing.

It was by the great oak tree which sends its boughs over
the road that we met the bier, and the horses stopped.  Even
thus Nell Kennedy met her father, and there was not a
tear on her face, but only a great sweet calm.  She silenced
the noisy limmer wives that went behind crying and
mourning aloud.  So in this manner we went onward to Culzean,
Nell walking on one side of the bier and I on the other,
leading Dom Nicholas by the bridle.

And lo! as the body passed the drawbridge, a sudden
gust out of the sea snatched his knightly pennon from the
topmost turret tower of the battlements of Culzean, which
was held a freit and a warning by all the folk of Carrick.
But though the master had come home to his own, yet both
Culzean and I were now masterless.

In due time we gave him stately funeral, carrying him
forth upon a day so calm, so breathless, that the banners did
not wave as they swept the dust.  And thereafter all life
seemed to stop, when we came home again to the darkened
house.  James and Sandy, the two young lads, played no
more in the tennis-courts, but went about with linked arms
speaking of revenge.  But little David abode with Nell and
went forth only with her, clinging winsomely to her hand;
for we kept us close within bars and warded ramparts, with
the drawbridge up, watching the fruit ripening on the walls
of the orchard of Culzean all that splendid summer of the
murder of our lord and master.

Slowly I thought over many things, till the resolve to bring
the matter to a head came masterfully upon me.  From the
Earl as Bailzie of Carrick I got warrant, according to my dead
master's word and direction, to be doer-in-ordinary for the
young man James, who was now the heir of Cassilis.  For
Earl John knew that Launcelot Kennedy was no self-seeker;
also they that stood about had told to him the Tutor's last
words—that I was to be a good lad and to be kind to Nelly.
It was Adam Boyd of Penkil, and David Somerville, hosier
in Ayr, who told him this, and they were two of those that
played golf by the sandhills on the day of that foul slaying
under trust.





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.. _`THE BLUE BLANKET`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXXI


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE BLUE BLANKET

.. vspace:: 2

Yet because I needed advice and had none to give it, I rode
one day to Edinburgh to see Maister Robert Bruce.  I
found the whole city in an uproar.  There was the beating
of drums in all the streets and closes, and a great multitude
of the common folk crying out 'For God and the Kirk!'  Pikes
danced merrily along the causeways, and good wives'
heads were thrust through all the port-holes in the windings
of the stairs.  Their voices, shrill and vehement, kept up a
constant deafening clamour, each calling to her John or
Tam to 'come awa' in oot o' that,' or bidding them 'not
to mell wi' what concerned them not.'

'What concern is the glory o' God o' yours—you that
is but a baker in Coul's Close?' I heard one wife cry to
her man, and it seemed to me a mightily pertinent question.

At last, after many inquiries, I heard how the Minister
of Edinburgh had bearded the King, so that he was gone
off to Linlithgow in great indignation, and how that in
a day or two Maister Robert Bruce would either be King
of Scotland or lay his head on the block.

Yet the minister was in his study chamber when I went
to seek him, reading of his Bible and writing his sermon, as
quietly as though there had been no King in Scotland—save,
as it might be, the King in whose interest he had so often
bearded King Jamie Stuart, sixth of that name.

Robert Bruce looked up when he saw me.

'Ah, Launcelot,' he cried, more heartily than ever I had
heard him, 'ken ye, lad, that you are likely to be at the
horn for communing with a wild rebel like me?'

'To be "at the horn" is no uncommon thing in Carrick,'
I replied, 'and makes little difference either to the length of
a man's life or the soundness of his sleep.  I have been at
the horn ever since I was eighteen years of my age.'

'Well, Launcelot,' he said soberly, 'so it has turned
out even as I said.  I know—I know.  It is not in man
that walketh to direct his steps.  But I saw ye were all
"fey" at Culzean.'

Then I told him the purpose of my coming all the way
to Edinburgh to see him.

'What!' he said, 'ye have never come so far only to
have speech of poor Robert Bruce, that was yesterday
Minister of Edinburgh, and to-day is, I fear, doomed to lay
his head on the hag-clog?'

I told him it was even so, and that, being the man
of wisest counsel I had ever known, I would have gone ten
times as far to have his friendly advice.

'Ay me,' he said sadly, 'wae is the man that has such
a rumour and report of wisdom, yet cannot counsel himself
what he should do in his own utter need.'

But, for all that, he went over everything that had
happened in Carrick, with a clearness most like that of a
lawyer when he sets in order his case before the judge.
Then he sat a long while silent, with his finger tips
drumming idly upon his writing.

'So Bargany is dead,' he said at last.  'He was the only
considerable man of his own faction.  Who is there to
succeed him?'

'But a child!' said I, 'one that plays with puppets.'

'As do we all, Launcelot,' said Maister Bruce, smiling
on me.

'And after him in that faction, of his own house and
kin who comes—?' he asked.

'There are none besides the Tutor's murderer, Thomas
of Drummurchie, and Benane his brother, but he is a
deboshed man and of no account,' I made answer, not seeing
his drift.

'Who leads them then—?'

'John Mure of Auchendrayne is their only considerable
man, and he has waxen great and greater within these
months.'

The minister nodded his head and sat still as one that
considers all sides of a question.

'And of you that stand by the gold and blue—who
remains?' he went on.

I told him but John, Earl of Cassillis, and his brother the
Master.

'And in whose friendship is the Master?' he asked.

'In our country of Carrick he has an auld friendship
with Auchendrayne, and a good-going feud with the Earl,
his brother; but recently he has taken up with the Lord of
Garthland in Galloway and married his sister.'

'Tell him from me,' said the minister of Edinburgh, 'to
bide close in Galloway and get him bairns in peace.  For
gin he comes back to Carrick, of a surety his head shall be
the next to fall.'

'And why so?' said I.

'Because,' said Maister Robert Bruce, 'John Mure
designs that there shall be no power in Carrick nor in the
Shire of Ayr besides his own and that of the Earl—till he
get time to have him also killed.  I tell you Auchendrayne
hath the brains of any three of you.'

'And of the treasure of Kelwood, what?' said I.

'That,' said the minister, meditating, 'is a little forth of
my province.  But, if ye will know, I think it is in the
keeping of some of Auchendrayne's tools.  And I advise
you, ere ye look for revenge, to go seek for it.'  I was silent,
for I hoped that he would tell me yet more.

'The treasure of Kelwood will lead you to your aim.
I think ye will find that the same hands which reft it away
are red with the blood of your master.  And one thing I
am sure of—that within that treasure chest lie your love,
your land, and your lordship!'

I asked him what he meant, but he would not tell me
more clearly.  Only this he said, speaking like them that
have the second sight,—

'James Stuart being what he is—a treasure-seeker—and
John, Earl of Cassillis, being what he is—a
treasure-gripper—if ye find the kist, ye have them both in your hand.
And therein (or I am a false prophet) lie, as I say, your love,
your land, and your lordship.'

Then I asked him if he had any counsel to give me ere
I went.

'Be brave,' he said, 'read your Testament.  Tell no
lies.  Carry no tales.  Seek carefully for the man that wears
the grey cloak, and then for the man that runs like a beast
and carries the knife in his teeth.'

He went to the window as one that has spoken his last
word.

'Hear ye that?' he said.  'That is the warrant for my
heading.'

There circulated a great crowd of people without,
apprentices and suchlike mostly, with here and there among
them a decent, responsible man of the trades.  They were
singing at the utmost pitch of their voices:—

   |  'We'll hae nae mair Jeems Davie-son,
   |    Davie's son—Davie's son!
   |  We'll gie his loons the spavie sune,
   |    Spavie sune, spavie sune,
   |  An' the deil may tak Jeems Davie-son.'
   |

'They might as well shear my head at once as sing that
song,' said Maister Robert Bruce.  'There is nothing that
James Stuart likes so ill as to be called the son of Davie, unless
it be the man who upholds the right of private judgment!'

'Ah,' he cried again, 'the Blue Blanket—this waxes
serious.  I must put on my gown and sally forth.'

Then up the Canon gate there came a great crowd of
citizens all marching together and crying, 'God and the
Kirk!  God and the Kirk!'  And in the midst there was
borne the famous flag that has ever staggered in the front of
a bicker, foretelling storms and the shaking of thrones—the
Blue Blanket of the trades of Edinburgh.

Robert Bruce drew his black Geneva gown about him,
and taking his little Bible and his oak staff in his hand he
went out.  As he stood forth upon his step, he was hailed
with shouts of joy and rejoicing.

'Hearken Maister Bruce!  Hear the minister!  God
and the Kirk!  Doon wi' Jeemie Fat-Breeks!'

And the Blue Blanket wavered and waggled, being
borne this way and that by the press.  All about the skirts
of the crowd, and down the closes angry drums were beating,
and a hundred idle 'prentices thundered on great folk's doors
and garred the window panes rattle on the causeway—which
was a sin when glass was so dear, and to be seen in so few
places besides the citizen houses of the great.

'Men of Edinburgh,' cried Bruce, 'hear your minister.
Wherefore this tumult?  I bid you to depart quietly to your
homes.  We have a difference with the King, it is true;
but let us who are the servants of God and of the Kirk of
Scotland settle our own affairs with the King.  What is
your concern in the matter?'

But the more he spoke of the King the more loud grew
the tumult.

'God and the Kirk!  God and the Kirk!' they cried,
and the Blue Blanket waved higher than ever, being held
up by one man standing upon the shoulders of other two.

'Ay, ay, even so; it is a good cry,' said the minister;
'but it would set you better to be a little more ready to
obey both God and the Kirk at other times.  The most
part of you know not for what cause ye are come together.
Ye want to roll your minister's head in the dust—'

'No, no!' cried the throng; 'we will keep you safe,
or know the reason why.'

'Depart—scatter instantly to your firesides!' cried
Bruce.  'And so ye will the better serve the Kirk of
Scotland and me, her unworthy servant.'

And with this he motioned to them with his hands,
dismissing them.  So great was his power that they went,
scattering like peet reek on a windy day.  In a minute or
two there was not one of them to be seen on the street.
The minister and I were left alone.

'What think ye, Launcelot?  Why stand ye so
moody?' my companion said to me.

I told him that I liked not much to tell him; that it
was no fitting thought to tell a minister.

'Say on,' he said.  'I have listed to strange speeches in
my time.'

'Well then, sir,' I made answer, 'I was thinking what
a pity to see so many limber lads with stark pikes in their
hands, and nobody a penny the worse!  I would to God I
had them in Carrick.  John Mure of Auchendrayne would
hear news of it right briskly.'

The minister clapped me on the back.

'Ah, Launce, it will be a strange Heaven that you
win to, unless you mend your ways.  Ye are nocht but a
wild Carrick savage.  But ye maun e'en dree your weird,
young Launcelot, and auld Robert Bruce maun dree his.
Fare ye weel.'

So we parted there on the steps of his own house.  And
with that I betook me to horse, and forth through the
turbulent city that could yet make so little of its tulzies;
and as I went I thought, 'Lord, Lord, for one hour of
Gilbert Kennedy and me to show them a better way of it;
or even Robert Harburgh.  And it would be like capturing
Heaven by violence, to enter Holyrood House in the
way of stouthrief and spulzie!'

But I only thought these things without intent to do
them, for I am a King's man and peaceable—besides which,
I had but lately spoken good words to a minister of religion.
Nevertheless, what a booty would there not have been in
that palace at the Canongate foot!  Not that I would lay
hand upon a stiver of it, even if I got the chance, but the
thought of it was marvellously refreshing, I own.





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   CHAPTER XXXII


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   GREEK MEETS GREEK.

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Then as I journeyed south I saw my work set out like
a perspective before me.  As the minister had said, the
treasure of Kelwood and the death of my master hung by
one string.  The House of the Red Moss was very near
to the sandhills of Ayr, and there could be little doubt
that the hand which had sped the bloody dagger was the
hand that had brought my master to his death.

As the drawbridge clanged down for me to ride once
more within the house of Culzean, and lazy Gib stretched
himself to cry that all was well, I took a resolve.  It was
to tell Helen Kennedy all that I knew, and ask her
judgment upon it—though I have small notion (for ordinary)
of women's discretion.  So, when the greetings were said,
I took my opportunity and came to her when she was walking
in the garden apart, where the apple trees grow.  When
she had heard all, she said, 'Launce, you and I must ride
to Auchendrayne.'

'Well,' said I, 'and what then?  Shall we bid Grieve
Allison have our coffins in readiness against our return
feet first?'

'We shall see my sister Marjorie,' she said, without
heeding my words, 'and take counsel with her.  They will
not kill us within the house of Auchendrayne while she
is alive.'

'I believe not that we shall even have the chance of
speech with her,' I replied, 'but we may at least go and
see.  Whether we ever win back to Culzean is another
matter.'

But Nell was mainly set on it, and I did not counter
her, it being so that I was to ride in her company—for,
indeed, I myself desired greatly to see the famous tower
where dwelled a man so potent and so evil.  The next
day it happened that I went to Maybole and found mine
ancient friend, Robert Mure, Dominie and Session Clerk
of the town.  He sat gloomily in his school and bowed his
head on his hands, for he had never looked up nor taken
pleasure in life since they laid my master in the burying-place
of his folk within the kirkyaird of Maybole.  The
school hummed about him, but he took little heed.  His old
alertness seemed quite gone from him.  And when I came
in he only lifted his head a moment and nodded, falling
back again at once into his new melancholy.  His pipes
lay beside him indeed, but so long as I was there I did not
see him recreate himself upon them—as had been his ordinary
wont, playing pibrochs for his scholars' delectation at every
pause in the day's occupations.

'Dominie,' said I, 'there is one thing I want—'

'Say on,' said he, briefly, not looking at me.

'I want speech with William Dalrymple, the lad that
carried the letter to Auchendrayne the day before my
lord's death.'

'Of what good is the like of that?' said he.  'Will
all the speech in the world bring back him that's gane?'

'No,' said I, going nearer to him and speaking under
my breath, 'but it may help us to his murderer.'

'Eh, what?' said the master, sitting up as gleg as a cat
at a mousehole, '"His murderer," said ye?  Are not Thomas
of Drummurchie and Mure of Cloncaird his declared
murderers?'

'Ay,' said I, 'exactly—his "declared" murderers.'

'Speak either less or mair—let us hae done wi' parables!'
quoth the Dominie.

'What think ye,' said I, 'of the Grey Man that stood
behind and waved them on, like a pilot guiding a ship into a
port?  I mean the man that threw the dagger into the
Red House.  I mean the man that let loose the scum of
the Tolbooth on us of Cassillis the day of "Clear the
Causeway."'

'And who might he be?' said the Dominie, breaking in
upon me, for some of these things he was not acquainted
with.

'First bring in the laddie,' said I.

So Dominie Mure brought Dalrymple in to a private
place, and having dismissed the school, we proceeded faithfully
to examine him.  I asked him to tell me all that had
befallen that fateful day, from the time I had seen him run up
the Kirk Vennel, to the time when he came to me again
upon the green at my play, and making a poor hand of it
with another man's clubs.

The boy began his tale well enough, like one that says
a well-learned lesson; but in the very midst, when, somewhat
severely, I bade him say over again what he had already said,
he broke out into a passion of weeping and begging us to
have mercy upon him—for that he was but a laddie and had
been commanded upon pain of his death to tell the tale
which he had told us at the first.

So we bade him to speak freely, to tell no lie anymore
and all would yet be well.  So he told us how he had gone
fleet-foot to Auchendrayne and had there found John Mure,
the master thereof, sitting in the great chamber with Walter
of Cloncaird.  He described how that he had given the
letter into the Laird's hands, even as he had been bidden.
When Mure had read it, he handed it over to Cloncaird.  But
he, swearing that he was not gleg at the parson-work, bade
Auchendrayne to read it aloud for him.  Which, when he
did, they looked long and strangely at one another.  And at
last John Mure said, 'I should not wonder, Cloncaird, but
something might come out of this.'

Then the boy told how they had gripped him, set a
naked dagger to his throat, and afterwards made him swear
to take the letter back to them that sent him, saying that
he had gone to Auchendrayne, but had returned without
seeing the Laird.

'Say,' said Mure, 'that the servant bade you take back
the letter unopened, because that his master was afield and
he knew not when he would be home.  So,' concluded the
boy, 'even thus I did!  And this is all the truth, or may
God strike me dead!'

The Dominie and I looked each at the other in our turns.

'The Grey Man himself,' said I.

'The Black Deil himsel'!' said he.

'We will exorcise him, black or grey!' cried the Dominie.
'I am going direct to the bailies and elders to tell them that
this school has vacation till it pleases me to take it up
again.'

So he went out and I waited alone with the boy
William Dalrymple, whose rosy and innocent face was
all beblubbered with weeping.

I slapped him on the shoulder and bade him take heart
because he had found friends.  Then I also told him that
on the morrow he must come with me to the Earl of
Cassillis, and by-and-by it might be to the King himself.

'Will the Dominie come too?' the boy asked very
anxiously.

So when I told him that he would, he seemed more
satisfied, and asked leave to go home to his mother.

I had, indeed, something to tell Nell Kennedy that
night when I rode home from Maybole.  And upon the
head of it we two sat long in talk, and were more than ever
set on riding to Auchendrayne.  But first we decided that
the Dominie and I should carry William Dalrymple to the
Earl, that he might certify to him what he had already
testified to us at the schoolhouse in the Kirk Vennel.

But on the morrow we, that is the Dominie and I, had
it set to ride to Cassillis by way of Maybole.  On the way
we came to the little hut of the widow Dalrymple, for
William was a town's bursar, and so got his learning from
the Session as a poor scholar.  The door was shut, and a
neighbour's wife cried to us that both the boy and his
mother had gone on to Cassillis before us.  So we rode
forward.  Yet we must have missed them on the way, for
when we came to the castle yett there was nobody there
before us, and the Earl himself had ridden forth to the
hawking by the waterside.

Then came out to us foolish Sir Thomas Tode with his
long story, which began as usual with the Black Vault of
Dunure, and was proceeding by devious ways when his wife
came round the corner—whereat right briskly he changed
his tune.

'And as I was saying,' he said, 'on Tuesday seven nights
we had a shrewd frost that nipped the buds.'

'It is as well for you, old dotard,' cried his wife,
listening a moment, 'I had thought ye were at your auld tricks
again.'

So we went in, and were busily partaking of the cheer of
Mistress Tode when we became aware of the noise of
altercation without.

'Save us,' said the cook, 'it is a mercy that neither my
lord nor my lady are within gate, wi' a' that narration of
noise outbye!  What can it be at a'?'

And she went out to inquire.

But if the disturbance was loud before, it certainly
became ten times worse when Mistress Tode disappeared.  I
got up to look, and the Dominie followed me.  We saw a
tall, grey-haired woman stand upon the causeway of the
courtyard, with one hand on her hip, and with the other
tossing back the straying witch locks from her brow.

'Where's my boy, Mistress Tode?' cried the newcomer
fiercely, to our friend the cook, who stood upon the steps.
'What hae ye dune wi' my laddie at the black house of
Cassillis?  He left his hame to come here, by command o' my
lord and young Launce of Culzean, at five this morning.
An' Jock Edgar met him set on a pony between twa men on
horseback, and he declares that the puir lad was greeting sair.
What hae ye dune wi' him, ye misleared, ill-favoured Tode
woman that ye are?'

'Weel ken ye, Meg Dalrymple,' cried Mistress Thomas
Tode, 'that I wadna steal ony chance-gotten loon of yours.
Faith na, I wadna fyle my parritch-spurtle on his back.
We shelter nae lazy gaberlunzie speldrons in the house of
Cassillis.  There is enough rack and ruin about the countryside
as it is, withoot gatherin' in every gipsy brat and prowling
night-hawk to its walls.  Gin ye come here to insult my
master, a belted Earl, I'll e'en set the dowgs on ye, ye
gruesome ill-tongued limmer woman!'

I saw that this was to be altogether another kind of
tulzie from those clattering bickers of the sword-blades, that
I knew something about.  So I signed to the Dominie to
be silent, for here of a surety were two foemen worthy of
each other's points.

'Ye shall cast no stour in my e'en, certes,' cried Meg
Dalrymple.  'I ken ye, ye auld yeld crummie Tode.  Ye
hae nae bairns o' your ain, and ye wad kidnap the bonny
bairn o' a decent woman.'

'I daresay no, "nae bairns o' my ain," quo' she,' cried
Mistress Tode, roused to high anger.  'I micht hae had as
mony as a clockin' hen, gin I had gane the gate ye gaed,
Meg Dalrymple.  I'll hae the law on ye, ye randy, casting
up my man's infirmity to me.'

'Your "man," quo' she,' retorted Meg Dalrymple, 'ca'
ye that auld bundle o' dish-clouts tied aboot wi' hippens—a
man!  Save us, one micht as soon bed ayont a pair of auld
duddy breeks!'

'Ay, my man,' cried Mistress Tode, 'what hae ye to
say, ye shameless woman, again Sir Thomas Tode, that has
been Earl's chaplain for forty year and my lawfu' wedded
man for ten?'

Mistress Tode rang out the titles like a herald now,
when her husband was gainsayed and made light of.
But we know that on occasions she could treat him
cavalierly enough.

'I wad as sune mairry a heather cow for soopin' the
rink at the channel stanes,' cried Meg Dalrymple.  And
this implication bit deeper into the feelings of the lady of
Sir Thomas Tode than all the other reproaches, for the
brush of tonsure hair was a sore subject of jesting with her,
as I well knew.

'I hae telled ye,' Mistress Tode cried, pausing a moment
with her hand on her side, as if to keep command of herself,
'I hae telled ye, woman, that we only deal with kenned
and authenticate folk in this hoose—no wi' orra loons, that
nane kens wha belangs them!  And I wad hae ye ken also
that I am no to be named a liar by the likes o you, Meg
Dalrymple—me that has been keeper o' the larder keys
o' this Earl's castle for fifteen year, me that has had the
outgiving o' all plenishing, the power o' down-sitting and
on-putting, and never has been checked in a bodle's worth.
Gang hame, ye Canaanitish woman, and I doot na ye'll find
your brat safe in the town's bridewell.  It will learn ye to
bide from decent folk's houses, making such a cry about
your wastrel runnagates.'

'Keep your ill tongue for that disjaskit, ill-put-thegither
rachle o' banes that ye hae for guidman,' cried the widow
Dalrymple.  'Weel do I ken that ye hae my bairn hidden
awa' somegate amang ye.  Sic a trade as has been hauden
wi' the puir bit laddie for carryin' a letter to the Laird o'
Auchendrayne.  An' the like o' you to stand in my road,
Tode woman, you that is weel kenned in sax pairishes for
an ill-tongued gipsy.  I'll hae ye proclaimed at the market
cross, a lord's cook though ye be, gin ye dinna gie me
hame my bairn wi' me!'

'Na,' said Mistress Tode, more quietly, 'an' you'll no.
Ye'll e'en ask my pardon and gang quietly away to your
hame by yoursel.

'And wha is gaun to gar me to that?' said Meg
Dalrymple.

'Just me and this bonny wee bit mannikie here,' said
Mistress Thomas Tode, turning round unexpectedly and
catching the Dominie Mure by the arm.  She pushed him
forward and clapped him in a knowing way on the shoulder.
'Just this decent snod bit mannikie!' she said again.

'Woman,' said the Dominie, very indignantly, 'what
have I to do with your quarrels and tongue-thrashings?'

'Just this, honest man,' said Mistress Tode; 'ye keep
the Session records o' the parish o' Maybole.  And if this
ill-tongued woman disna gang hame doucely and quaitly,
ye are the man that is going to gie me a sicht and extract
o' them, under date fourteenth o' Januar, fifteen hundred
and aughty years.'

The stroke told.  Meg Dalrymple grew silent.  The
anger faded out of her face suddenly as the shining on wet
sea sand when you lift your foot.  The warlike crook of her
elbow flattened to a droop.  For the Session records of the
Kirk of Scotland are the nearest thing to the Books of the
Recording Angel, and the opening of them is a little Day
of Judgment to half the parish.

But we could not let the poor woman depart in this
fashion.  I stepped to the door from behind the pillar where
I had been listening for the ending of the fray.

'Mistress Dalrymple,' I said, very quietly, 'your lad has
never come to Cassillis at all.  We came here to meet him.
He must have lost his way.'

'Maister Launcelot,' said Meg Dalrymple, in a changed
voice, 'ye come o' a guid, kind hoose, and ye tell no lies.  I
am free to believe you.  But my bairn is tint a' the same.
What will I do!  Oh, what will I do?'

'Go home and bide quiet,' I bade her, gently.  'I shall
myself speak to the Earl.  And fear not but we will find
your lad if he be in the land.'





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   CHAPTER XXXIII


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   THE DEVIL IS A GENTLEMAN

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But William Dalrymple was not to be so easily gotten.
High and low he was sought for, but no trace of him was found.
A girl had seen him taking the road to Cassillis with the dust
rising behind him, as was his wont.  For, as I have said, he
was the best runner in the school of Maybole, and in the
winter forenights he kept himself in fine practice with
outrunning Rob Nickerson, the town's watchman.

So on a day, since no better might be, Nell Kennedy and
I rode out to Auchendrayne.  At first we had it trysted to
go by ourselves, but Dominie Mare declared that he would
come with us—'and wait in the hall, if ye were asked to gang
ben',' as he said, meaningly.

'For they might put you and the lassie awa', and never
hear mair of it.  But even John Mure and his son would
think twice before they either sequestered or murdered the
Dominie o' Maybole, and the Clerk of the Kirk Session
thereof.'

So, though his coming with us wearied Nell and myself
somewhat and hindered our discourse on the journey, it all
turned out for the best in the end, as things that are bitter
in the taking often do.

I was, I will own, monstrously curious to see the tower
of Auchendrayne and the surroundings of it; for there were
strange rumours in the countryside concerning gangs of wild,
savage folk that sometimes camped under the trees, and tales
of horrid faces which might at any moment glower at you
from the dark bole of a gnarled oak.

But this fair sunshiny day we that rode saw nothing but
the leaves rustling and clashing above us, and heard nothing
but the sough and murmur of the Doon water beneath us.
Auchendrayne is a place hidden among woods—set on a knoll,
indeed, but with trees all about it, not conspicuous and
far-regarding like the Newark or Culzean.

When first we saw it the grey battlements looked pleasantly
enough out of the greenery, basking as peacefully in the
sun as though they had risen over the abode of some hermit
or saint.  We saw nought of the customary stir and bustle of
an habited house about the mansion of Auchendrayne.  None
ran to the office houses.  None carried bundle nor drove
cattle about the home parks.  It was a peace like that of a
Sabbath day.  'A black devil's Sabbath!' said the Dominie,
grimly.  And in truth there was something not altogether
canny about thus coming to a dead and silent house, with the
sun shining hot and the broad common day all about and above.

Nor even when we dismounted did any servant or
retainer come forth to meet or challenge us.  We did not
see so much as the flutter of a banner or the gleam of a
steel cap.  Only there about us was the silent courtyard,
with the heat of noon trembling athwart it, and the very
paving stones clean swept like a table before the feast is set.

I tied our horses to the iron ring of a louping-on stone
which stood at the angle of the wall by the gate, thinking
as I did so that if only these foot-worn steps could speak,
they could tell a tale worth hearkening to of strange
venturings and bloody quests.

Also I loosened my sword, and I think I saw the
Dominie lay his hand to his hip, ere Nell and I set forward
together.  We went up the steps of the outside stair, and
as we did so we came within hearing of a little continuous
murmur of hoarse sound.  The doors were all open, and I
wot well that we walked softly and with our hearts in our
mouths, for the silence and the strangeness of the deadly
house of Auchendrayne daunted me more than the clash
of swords or the crack of pistols.  But I had Nell Kennedy
by me, and I would have gone to destruction's pit-mouth
for her sake—because, saving my father and mother, she
was the only friend I had.

Suddenly, in our advance, we came to the door of a
great hall, where, at the upper end, was a table in the midst.
The windows were narrow and high, throwing down but a
dim light upon the rush-strewn floor.  There were many
servants and others sitting in the hall, and at the further end
stood one who read from a book.  As soon as our eyes became
accustomed to the cool duskiness after the white equal glare
without, I perceived that the reader was none other than
John Mure himself.  About him there sat all his servants
and retainers, both men and women.

It was the crown of my astonishment to hear that the
book from which he read was the Bible, and also that as he
went on he made comments like a minister expounding his
morning chapter, speaking very seasonably and fitly, and eke
with excellent judgment and sense.  Or so at least it seemed
to me, for I am not enough of a clerk to be a judge of
expositions, though my father has the two great leather-bound
volumes of Clerk *Erasmus his Paraphrases*, on the shelf over
the mantel.  But though he is fond of these himself, he never
rubbed any of his liking into me.

But we were hearkening to the reading of John Mure
in his own hall of Auchendrayne.

'"Fill ye up, then, the measures of your fathers,"'
somewhat in this fashion he read from his place.  '"Ye
serpents, ye generation of vipers, how shall ye escape the
damnation of hell?  Wherefore behold I send unto you
prophets and wise men and scribes; and some of them ye
shall kill and crucify, and some of them shall ye scourge in
your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city—that
upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the
earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of
Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the
temple and the altar.  Verily I say unto you, all these
things shall come upon this generation."'

Having read this word, which, knowing what I knew, I
had thought would have made him sink through the earth
with the fear of condemnation, John Mure commented upon
it, showing how it applied to such as refused the right gospel
way and walked in devious courses, careless of God and man.
Then he went on with his reading in the same clear and
solemn voice, though he must perforce have seen us stand
in the hall door.

So soon as the reading was over, the great company of
the retainers decently took their departure, walking out
soberly and without hurry.  Then came John Mure down
from the dais with the Bible yet in his hand, and welcomed
us with a condescension that was quaint and uncanny.

'Ye have gotten us at our devotions, Mistress Helen,
and you Master Launcelot, and Dominie Mure—my good
cousin.  You could not have found us better employed.'

'Do ye believe what ye read?' asked the Dominie,
quickly.

'Whatever is a means to an end, that I believe in—even
as you believe in your taws and birch twigs.  The reading
of Scripture threatenings makes quiet bairns, and so does the
birch.'

'What think ye of the blood of righteous Abel?' said
the Dominie—with, methought, more boldness than
discretion.  'Will it cry from the ground, think ye?'

The Laird of Auchendrayne looked at the little Dominie,
as one might upon a fractious but entertaining bairn.

'It is a point much disputed.  Ye had better ask our
Launcelot's friend, Maister Robert Bruce, Minister of
Edinburgh, if perchance his head be yet upon his shoulders.'

Which saying showed me that John Mure knew more
than I had given him the credit for.

Then he turned to Nell.

'You would wish to see the young Lady Auchendrayne?'
he said courteously.

Nell replied coldly enough, 'I should like to see my
sister.'

'I think,' said Auchendrayne, with a wiselike and grave
sobriety that set well on his reverend person, 'that she is
presently in the orchard house.'

'Will you bide here, or will you go with Mistress
Helen?' he asked of me.

'We would all go together,' said Nell, 'if it pleasure you.'

So with a courteous wave of the hand, he led us through
stone passages and along echoing corridors, till we came to
a door in the wall, from which we entered upon a pleasant
prospect of gardens and orchards.  Here again there was
the same curious silence, and, as it seemed, an absence of
the twitter and stir of a Scottish garden in the season
of summer.

We came presently to a stone building like a tomb, all
overshaded with trees.

'This is the orchard house of Auchendrayne,' he said.
'I believe the Lady Marjorie is within.'

The Dominie and I stayed without with John Mure,
while Nell went in alone to greet her sister.  We heard
the faint murmur of voices and now and then a pulsing
check as of a slow, smothered sob.  We that were without,
stood with our backs to the cold, heavy, white stones under
the green shade, while John Mure discoursed learnedly and
pleasantly of flower-beds and tulips and the best form of
dovecot tower for the supply of the table with pigeon pie.

At last Nell came to the door.

'Launcelot, Marjorie wishes you to come in,' she said.
Whereupon I entered and found a large room finished in
oaken panelling and moulded archings.  Roses looked in at
the windows, and a stir of pleasant coolness was all about.
Marjorie was sitting by a table with many books spread
upon it.

My dear lady was pale and white as a lily.  She leaned
her head wearily on her hand.  But there burned a still and
unslockened fire in her eye.

'Launcelot,' she said to me, 'this is not so wide a place
to walk within as the pleasaunce at Culzean, nor yet
can we see from the garden house of Auchendrayne the
rough blue edges of Arran or the round Haystack of Ailsa.

I bade her look forward to happy days yet to come, for,
indeed, I knew not what to say to her.  She smiled upon
me wistfully and indulgently, as one does upon a prattling
child.

'I thank you, Launcelot,' she said, 'but I was not born
for happiness.  Nevertheless, you were ever my good lad.  I
see you still wear my favour, but doubtless long ere this
you have found another lady.  Is it not so?'

I told her no, blushing to have to say so in the hearing
of Nell—who afterwards might flout me, or, as like as not,
cast up again the old matter of Kate Allison.

Then through one of the windows I saw John Mure
pacing up and down the path with the Dominie at the other
side of the garden, so I knew that it was our time to speak.

'Ye have heard of your father's death?' said I.  'What
think ye?  How was it wrought and how brought about?
Can you help us to unravel it?'

'Nay,' said Marjorie, 'not at present.  But in good time
I shall yet clear the matter to the roots, and that before
I die.'

'Wherefore will you not come back to us at Culzean?
We need you sorely,' pleaded Nell, who stood holding her
sister's hand.

'Nay,' said Marjorie, 'my work is not yet done at
Auchendrayne.'

It was the self-same answer she had given when she rode
away from the gate of Maybole on the day of the death of
Gilbert Kennedy of Bargany.

'Are they cruel to you here, Marjorie, tell me that?' I
said, for I saw that the old Laird was approaching, and that
our further time would be but short.

'No one of them hath laid so much as a finger upon
me!' said Marjorie.  And this at least was some comfort
to carry back to the sad house of Culzean with us.

So with that, little satisfied concerning the thing which
we came to seek, but with somewhat more ease in our hearts
for Marjorie's sake, we went back through the passages and
into the great hall.  While we waited there for a servant
to show us forth to our horses, my eye rested upon a large,
closely-written volume, with the quill pen laid upon it, and
ink-horn set in a hole in the desk above it.

'I see that my clerkly work has caught your eye,' said
John Mure.  'It is a nothing that I amuse myself withal, yet
it may live longer than you or I.  It is but a slight history
of the mighty sept whose name you, Master Launcelot, so
worthily bear, with all their branches and noble deeds at
arms.  For me, I am but a useless old man, past the labour
of fighting.  Yea, I know it was your own lance that put
me there.  But I bear no malice, it was the fortune of war.
You know me better than to suppose that John Mure
bears a grudge for that shrewd thrust you dealt me on the
day of the quenching of our hopes in blood by the gate
of Maybole.'

I bowed and thanked him for his courteous words.

'It was indeed the gallantest charge that ever was made,'
said I, 'since that of Norman Leslie, when, on the day before
Renti, he drava into the midst of sixty Spaniards with but
seven Scottish lances at his tail.'

'Sir,' said I, 'I am no historian, but a soldier.  Yet is it
a part of the training of a good fighter, that he should know
the great deeds which have been done in the wars before him
by brave men, so that he may emulate them when he himself
is launched upon the points.

'It is well said, sir squire,' said Auchendrayne, bowing
to me.

So, with a courteous farewell, in which there was to be
seen no grain of hate nor as much as a glint of the teeth or
the wolf, he bade us go our ways.  'And, above all things,
he cried after us, 'mind your prayers.  'Tis a good lesson
for the young to remember.'





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.. _`IN THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY`:

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   CHAPTER XXXIV


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   IN THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY

.. vspace:: 2

Now, through being over-careful with my chronicle, I have
spent too much time on our conferences.  But we were,
indeed, at the parting of the ways, and needed all advice.
On our way to Culzean we met one who told us that
the Earl had gone home that day to Cassillis.  Nell
besought me to ride thither, for she had a request to make
to the head of her house ere she went her ways back to
Culzean.

So to Cassillis we rode, and at the gate encountered
Robert Harburgh, dressed, as usual, in his dark, close-fitting
doublet, and with his long, plain sword by his side.  With
him I abode while Helen went within to pay her duty and
service to the Countess—who, as Nell told me afterwards,
never stopped praising the ancient days when she was the
Chancellor's wife, and had one of the ladies of the Court to
attire her.

'Now,' she said bitterly, 'John grudges it if I take a
milkmaid half-an-hour from the butter-kirning to help to
arrange my hair.'

Presently the Earl came out.  He showed himself well
pleased and kind, as, indeed, he ever was with me—perhaps
because I never asked aught of him in all my life.

'Helen, our cousin,' said he, 'desires that she may go
and bide among the heather with your good mother at
Kirrieoch.  What think ye of that?'

I told him that I had not heard of it—that she had
spoken no word to me.

'See to the matter,' he said with significance.  'I have been
advised concerning Sir Thomas and his last words.  And if you
prove worthy, I know no reason why ye should not have the
lass.  But first ye must find the treasure of Kelwood or bring
down her father's murderers—one of the two.  And then,
when that is done, I pledge you my knightly word that ye
shall have both the lass and a suitable providing.  Besides
which, if I am in favour with the King, ye may even get a
clap on the shoulder from the flat of a royal sword.  But
that,' said he, 'I can nocht promise ye, for with King Jamie
no man's favour is siccar.'

I told him that I kenned not rightly if the lass would
have me; that I never spoke a single word of love to her
but what she lightlied me.

'In good time,' said the Earl, smiling and nodding.
'The lass that wants in time of stress to gang and bide with
the minnie, will draw not unkindly to the son in times of ease.'

Then came Nell with a knitted shawl from the Countess
to wear among the hills, for Earl John and she were kind
folk enough in all that touched not the getting or spending
of gear.

I asked my lord also for the company of Robert Harburgh
to help me in the escorting of Nell fitly to the little tower
of Kirrieoch on the side of the Minnoch water.

'Ay, ay; let him gang,' said the Earl.  'The honeymoon
is by, and his wife will be the fonder of him for lying
her lane till he comes hame to her again.'

So Robert Harburgh and his long sword went southward
from Cassillis along with us, riding mostly with the
Dominie, while I rode behind with Nell.

I told her all our plans as we went.  How we must seek
the treasure; and how we must, above all things, find the
boy Dalrymple.

'I will go with you upon your quest,' the staunch little
Dominie had said to me, when he heard of our adventure.
And so it fell out that we four rode steadily to the south,
till we came in the evening to my own hill-land, where the
whaups cry, where the burnies go chuckling to themselves
and clattering over the pebbles, and where all the folk's
hearts are kindly and warm.  My mother took my lass
in her arms when we told her our purpose and Nell's
request.

'And I will help you with the kye?' said Nell, blithely,
to her.

'Ay,' answered my mother.  'Ye will help with the
drinking of the milk, and that will e'en bring some roses
back into your cheeks, my puir bit shilpit lassie.'

And though there passed not a look by the common
between us when we parted, I think my mother shrewdly
jaloosed what were my hopes.

Thus we left them standing by the loan dyke, the two
old folk and Nell with her yellow hair a-blowing in the
midst.  And I, that knew not whether I might ever see
them again, waved a hand, and resolved to return with a
name and a barony at the least; or, if my lot were perverse,
to leave my bones in some stricken field.

It is hard for a man to part from a lass—and in especial
from one to whom he dares not make love as he has done to
others, all because those others have told upon him, till he
fears the ridicule of his real love more than rapier thrusts.
Right bitterly did I regret that I had done my by-courtings
so near home; because, on my very life I dared not venture
a sweet word to Nell Kennedy for fear of her saying, 'That
is even what you said to Kate Allison, the Grieve's lass.'  Or
as it might, 'Keep to your customs.  It is not your usual
time yet by a quarter-of-an-hour to put your arm about our
waists.'

Now this is monstrously unfair to any man, who, after
all, is compelled to conduct his affairs with some sort of rule
and plan of attack.  I was a fool—well do I know it.  I
ought to have gone further afield than the Grieve's house.
I am sure there are plenty of lasses in Carrick fairer to look
upon than Kate Allison, though I am free to admit that I
thought not so at the time.

So as we went back it was arranged that Robert Harburgh
should ride to the woodland country about Auchendrayne,
and there, from his headquarters at Cassillis, keep his eye
upon the doings of the Mures, because his person was
unknown to them of Auchendrayne's household.

The Dominie and I undertook the more uncertain work,
but we had made our plans and were not to be put off.  The
neighbourhood of the Benane was well known to all that
trafficked about the town of Girvan.  It was a dangerous
and an ill-famed place, and many innocent people had very
mysteriously lost their lives there, or at least disappeared to
return no more.  In order, therefore, that we might be
more free to pursue our wanderings, we left our horses
behind us.  Indeed, Dom Nicholas was even now cropping
the sweet grasses on the side of the Minnoch water,
with my father to show him where they grew thickest and
my mother to give him oats between times, till the brave
beast was in some danger of being overfed.

As we neared Girvan, we came into a country of the
bitterest partizans of the Bargany folk.  Here dwelt James
Bannatyne of Chapeldonnan, one of the great intimates of
John Mure, and much beholden to him.  Here also was
Girvan Mains, over the possession of which much of the
black blood had arisen.  So, for our safety, we gave ourselves
out to be plain merchants travelling to Stranrawer in order
to get a passage over to Ireland.

When we came to the farmhouses where we were to
stay for the night, we always asked of the good man, in the
hearing of his wife, concerning the state of the country.
Was it peaceful?  Were the bloody feuds staunched, and
could honest men now live in peace?  We heard, as was
natural, a great deal of abuse of the Earl and of our faction,
as the greediest and worst-intentioned rascals in the world.
That from the goodman; but when the wife got her tongue
started, she would tell us much that was no credit to
Drummurchie and others on the side of the murderers.  Soon we
were fully certified that we were already in the country
where Drummurchie and Cloncaird and the rest of their
party were being secretly sustained by their friends.  Yet
we could not come at them, which perhaps was as well,
seeing that my person was well known to them.

I found the little Dominie a right brave companion.
When we sojourned at houses, he had a way with the bairns
that kept them on the trot to do his will, and pleasured to
do it—a manner also of cross-questioning the parents about
their children which showed them his interest and his
knowledge.  Then he would most wisely and soberly advise
them to see and give this lad Alec a good education, to
make that one a merchant because of his cleverness with
figures, and this a dominie or a clerk, because he did not
give promise of being fit for anything else.  It was as good
as a play to hear him, and made us much thought of
whereever we went.

Yet he was ready with his fighting tools also.  Once when
we went by Kildonan and a pack of dirty vagabonds bade us
stand, what was my surprise to find that Dominie Mure having
laid down his pipes and out with his blade, was already driving
among them before I had got so much as my hand on the
sword blade.  And I am no laggard, either, with the iron, as
all may know by this time.  But with his great bristling
fierce head and his rapier that thrust up unexpectedly from
below (yet which with the length of his arm reached as far
as a tall man's), the Dominie gave the rascals a fright and a
wound or two also, which started them at the run.  Even
then he followed, thrusting at them behind till they shouted
amain, and took across the fields to escape the pricking of
his merciless weapon.  And ever as they ran he cried, '"Halt
and deliver!" did ye say?  I will give you a bellyful of
"Halt and deliver!"'





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.. _`THE OGRE'S CASTLE`:

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   CHAPTER XXXV


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   THE OGRE'S CASTLE

.. vspace:: 2

So being wearied with the chase we went to the nearest
farm, which, as it happened, was that of Chapeldonnan.  It
stood quite close by the roadside.  A tall, large-boned
woman came to the gate with a pail of pigs' meat in her
hand.

'What seek ye?' she said.  'We want nae travelling
folk about Chapeldonnan.'

We told her that we were merchants going to Ireland,
and that we had been attacked by a set of rascals upon the
way, whom we had made flee.

'They are no that ill in this pairt o' the country.  They
wad only hae killed ye,' she said, as if that would have been
a satisfaction to us.  'It is doon aboot the Benane that the
real ill folk bide.'

I told her that killing was enough for me, and that
I was puzzled to know what worse she could mean.

So with some seeming reluctance she bade us come in.
The wide quadrangle of the farm buildings was defended
like a fortress.  The gate was spiked and barred with iron
from post to post, as though it had been the gate of a fighting
baron instead of the yett of a tenant, devised only to
keep in the kye.

We asked civilly for the master of the house, and
somewhat hastily the woman answered us,—

'The guidman's no at hame.  He has been away ower
by at the Craig trying to win the harvest of the solan geese
and sea-parrots.'

'Your husband is tenant of the rock?' I said, for it is
always worth while finding out what a man like James
Bannatyne may be doing, or at least how much he thinks
it advisable to tell.

'Ow ay,'she said, 'and a bonny holding it is.  Gin it
werena for the Ailsa cocks, the conies, and the doos, it wad
be a mill-stone aboot our necks, for we have to pay sweetly
for the rent o' it to my Lady of Bargany.'

'But,' said I, 'it belongs to the Earl, does it not?'

The mistress of Chapeldonnan looked pityingly at us.

'Ye are twa well-put-on men to be so ignorant.  Ye
maun hae been lang awa' frae this pairt o' the country no
to ken that the neighbourhood is very unhealthy for the
friends o' the Earl o' Cassillis to come here.  Faith, the last
that cam' speerin' for rent and mails in this quarter gat six
inch o' cauld steel in the wame o' him!'

'And what,' said the Dominie, 'became o' him after
that?  Did he manage to recover?'

'Na, na.  He was buried in Colmonel kirkyaird.  The
good man of Boghead gied him a resting-grave and a
headstone.  It was thought to be very kind o' him.  It was
Boghead himsel' that stickit him.'

'Ye see what it is to be a Christian, good wife!' said
the Dominie.

'Ow ay, lad,' said the woman, placidly.  'That was
generally remarked on at the time.  Ye see, Boghead was
aye a forgiein' man a' his days.  But for a' that, it was the
general opinion o' the pairish that the thing might be
carried ower far, when it cam' to setting up my Lord of
Cassillis's folks wi' graves and headstones!'

She continued, after a pause,—

'I hae been deevin' at our guidman to gie up the Craig,
for it keeps him a deal from hame, and I aye tell him that
he carries awa' mair than he brings back o' drink and victual.
But he says that the rock is a maist extraordinary
hungrysome place!'

'It has that name,' said I, unwarily.

She stopped and looked at me with sudden suspicion.

'What ken ye aboot the Ailsa?' she asked, looking
directly at me.

'Nocht ava,' I replied, 'but a' seaside places hae the
name o' making your ready for you meal of meat.'

'Hoot, no,' said Mistress Bannatyne.  'Now, there's
mysel'.  I canna do mair than tak' a pickin' o' meat, like a
sparrow on the lip o' the swinepot.  Yet Chapeldonnan is
but a step frae the sea.'

She was at that moment lifting a heavy iron pot off the
cleps, or iron hooks by which it hung over the fireplace
in the midst of the kitchen floor.

'I hae aye been delicate a' my days, and it is an awesome
thing for a woman like me to be tied to a big eater like
James, that never kens when he has his fill—like a corbie
howkin' at a braxy sheep till there was naething left but the
horns and the tail.'

I thought we might get some information about the
Benane, which might prove of some use to us when we
adventured thither.

'Good wife,' said I, 'we are thinking of going by
Ballantrae to the town of Stranrawer.  The direct way, I
hear, is by the Benane.  What think ye—is the road a
good one?'

'Ye are a sonsy lad,' she said, 'ye wad mak' braw
pickin' for the teeth o' Sawny Bean's bairns.  They wad
roast your ribs fresh and fresh till they were done.  Syne
they would pickle your quarters for the winter.  The
like o' you wad be as guid as a Christmas mart to them.'

'Hoot, good wife,' said I, 'ye ken that a' this talk aboot
Sawny Bean's folk is juist blethers—made to fright bairns
frae gallivanting at night.'

'Ye'll maybe get news o' that gin Sawny puts his knife
intil your throat.  Ye hae heard o' my man.  James
Bannatyne is not a man easily feared, but not for the
Earldom o' Cassillis wad he gang that shore road to
Ballantrae his lane.'

And, indeed, there were in the countryside enough tales
of wayfarers who had disappeared there, of pools of blood
frozen in the morning, of traveller's footsteps that went so
far and then were lost in a smother of tracks made by
naked feet running every way.  But I kept on with my
questions.  I wanted to hear the bruit of the country, and
what were our chances.

While we were thus cheerfully talking, and the Dominie
by whiles playing a spring upon his pipes to gain the lady's
goodwill, there came in a man of a black and gruesome
countenance.  We knew him at once for the master of
Chapeldonnan, James Bannatyne, for he came in as only
a goodman comes into his own house.  He was a man
renowned for his great strength all over Carrick.  He turned
on us a lowering regard as he went clumsily by into an
inner room, carrying an armful of nets.  I noted that the
twine had not been wet, so that his sea fishing had not
come to much.  But behind the door he flung down a back-load
of birds—mostly solan geese and the fowl called 'the
Foolish Cock of the Rock,' together with half-a-dozen
'Tammy Nories.'  So I guessed that he had either been
over the water to Ailsa, or desired to have it thought so.

His wife went ben the room to him.  We could hear
the sulky giant's growling questions as to who we were,
and his wife's brisk replies.  Presently she came out looking
a little dashed.

'James has come in raither tired,' she said, 'and he will
need to lie down and hae a sleep.'

'In that case, mistress,' I said, 'we will e'en thank you
for your kindly hospitality and take our ways.'

She followed us to the door, and I think she was
wonderfully glad to get us safe away without bloodshed.

'Be sure that ye gang na south by the Benane,' she
said, 'the folk that bide there are no canny.'

So we thanked her again and took our way, breathing
more freely also to have left the giant behind.

We had not gone far, however, when we spied her
husband hastening after us across a field.  He came up
with us by a turn in the road.

'We harbour no spies at Chapeldonnan,' he said, bending
sullenest brows at us, 'and that I would have you
know.'

'We are no spies on you nor on any well-doing man,' I
said.  'We are honest merchants on our way to
Stranrawer, and but called in to ask the way.'

'Ye speered ower mony questions of my wife to be
honest men,' he said threateningly.

'And why,' said the Dominie, birsing up as one that
is ready to quarrel, 'in this realm of Scotland may not a
man without offence ask his way, from the honest wife
of an honest man, so long as he soliciteth no favour more
intimate?'

At this the giant made a blow at the little Dominie.
He had a large cudgel in his hand, and he struck without
warning, like the ill-conditioned ruffian that he was.  But
he fell in with the wrong man when he tried to take
Dominie Mure unawares, for the little man was as
gleg as a hawk, having been accustomed to watch the
eyes of boys all his life, ay, and often those of lads bigger
than himself.  So that, long before the hulking stroke of
the fellow came near him, the Dominie had sprung to
the side, and was ready, with his whinger in his hand, to
spit Bannatyne upon the point.  For myself I did not
even think it worth my while even to draw—for I had
only brought my plain sword, fearing that in some of the
company which on our wanderings we might have to
keep, the Earl's Damascus blade might overmuch excite
cupidity.

But instead I ordered the fellow away as one that has
authority.  It was not for Launcelot Kennedy to mix
himself with a common brawling dog like Chapeldonnan.

'It wants but the tickling of a straw,' cried the little man,
'that I should spit you through, like a paddock to bait a
line for geds.  And but for your wife's sake, who is a civil-spoken
woman by ill-fortune tied to a ruffian, I should do it.'

Then seeing that together we were overstrong for him,
James Bannatyne took himself away, growling curses and
threatenings as to what should happen to us before we got
clear of Carrick.  However, we took little heed to the empty
boaster, but went our ways down into the town of Girvan.

Here it came to my mind to hire a boat and provision
her as it were to go to the island of Arran.  And nothing
would set me till I had it done.  So on the south beach
we found a man cleaning just such a boat as we needed,
with a half-deck on her and a little mast which would go
either up or down.  For three merks in silver we got the
use of the boat for a month, and with her both suitable
oars and sails.  He was going to the haying in the parish
of Colmonel, the owner said, but lest we should lose her,
we must deposit with the minister or the provost of the
town other thirty merks as the value of the boat, which
money should again be ours when we returned to claim it.
So to the provost we went, whom we found a hearty, red-faced
man, a dealer in provisions and all manner of victual.
Of these we took a sufficient cargo on board, and having
paid down our thirty merks, early one morning we laid our
course for the Isle of Arran.

But when we had gone screeving well across with a
following wind, we lay to under Pladda till it was dusk,
and then with a breeze shifted to our quarter we bore down
on Ailsa.  I knew not very well what we should find there,
but I judged that we would at least come on some traces
of the murderous crew, which might help us to clear up
some of their secrets.  For I judged that James Bannatyne
did not spend his nights out of bed in order to wile a few
solan geese off the rocks of Ailsa.





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.. _`THE DEFENCE OF CASTLE AILSA`:

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   CHAPTER XXXVI


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   THE DEFENCE OF CASTLE AILSA

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Now the Isle of Ailsa is little more than a great lumping
crag set askew in the sea.  Nevertheless, it has both landing
place and pasturage, house of refuge and place of defence.
The island was not new to me, for I had once upon a time
gone thither out of curiosity after the matter of Barclay,
Laird of Ladyland—who, in his madness, thought to make
it a place of arms for the Papists in the year of the Spanish
Armada, but was prevented and slain at the instance of
Andrew Knox, one of the good reforming name, minister
of Paisley.  This last was a wonderfully clever man and
accounted a moving preacher; but on this occasion he
showed himself a better fighter—which upon Craig Ailsa,
at least, is more to the purpose.

It was the dusk of the morning when we ran into
the spit of shingle which is upon the eastern side and,
watching our chance, we drew the boat ashore.  The sea
was chill and calm, only a little ruffled by the night wind,
and the sun was already brightening the sky to the east, so
that the Byne Hill and Brown Carrick stood black against it.

With great stealth and quiet we climbed up the narrow
path, seeing nothing, however, save a pasturing goat that
sprang away as we came near.  It was eerie enough work,
for the seabirds clanged around us, yammering and chunnering
querulously among themselves on the main cliffs at the
farther side of the isle.  It grew a little lighter when we
came out upon the narrow path which leads to the castle.

Suddenly the dark door of the tower loomed before us,
very black and grim.  I declare it was like marching up
to the cannon's mouth to walk up that little flight of stairs
which led to the door in the wall.  Nevertheless, I clambered
first, with a curious pricking down my back and a slackness
about the knees.  So all unscathed we entered.  There
was only emptiness in all the chambers.  The castle had been
almost wholly ruined and spoiled, for since its taking by
the Protestant party, it had not been touched nor put in
defence.  'Now I will bring up the provender.  Keep you
the castle,' said I to the little Dominie, as soon as we were
certified that we were first in possession.

So I went down and made first one backload and then
another of those things which we had bought at Girvan and
placed in the boat.  I brought up also all the ammunition for
the hackbutt and the pistols.  Before I had finished the sky
grew grey and clear, the day breaking nobly with only a rack
of cloud racing up the far side of Kilbrannan Sound to hang
upon the chill shark's teeth of the mountains of Arran.
Upon my return I was glad to find the castle intact, and
the little man seated calmly with a book in his hand.

'Did you never so much as shut the outer door?' I
asked him.

'And shut you without,' said he.  'Is it likely?  Ye
might have had to come along that footpad with only your
limber legs to keep your tail, and Tam o' Drummurchie
or Sawny Bean jumping ahint ye!'

So before we went to examine the nooks and crannies
of the Craig either for enemies or treasure boxes, we
resolved to put the castle into as good a state of defence as we
could.

First we drew in the rough wooden steps which led to
the door in the wall by which we had entered, so that only
the little projections whereon the wood had rested were left
to afford foothold to any besieger.  Then we closed and
barricaded the door, for the huge iron bolt was yet in its
place and ran securely into the stone of the wall itself for
quite two feet.

When the day broke fully, I went up to the turret top
to look about me.

'Save us!' I cried down to the little man.  'Come
hither, Dominie.  Is not that our boat out there with men
in her?'

The Dominie ran up and looked long and earnestly.

'Ay, deed is it that,' he made answer.  'We are
trapped, Launcelot, for all our cleverness.  And if these
chiels be our enemies, I doubt that we are as good as dead
men in the jaws of the Wolf of Drummurchie.

The men in the boat kept leaning back and looking
up at the cliffs as if to get sight of something.  Sometimes
they went completely out of view, as it had been close into
the bulk of the isle, mayhap to examine more carefully some
cave or lurking-place.

'We had better look well to our priming, and set a
watch,' said I.  'We shall have visitors this day at Castle
Ailsa, or my name is not Launcelot Kennedy.'

But the hours passed slowly on from nine till noon
before we heard a sound, or saw a living creature beside the
geese and the gulls.  After the boat had gone westward out
of sight, we waxed weary at our posts on the top of the
turret.  I went down to look at the cupboards of the
chambers.  There I was rooting and exploring, when I
heard the Dominie whispering loudly to me to run up hastily
into the tower.

He told me how that a stone had come pelting against
the wall, on the side towards the hill.  Now the castle sits
on the verge of the precipice, and only a narrow path leads
to it along the cliff.  But behind there is a little courtyard
to landward, now mostly ruined and broken down.  It was
from this side, so Dominie Mure whispered to me, that the
stone had come.

'Tut, man,' said I, 'you are losing your nerve with
this playing of hide-and-seek.  It was but a billy-goat's foot
that spurned it, and so naturally it came bumming down
the hill side.'

'Then,' he replied grimly, 'it was a billy-goat as big as an
elephant, and it will ding over this castle into the sea, for
no ordinary goat could have stirred the stone I saw; I
tell you it popped over the heuch like a cannon-ball.'

But we were soon to have other company besides that
of the stone.

For presently there came in sight a man walking daintily
and carefully along the path which led to the door of the
tower.  Now he would pull wantonly at a flower, and anon
he would skip a stone over the cliff—for all the world as if
it were a Sabbath afternoon, and he was waiting for his lass.
But I knew better, for I heard his harness clattering under his
loose coat of blue.

'Where gang ye so blythe, my bonny man?' cried the
Dominie suddenly from my elbow.  The man started back,
and set his hand beneath his cloak, but the Dominie cried,—

'Keep awa' your hand frae your hip, young man—ye
may need it to preserve your balance on the footpath—and
give me your attention for a wee.'

The man did as he was bid, and cast his eye aloft, where
the black mouth of a hackbutt looked discouragingly down
upon him.

'Your name, friend?' said the Dominie.

'I am James Carrick from the parish of Barr,' said the
man at last.

'Ay, ay, slee Jamie—Drummurchie's man,' said the
Dominie, with meaning.  'When the man is pooin' gowans
and skytin' slate stanes, the maister is no that far awa'.  Noo,
James, e'en turn you aboot and gang your ways, and tell
your maister that his black murder is found out, and that
there are those on their way to this isle that will put the
irons on his heels.'

So the man who had called himself James Carrick turned
obediently about, and marched away the road he had come.
Probably he had been sent for nothing more than to know
if we had stolen a march upon them, and taken possession
of the strength of the castle.  They had our boat—there
was no question of that.  We were, therefore, set here with
only two backloads of powder and provisions to stand a siege
in a small and ruinous tower upon a barren cliff.

Nor was it long before we had news of the enemy, for
as we strolled up and down the battlement walk, which as is
common in such little fortalices, went round three sides of the
tower—that is, round every side except that which looks
inward to the cliff-edge—a number of scattering shots came
from all about, but chiefly from above.

We could hear them whistling over us as we ducked
our heads.  We got ready our guns to fire in return so soon
as a man showed; but the many bowders and rocky humps
about gave the enemy great shelter, so that it was no easy
thing to take aim at them.  However, I did get a steady
shot at an incautious leg, and on the back of the crack of
the hackbutt came a great torrent of swearing, and this I
took for a good sign.

All we could do was to keep the little courtyard clear,
and to shoot whenever we saw a bonnet rise up or a limb
carelessly exposed.  But we both yearned for something
more lively to put an end to our suspense.

Nor had we long to wait.

From the east side of the tower which looks to the sea,
there came the sound of a loud report, a tumble of stones,
and then a loud, continual, and most pitiful crying, as of a man
hurt unto death.  I ran up into the battlements above and
set my head through a loophole.  Beneath me lay a fine-looking
young man, with his red bonnet fallen aside, clad in
a short white coat, with doublet and hose also of red.  He
was unarmed so far as I could see.

'Who are you, and what brought you there?' I cried to
him from the turret loop.

A massy corner-stone fallen from the castle lay on his
chest, and a pile of other rocks and stones was heaped about
his legs.  He turned his eyes upward at me and tried twice
to speak.

At last he said, with many pants and piteous groans, 'I
am Allan Crosby, from Auchneil.  I brought you a letter
from my Lord Cassillis.  I landed below and came up by
the path, but when I got near I heard firing and saw the door
shut.  So I tried to clamber up the castle wall to cry in at the
window to you, because you were my friends.  And even as
I climbed, the stones of the castle fell upon me, and now they
are crushing the life out of me.'

'Where is the letter from my Lord?' said I.

The man cast his eyes about him as if to look for it.

'I had it in my hand just now,' he said.

I saw a scrap of parchment a little way from him, and
asked if that were the letter.

'Tie it to a cord for me,' said I, 'that I may
see it.'

But, by reason of his wounds, he was not able to reach
it, and the stones pressed so bitterly on his breast that he
could do nothing but lie and groan most waesomely.

'Oh, help me, or else end my misery—for the love of
God,' he cried earnestly, 'for I am at the point of death in
this agony.'

I went all round the top of the tower and looked about
every way.  Our enemies had retired further up the cliff,
and were contenting themselves with firing an occasional
shot, which fell harmless against the walls, buzzed among
the battlements, or else sang past us into the sea.

I called the Dominie.

'Come to the door,' said I.  'I cannot bide still and see
that poor man suffer.  He says that he has come with a
letter from my Lord Cassillis.  It may be so.  I will at
least go and see.  Drummurchie's thieves have gone up the
face of the rock, and the wounded man cannot hurt me
much, even if he were willing.'

Then the Dominie pled with me to bide where I was 'because,'
said he, 'you know not whether it be not an ambush.'

'I cannot let a fellow-creature be crushed to pieces
before my eyes and abide to hear his death-cries,' I answered.
'Come down and hold you the door open.'

So with that I undid the bolts and put the Dominie
behind it.  I set my feet upon the jutting stones on which
the wooden stair usually rested, and so scrambled perilously
down, holding on to the wall with my right hand the while.
When I came to him the lad was lying gasping on his back
with the stones edgewise on his breast.  I asked him how
he did.  He seemed past speech, but was able to motion me
round to the further side.  There I stooped gently in order
to raise the great block that lay upon his bosom.

I stepped carefully about and turned my body to render
him my aid as tenderly as I could.  But I got a sudden and
terrible surprise, and though I am not one much given to
fear, I own that it shook my heart.  Even as I stooped over
him, the fellow flung oft the stones as if they had been
featherweights, leaped upon his own feet with a bended
pistol in his hand, and stood in front of me, striding across
the path which led back again to the castle door.

At the same moment I heard a loud shout of warning
from the Dominie, that the enemy were again coming
down the brae.  I had no time to draw my dagger, and
for greater lightness I had left my sword behind.  I saw
the rascal make him ready to fire at me, aiming at my
heart.  So I remembered a French trick of high kicking
which Robert Harburgh had once taught me, for he had
been in France at the schools with his master the Earl,
and had learned much there besides philosophy.

So I gave the fellow my foot, shod with toe-plates, full
upon his wrist, which knocked the pistol up against his
chin with a stunning crash.  In the next moment I leaped
at his throat and overbore him, spurning him with my heel
as I passed.  I can remember leaping upon him with all
my weight from the top of one of the very stones the
traitor had pulled down upon himself.

Then I ran fleet-foot for the entrance of the castle.
Others of the enemy were just coming about the corner
when I reached the projecting points of stone.  With my
heart in my mouth I sprang up the little juts of rock.  I
was almost within and in safety, but I had not counted
upon the swiftness and resource of my gentleman of the
fallen stone.  He was hard upon my heels in spite of the
thundering clout he had gotten on the jaw from the pistol.
But luckily my brave little friend the Dominie stood ready
behind the door, and as soon as my hindmost foot was over
the threshold, he set his strength to the iron handle and sent
the massy oak home to its fastenings with such force that
it struck the pursuer fair on the face with a stunning crash.
As a stone is driven from a sling, so he fell whirling over
the stair head, and, unable to stop himself, he went, gripping
vainly at the rock-weeds, headlong over the cliff.

This, however, being behind the door and fully employed
in securing it, we did not know at the time.  But when we
hurried again to the top of the tower, we saw the enemy
swarming down the cliff side to render him some assistance,
or it might be to recover his body.

'Ask him, when you get him, if he has another letter
from my lord the Earl,' cried the Dominie after them.

'And serve him right well, the treacherous hound,'
muttered the little man to himself, 'if you find him in
pound pieces!'

But I said nothing, for I thought the fellow would mind
the kick that I gave him.

That night Thomas of Drummurchie and all his folk
removed from the cave where till now they had dwelt.
They went over in our boat and in that of James Bannatyne
of Chapeldonnan to the mainland, being frightened (as I
guess) by our declaration that there were those coming who
would deliver them to justice.  And also being dismayed, as
I make no doubt, by our staunch and desperate defence.

Thus were we left alone on the muckle weary rock
which men call Ailsa, and which thousands of free men and
women look at every day without a thought of the poor
prisoned folk upon it.





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.. _`THE VOICE OUT OF THE NIGHT`:

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   CHAPTER XXXVII


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   THE VOICE OUT OF THE NIGHT

.. vspace:: 2

Now, so long as provisions last, Ailsa is none such a bad
sanctuary, and we might have passed the time there very
well, had we possessed minds sufficiently at ease for enjoying
such a hermitage.  The spring was but a few yards above
the castle, and it ran crystal clear into a little basin which
I cut in the rock.  We had enough victual to serve us
for a month with the provision we had bought in Girvan,
and with what I shot of the puffins or Tammy Nories,
which ran in and out of their holes all day like conies in
a warren.

Sometimes we would climb to the top of the crag and
look long at the sea, which from there seemed like a great
sheet hung upon Cantyre and Arran on the one side and
upon the hills of Galloway and Carrick on the other—with
Ailsa itself, on which we were sitting, in the deepest
trough of it.

A few boats crept timidly about the shore, and a little
ship sometimes passed by.  But otherwise we had for
companions only the silly guillemots that couped their tails
uppermost and dived under, the fishing-gulls that dropped
splash into the water, and the solan or solemne geese which,
when they fell, made a bigger plunge than any, even as on the
cliffs of the island their keckling and crying are the loudest.

One day the Dominie and I were sitting on the roof of
all things (as the summit of Ailsa seemed to be), picking at
the grasses and knuckling little stones for the idlesse which
comes with summer weather, when it came in my head to
rally Robert Mure, because he had a cold hearthstone and a
half empty bed.

'You, a burgess and a learned man, with an official rent
and a yearly charge on the burgh, yet cannot get so much as
a cotter's sonsy bit lass to keep you company, and to sit,
canty like Jenny and Jock, on the far side of the chimbley
lug.  Think shame of yourself, Dominie.  Any questing
lout that can persuade a tow-headed Mall of the byre to set
up house with him, deserves better of his country than you.
Were all of your mind, Maybole school might have none to
attend it but dotards and grandmothers!  And where were
your craft then, Socrates?' I asked him, for just before he had
been speaking to me of a certain wise man, a Greek of that
name.

And at first he made a jest of the matter, as indeed I
meant it.

'Never fear,' he said, 'there will always be enough fools
in Ayrshire to get more.  Maybole shall have its share of
these.'

And indeed that hath been the repute of our town and
countryside ever since Ayr water first ran over its pebbles!

Yet when I pressed the Dominie further upon the matter,
he waxed thoughtful.  His face, which was not naturally
merry, took on a still sterner expression.  Presently he put
his hand within his blouse and pulled out a little string of
beads, such as Catholics wear to mind them of their prayers.
It was suspended about his neck.  This, I own, was a great
marvel to me, for the Dominie was a strong Reformer, and
showed little mercy in arguing with men still inclined to the
ancient opinion.

He gave the brown rosary into my hand, and I turned
it curiously about.  It was made of the stones of some
foreign fruit, most quaintly and fantastically carven and
joined together with little links of gold.  Between two of
the beads there was a longer portion of the chain, and upon
it two rings of gold were strung.

'Once,' said the Dominie, 'there was a maid who had
promised to share my hearth.  One ring of these two was
mine, to wear upon my finger, and one was hers.  Upon
the night before our marriage day we met at our place of
tryst.  I tried the ring upon her finger ard wished her to
wear it that night.  'To-morrow will serve—it is not so
far away!' she said, and slipped from my arms.  Under a
new-risen moon she went homeward, singing by the heads
of Benane.  And that was the last that these eyes ever
beheld of bonny Mary Torrance—save only this necklace of
beads which she wore, and the stain of her blood upon the
short grass of the seashore.'

The Dominie looked long to seaward at the flashing
birds that circled and clanged about our rocky isle, each
tribe of them following its own orbit and keeping to its
own airy sphere.

'And what happened to her?' I began, but got no further.

'Murder, most foul,' he cried, rising to his feet in his
agitation, 'horrible, unheard of in any kingdom!  For all
about the spot where these things were found, was the
trampling of many naked feet.  And some of these were
small and some were great.  But all were naked, and the
print of every foot was plain upon the sand of the shore.
Each footprint had the toes of the bare feet wide and
distinct.  Every toe was pointed with a claw, as though
the steads were those of birds.  And the fearsome
beast-prints went down to the sea edge, and the blood marks
followed them.  And that was all.'  Then the Dominie
fell silent, and I also, for though Ayrshire was full of blood
feuds and the quest of human life, this was a new kind of
murder to me—though by all accounts it seemed not rare
in the neighbourhood of Benane, for I minded the warning
words of the Mistress of Chapeldonnan.

'And had she no enemies, this Mary Torrance?' I asked.

'She was but young, and of birth too lowly for feuds
and fightings.  Besides, who in Carrick would harm a maid
going homeward from her love-tryst?'

The Dominie rose and walked away to the other side of
the Rock of Ailsa, where for long he sat by himself and
fingered the necklace of beads.  His face was fixed, as if he
were making of the rosary a very catena of hate, a
receptacle of dark imaginings and vengeful vows.  Scarcely
could I recognise my quaint and friendly Dominie.

It was that night, as the blackness grew grey towards
the morn, that I yielded my watch upon the roof of the
little Castle of Ailsa to the Dominie.  Too long I had
paced the battlements, listening to the confused and belated
yawping and crying of the sea-birds upon the ledges, and
to the mysterious night sounds of the isle.  For I began to
hear and to see all manner of uncouth things, that have no
existence except on the borderlands of sleep.

The Dominie said no word, good or bad, but drew his
cloak about him and sat down on the rampart.  I bade him
good morning, but he never answered me a word; and so
I left him, for I judged that his thought was bitter, and
that the tale he had told me of Mary Torrance lay blackly
upon him.

Yet, when I went below, it was not with me as on
other mornings.  I lay down upon the plaids and composed
me to sleep.  Yet I remained broad awake, which was an
unaccountable thing for me, who have been all my life a
great sleeper.  I lay and thought of my friend, sitting
gloomy and silent above in the greyness of morn, till my
own meditations grew eerie and comfortless.  Often and
often I started upon my elbow with the intention of going
to him.  As often I lay down again, because I had no
excuse, and also (as it seemed to me) he had not desired
my company.

But once, as I lifted me up on my elbow, I seemed to
hear a shrill crying as it had been out of the sea,
'Launcelot—Launcelot Kennedy!' it said.  And the crying was most
like a woman's voice.  My very blood chilled within me, for
the tale of the lass murdered upon the morn of her marriage
day was yet in my mind.  And I thought of naught less
than that her uneasy spirit was now come to visit the man,
aged and withered, who sat up there waiting and watching
for her coming.  Yet why it should cry my name passed
my comprehension.

It was, therefore, small wonder that I listened long,
lying there among the plaids upon the floor.  But the
night wind soughed and sobbed through the narrow wicket
window, and there was no further noise.  Thinking that I
had dreamed, I laid my head upon the hard pillow and
composed me to sleep, but even then I caught as it had been the
regular beat of a boat's oars upon the rullocks.  And anon
I heard my name cried twice and thrice, 'Launcelot
Kennedy!  Launcelot Kennedy!  Launcelot Kennedy!'  Whereat,
with a thrill of horror, I rose, cast the wrappings
from me, and, with my naked sword in my hand, I went
up to the roof of the castle.

The Dominie was sitting with his face turned seaward.
He heard me come behind him.  Without turning he put
out his hand.

'Did you hear it too?' he said.  'Go below.  That
which shall come is not for your eyes to see!'

'But I heard a woman call my name!' I said.  'I heard
it twice and thrice, plain as I hear you speak!'

'Nay,' he said, 'not your name—mine!'

And once more we listened together.  As for me, I
strained my eyes into the darkness so that they ached and
were ready to behold anything.  I gazed out directly
towards the sea, from which the sounds had come; but
the Dominie looked along the path which led precariously
between the wall of the isle above and the precipice below.

Thus we watched as it seemed for hours and hours.

Suddenly I heard him draw in his breath with a gasping
sound, like that which a man gives when he finds himself
unexpectedly in ice-cold water.  The twilight of the morning
had come a little, and as I looked over his shoulder,
lo! there seemed to me as it had been a maid in white coming
along the path.  I felt my heart stop beating, and I, too,
gazed rigidly, for it seemed to me to be Nell Kennedy,
coming towards us, robed like an angel.

'She is dead!' I thought.  'Mayhap the clawed things
out of the sea have devoured her, even as they took Mary
Torrance!'

But I heard the Dominie say under his breath, 'It is she!
It is she!'

For in the moment of terror, when the soul is unmanned,
everyone hears with his own ears and sees with his own eyes,
according to his own heart's fantasy.

But the figure came ever closer to us, stepping daintily
and surely in the dim light.  Again I heard the voice which
had spoken to me from the sea, and at the sound my very
bones quaked within me.

'Launcelot—Launcelot Kennedy!' it said.

And for a long moment the figure stood still as if waiting
for an answer.  But my voice was shut dumbly within me.
The Dominie stood up.

'Art thou the spirit of Mary Torrance, or a deceiving
fiend of hell that has taken her shape?  Answer me, or I
fire!'

And the Dominie held out his pistol to the white-sheeted
ghost, which even then appeared to me a mightily vain
thing, for how can a spirit fear these things which are only
deadly to flesh and bone?

'I have come to see Launcelot Kennedy,' answered the
voice, and it appeared awful and terrible to me beyond the
power of words.  I could not so much as fix my mind on a
prayer, though I knew several well enough.  'I have come
to seek Launce Kennedy.  Is he within?' said the voice.

'What would you with him?  He is no concern of
yours,' said the Dominie.

'I ken that,' said the voice.  'Nevertheless, I have come
to seek him.  I greet you well, Dominie Mure.  Will you
open and let Helen Kennedy within?'

And with that the light came clearer.  The veil of the
fantasies of that fearful night fell like a loosened bandage from
my eyes.  And lo! there at the tower's foot was my dear
quipsome lass, Nell Kennedy, in her own proper body, and I
knew her for good, sound flesh and blood.  Nor could I
now tell how I had so deceived myself.  But one thing I
resolved—that I should not reveal my terror to her, for
very certainly she would laugh at me!

But the Dominie was too firmly fixed in his thought.
I saw him grip his pistol and lean over the parapet.  It
seemed that he could not even believe the seeing of his
eyes.

'Come not nearer,' he cried in a wild voice, 'for well do
I know that you are a fiend of the breed of the sea demons,
whatsoever you may pretend.  I will try a bullet of holy
silver upon you.'

But I threw myself upon him and held his arm.

'It is but our own Nell Kennedy,' I said.  'What
frights you, Dominie?'

For I resolved to make a virtue of my courage.  And,
indeed, as I came to myself first, and had done no open
foolishness, I thought I might as well take all the credit
which was due to me.  'See you not that it is only Helen
Kennedy of Culzean?' I repeated, reasoning with him.

'And what seeks she with you?' said he, still struggling
in my grasp.  'I tell you it is a prodigy, and bodes us no
good,' he persisted.

'That I cannot tell,' said I.  'I had thought her safe
upon the moors with my mother.  But I will go down and
open the door to her.'

So when I had run down the stairs of the small keep and
set the bolt wide, lo, there upon the step was Nell Kennedy,
her face dimpled with smiles, albeit somewhat pale also with
the morning light and the strangeness of her adventure.

I held out my hand to her.  Never had I been so moved
with any meeting.

'Nell!' I said, and could say no more.

'Ay, Launce—just Nell!' she said.  And she came in
without taking my hand.  But for all that she was not
abashed nor shame-faced.  But she remained as direct and
simple in her demeanour as she had been about Culzean, in
the old days before sorrow fell upon the house, and, indeed,
upon us all.

'Take me up the stairs to the Dominie,' she said.  And I
took her hand and kept it tightly as we went upwards.
But I tried after no greater favours at that time, for I knew
that her mood leaned not towards the desires of a lover.

'Ah, Dominie,' said Nell, when she reached the top,
'this Ailsa is a strange place to keep school in.  Yet I
warrant you that geese are not more numerous here than
they were in Maybole!'

But the Dominie could only gaze at her, thus daffing
with him, so fixed had he been in his fantasy.  Then when
he was somewhat come to himself, we waited expectantly for
Nell to reveal her errand and to relate her adventure, and
she did not keep us long waiting.

'You must instantly leave Ailsa and come back with
me,' she said.  'My sister Marjorie is lost from Auchendrayne,
and we three must find her.  I fear that the Mures
have done her a mischief, being afraid of the things that she
might reveal.'

'How knew you of that, Nelly?' I asked, for, indeed,
it was a thing I could make no guess at myself.

'It was one morning at Kirrieoch,' said Nell, 'as we
were bringing in the kye out of the green pastures by the
waterside, that a messenger rode up with a letter from
Marjorie.  She asked me to meet her at Culzean and to
bring you and any other faithful men whom I could trust
along with me.  And thus the letter ended: '"*For gin I once
win clear out of Auchendrayne, we have them all in the hollow
of our hand, I have found him that carried the letter*."'

'She means the letter to John Mure that took your
father to the tryst of death,' I said.

The Dominie seemed to awake at the words.

'That will be young William Dalrymple she has fallen
on with,' he cried, in much excitement.

I rose, and hastened down to put our belongings together,
which were scattered about the castle.  As soon as I returned
Nell went on with her tale.

'Then because I knew not where you were,' she said, 'I
was in much distress.  But your father donned his war graith
and rode with me to the house of Culzean, where he yet
abides.  As for me, I could noways rest, so I set myself
to trace you.  And here I have found you.  Pray God
we may find our Marjorie as safely!'

'But how did you manage to trace us?' I asked, for
the Dominie and I thought that we had well hidden our
tracks.

'Oh, I got the kindly side of the goodwife of Chapeldonnan,'
said Nell, lightly.  And when I heard that, I did
not wonder any more, for she could get the kindly side of
anyone, if so she chose.  Because Nell Kennedy, in spite of
her taunting and teasing, had ever a coaxing, winsome way
with her which was vastly taking.

Then we fell to making our plans.  It would not do
for us to be seen leaving the Craig by day, for our position
was plainly in view of keen eyes along all the Girvan
shore and at Chapeldonnan or Girvanmains as well.  And
worse enemies than these might put out a dozen boats to intercept
us, or simply lie in wait to take us as we landed.  Besides,
all this day and part of the night there befel a storm which
lashed the waves to white foam about our abode.

With more than a woman's ordinary forethought in
adventure, Nell had left her boat in a cove to the right of
the landing-place.  And indeed I, that somewhat prided
myself upon my wisdom, had not taken as great precautions
myself—which, among other things, was the cause of our
present position on the Craig.  So we three spent all the
day in cheerful talk, thinking that so soon as we could find
Marjorie, we should come to the end of our perplexities,
and have the guilty in our power.  But in this we spoke
without knowledge of the manifold shifts and stratagems of
our arch enemy.





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.. _`A RESCUE FROM THE SEA`:

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   CHAPTER XXXVIII


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   A RESCUE FROM THE SEA

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While we thus waited and planned, Nell told us how that
she had remained at Culzean till there seemed no more hope
of Marjorie's coming.  Then there arrived a lass of the
Cochranes who had been Marjorie's tiring maid at
Auchendrayne.  From her Nell learned how, after a fierce and
bitter scene with the elder Mure, Marjorie had fled from
Auchendrayne none knew whither, escaping all their toils
and passing their inner and outer guard under silence of
night.  Then so soon as she had heard this, fearing all evil
to her sister, Nell set out to find me—believing that, in the
absence of any hope of help from her brothers, I might aid
her to find her sister and to clear some of the ever
deepening mysteries.

It was the dusk of an evening, sweet and debonnair,
when we left the castle which had been so long our
home, and descended the perilous steeps to the foot of Ailsa.
Here we found Nell's boat safe in its cove, and immediately
we pushed out, having placed therein all our weapons and
belongings.  Nell sat in the stern, and the Dominie and I
took the oars.  The storm of the night and morning had
abated, and there was now no more than an oily swell upon
the water.

There was little talk between us as we went, for we felt
that our lives were in our hands and that we might be only
running into greater perils.  I supposed that the Dominie
was thinking of the love he had lost by black, unnatural
murder, on that dangerous shore to which we were making our
way.  We kept well to the south of Girvan, because I had
twice gone there on errands which did not tend to make us
favourites with the Bargany Kennedies and their supporters, of
whom the townsfolk were mostly composed.  Besides, I
remembered the word of the rascal whom I had held at my
mercy in the house of Mistress Allison, the Grieve's wife at
Culzean.  'The treasure of Kelwood is in the cave of Sawny
Bean on the shore of Bennanbrack over against Benerard.'  And
this, though not a clear direction, pointed to some
promontory south of Girvan and north of Ballantrae.

And though the discovery of my master's death was, I
trust, first in my mind, I need not deny that I was also
mindful of the treasure for which so much had been
adventured first and last.

It was a high tide and a calm sea when we got over
into the loom of the cliffs.  We had a making wind and
the tide was with us, so that we had been able to set the sail
part of the way—for a little mast which would carry a lug
sail lay snugly under the thwarts of the boat.

The Dominie, who in his rambling youth had followed
the sea, both steered and managed the sheet as we drew
nearer the shore, while I lay over the bow and kept a look-out
ahead.  We steered towards a light which went wavering
along the top of the rocks, for we opined that it must be
some shepherd wandering with a lantern to look for a lost
sheep.  Now it dipped into clefts, now it mounted to the
summit of the crags, and anon it was lost again behind the
screes and tumbled cliffs of the coast.

Suddenly from high above us, where we had last seen
the light, we heard sounds as of pain and despair—a woman's
cry in her extremity—not weeping or beseeching, but crying
only, being, as it seemed, utterly in distress.

''Tis our Marjorie!  I ken her voice!' cried Nell, and
we all strained our eyes upwards to the dark heuchs.  The
lantern had come to a standstill almost directly above us.

The Dominie silently took down the mast and let it rest
in the bottom of the boat.  Our speed slackened till we
floated without motion on the gently heaving water.  I
continued to peer into the gloom.  Yet how Marjorie
Kennedy could have come to be in danger upon the shore of
Benane was far beyond my comprehending at that time.

'Marjorie!  Sister Marjorie!' cried Nell, as loudly as
she could.  And almost as she spoke I saw something white
descending towards us from the cliff, like a poised bird that
closes its pinions and dives into the water.  The smitten
waters sprang up white not twenty feet from our bows.

I stood erect on the stern, scarce knowing what might
hap, yet to be ready for anything, balancing on both feet for a
spring.  And as soon as I had a glimpse of something white
which rose from the black water, I sprang towards it ere it
had time to sink again.  For Nell was with me in the boat,
and it was my opportunity to let her see that Launce
Kennedy did not do all his deeds standing thread-dry on
the solid land.  I declare, so much was I affected and
worked upon by her crying to her sister, that had it been
Sawny Bean himself I had grappled with him there in the
salt water.

But it was a braver weight and shape that I held in my
arm—even the slim form of a woman.  I felt a thrill run
through me when I found that her arms had been tied
closely behind her back both at wrist and elbow.
Nevertheless, I gripped the cords which confined her, and
struck out for the boat, which I saw black like a rock
above me.

It was no more than a minute that I supported the girl in
the water, but to me it seemed to be a year, for I was hill
born, and had learned the swimming since I came in my
youth to Culzean.  And this never makes a strong nor yet a
long swimmer like the shore-bred boy, who has been half in
and half out of the tide all day long every summer season
since he could walk.

But the Dominie speedily brought the boat about, for
indeed there was little way on her at anyrate.  In a
moment more his strong hands and long fingers were lifting
Marjorie Kennedy on board, and laying her, all wet as
she was, in the arms of her sister Nell.

Then he gave me a hand over the bow, and we cowered
low in the boat, letting her drift inward with the tide till we
were close under the loom of the land and in the very darkest
of the shadow.  We knew well that they who had tied
Marjorie's hands would be on the look-out for her rescuers.
So on the black water we lay and waited.

Nor had we long to wait, for in a short time voices
echoed here and there among the rocks, and the lantern, with
others which we had not previously seen, appeared far down
near the edge of the sea.  At the same time, from the other
direction, came the noise of oars roughly thrown into a boat
and the clambering of men over the side.  Then we were,
indeed, in sore jeopardy, for the wind had died to nothing
under the land, and the grey sea lay outside the shadow of
the cliffs with quite enough light upon it to trace us by, if
we rowed out in that direction.

And all the while Marjorie lay silent in her sister's arms.
I had cut the cords and chafed her hands as well as I could,
but still she did not speak.

The pursuers closed rapidly upon us from both sides, and
ere we could think of a plan, we saw the boats pushing out
with torches held at their prows by the hands of dark and
stalwart men.  And then the Dominie and I looked to our
pistols and swords, resolving, if it came to the sharp pinch,
to make a good fight for it.  For when the two boats
came together they could not choose but find us.





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.. _`THE CLEFT IN THE ROCK`:

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   CHAPTER XXXIX


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   THE CLEFT IN THE ROCK

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'Let us get in nearer to the land,' said the Dominie; ''tis
the sole chance that remains to us.'

So seizing each of us an oar, the sea being perfectly
calm and a full tide lapsing as smoothly upon the cliffs
as the water in a tub wherein good wives wash their duds,
we risked the matter and rowed in closer to the rock.
We sought if by good chance there might be found some
inlet where we could land, or some cave which might
conceal us from the cruel men who were seeking our lives.

Nor was our adventuring in vain, for as we cautiously
advanced into the blackness, the wall of the cliff seemed
to retire before us, so that the prow of the boat actually
appeared to push it steadily back.  A denser darkness, a
very night of Egypt, surrounded us.  Gradually the noise of
the pursuers dulled, sank, and died away.  We lost sight of
the grey, uneasy plain of the sea behind us, and continued
to advance through a long water passage walled with
rock, the sides of which we could sometimes feel with our
hands and sometimes fail to touch with our oars.  This
I took at the time to be a marvellous dispensation of
Providence on our behalf, as without doubt it was.  But
now we know that all that shoreward country, owing to
the abundance of soft stone by the seaside, is honeycombed
with caves, so that it was well-nigh impossible to miss at
least one of these in every half mile of cliff all about the
Heads of Benerard.  Yet that we should strike this one
of all others appeared a thing worthy of admiration, as
presently you shall hear, and showed the same dispensing
and favourable Providence which has throughout been on
the side of Culzean and against our enemies of Bargany.

Marjorie and Nell still sat together in the stern, but so
dense was the dark that we could see nothing of them.
The Dominie and I took our oars from the rullocks and
pushed onward into the cave, hoping to come in time to
some wider space, where we could either disembark or find
a passage out upon the land above us.

And so presently we came to a place wonderful enough
in itself, yet no more than the gateway to other and greater
marvels.

The waves which had scarcely been visible out on the
open sea ran into the cave at regular intervals, and in the
narrow places formed themselves into a considerable swell
of water.  Before us we could hear them break with a
noise like thunder upon some hidden strand or beach.
This somewhat terrified us in that place of horrid darkness,
for the noise was loud as is a waterfall in the time of
spate, the echoing of the cave and the many contracted
passages and wide halls deceiving the ear.

So our boat, being poised upon the crest of one of
these smooth steeps of water which rolled onward into the
cave, advanced swiftly into a more spacious cavern, where
the oar could be used without touching the rock at either
side.  The sounds now came back to us also from high aloft,
and we had the feeling of much air and a certain spacious
vastness above us.  Yet the imprisoning darkness, confused
with the lashing of the waves, wrought a kind of invincible
melancholy which weighed down all our spirits.

Presently, however, the prow of the boat took the slushy
sand in a coign more retired, where the waves did not, as in
other places, fall with an arching dash, but rather lapsed
with a gentler wash as upon a regular beach.  Being in the
bow, I lost no time in leaping ashore, and in a few moments
I had the boat fast to a natural pier of rock, behind which
the water was quiet as in a mill pond.

Here in the darkness we helped each other out, and feeling
ourselves now somewhat more safe from our enemies, we
shook one another by the hand and made many congratulation
on our escape, which had indeed been marvellous.

Even thus we waited for the day to reveal to us whether
there were any passage by which we could ascend from the
deeps of the Cimmerian pit wherein we were enclosed,
without adventuring out again in our boat upon the water,
where our enemies watched for us.

We drew close together upon the rocky pier, and
Marjorie told us of her escape from the Auchendraynes, the
strange tale of which shall hereafter be given at length in
its own place.  Also she confirmed the message which she
had sent to her sister, that she had discovered all the
wickedness and certain guilt of the Mures in the death of her
father, and in many other crimes.  So we saw before us in
plain case their condemnation, if once we could escape from
this snare and bring their iniquity to light before the King
and the Council.  Yet all the while it was a marvel to me
how Marjorie had so completely forgotten James Mure the
younger, who was her wedded husband, even though she
had never rendered to him the love and duty of a wife.

But we were by no means yet won out of the wood.
And, at the best, our case was not a particularly
comfortable one.  The Dominie and I had, indeed, provided
Marjorie with such wrappings and covertures as were in
our power, which we had brought with us from the isle.  But
we had mainly to trust to the virtues of the strong waters
of France, which the Dominie always carried about with
him, as well as to the mildness of the night, that she should
take no harm from her fearful plunge from the cliffs into the
salt water.

But it is certain that the perturbation of one's spirit
at such a time is so great, that many things pass without
penalty to the health which at another season might induce
disease and death.

Presently we found that our boat was being left high
and dry, the water ebbing swiftly away from us towards
the mouth of the cave.  We had, as it happened, entered
at the height of the tide, and now the water was upon
the turn.  But this affected us little, for we judged that
either it would go so far back that we might find a way
of escape by clambering over the rocks out upon the land;
or else, at the worst, we knew that, by waiting till the
next tide, we should be able to return the way we had
come.  At all events, for that time at least, we thought
ourselves to have outwitted our pursuers and to stand no
longer in their danger.

But we were briskly to learn another way of it, for
the oftenest slip is made upon the threshold of safety.

Marjorie and Nell bore themselves through all these
dangers and discomforts with the greatest courage.  Never
had this come home to me so strongly before, for the maid's
shamefacedness had died out of Marjorie Kennedy; and
now she seemed wholly set with a fierce jealousy of hate to
compass the punishment of her father's enemies.

The water being in this manner retired, and our boat
lying high and dry upon a shelving beach, I proposed that
the Dominie and myself should attempt some exploration of
the place where we found ourselves—while we left Nell and
her sister by the boat to make such dispositions of their
cleading as would countervale the discomfort of Marjorie's
rescue from death.

So the Dominie and I felt with our hands all round the
wide amphitheatre which had so lately been filled with the
salt water.  We had no difficulty in discovering the narrow
passage by which we had come, for down its narrow gullet
the water was now retreating with great swiftness.  But we
seemed to be at the sack's end in every other way, so that
we looked for nothing else but having to return to the same
place, and in the same way by which we came, after our
enemies had retired.  So swiftly did the tide run back, that
it seemed as if it might be possible for us to walk out upon
our own feet.  And so indeed we did, but in a very strange
fashion.

For in one of my gropings I came upon a projection of
the rock, which caught my foot and threw me forward
upon my face.  As I fell, my hands touched something like
a flight of rough steps which led up from the sanded floor
of the cavern.  Without waiting to call out to Dominie
Mure I mounted, with my heart beating fast with anticipation,
and at the top I came into a narrower passage than
any we had yet entered, which led me forward a long
way.  As I went the air felt unaccountably lighter.  It
smelled most like a well-fired room, dry and pleasant, so
that I waited only to ascertain that the passage ended in
another apartment before going back to communicate my
fortunate discovery to Marjorie and Nell.

When I reached the boat I found that, by the skilful
management of her sister, Marjorie had been made
somewhat more comfortable, and that the Dominie on his part
had discovered nothing of importance, of which I was glad,
for it became me to be the leader of our expedition.  So I
bade him take his weapons, and with what provender we
could carry upon our backs we proceeded all of us together
to the rocky stairway leading to the drier inner cave.

The Dominie had as usual brought his pipes over his
shoulder, from which, indeed, he refused to be parted even
for a moment.  And but for the fear of the noise reaching
our enemies, I think that there and then he would have
played us both reels and strathspeys—that is, if we had
given him any encouragement, so pleased was he, and,
indeed, all of us, to leave the dark cavern and oozy sand
upon which we had first landed.

We were not long in ascending the stairs, and, as I
had foretold, we found ourselves speedily in the warmer and
drier air, like that of a habited house, which was so great
a change from the dripping damp of the lower sea-cave
that we rejoiced greatly, though quite unable to discover
the cause.

Yet there was something—we knew not what—about
the inner cavern which took us all by the throat.  Indeed,
we had not gone far when Marjorie Kennedy gasped for
breath and said, 'Let us go back!  I do not like the
place!

But this I took to be no more than the dashing of her
spirit by the adventures of the night, and the terrors through
which, as she had already told us, she had come in the dreary
and dangerous house of Auchendrayne.

For the passage broadened out into a wider hall with a
firm floor of hard earth, as if it had been beaten or trampled.
We had hardly been in this place longer than a few
moments when a strangely persistent and pervading smell
began to impress us with the deadliest loathing.  It was
sharp, pungent, and familiar.  Yet could none of us tell
whence it came, nor in what place we had smelled it before.

'I am faint unto death,' said Marjorie, leaning heavily on
me.  'Let me go back, Launcelot, while I can.'

But this, for the sake of the dryness and comfort, I was
not willing to do.  So, stumbling now over one thing and
now over another in the darkness, I made shift to find
a further passage.

I chanced to put down my hand, when my foot struck
something heavier and more massive than before, and, lo! to
my horror, I touched the side of a wooden tub or vat.  And
scarce had I moved from the place where I was, before
something cold and soft brushed my face, as if it had been
suspended from the roof.  My heart trembled, for we were
plainly in a place of habitation of some unknown and terrible
sort.

'Stand still where you are,' I cried to my companions.
For I was afraid that they also might come against one of
these obstructions, which were good evidence of others
having been in this abode of horror and darkness as well as
ourselves.

Immediately I set to the groping again, and went
stumbling from one thing to another till I came to a
branching passage which ascended away from the hall.  And since
here, in the roomy alcove high above the floor of the cave,
there were (so far as I could find) none of the vats or other
furniture which I had encountered about the sides of the
greater cave, I decided to use it as a place of temporary shelter.

So I made my way back to where they were all standing
close together, and I pinched the Dominie's arm in token
that he was to ask no questions.  Then very slowly and
stealthily we felt our way to the little alcove which I had
found.  And as often as I stumbled against anything, I
pretended to clatter some of the stuff which I carried
upon my back, having laden myself with it at the boat.
And so passed the matter off.

At last we came to the hiding-place which had been my
latest discovery, and found that the rock was cut, as it had been,
into seats all round about, while the path ascended upwards
at the back yet higher into the stone, by which I judged
that we had not yet come to the end of the cavern.  Here
in the high alcove or gallery above the main cave we
accommodated ourselves, and disposed our belongings as well as we
could for the darkness.  The Dominie set himself to arrange
them, while Nell and Marjorie lay covered up together in
our plaids upon the stone bench which ran about the place,
and which appeared to have been hewn out at some past
time by the rude art of man.  But I myself, to whom it
came as natural to be stirring as to breathe, set about
making a further exploration.

Now my disappointment was great when I found that
we had indeed come to the limit of the cavern.  Search
which way I would, my hands encountered nothing but
rock.  Nevertheless, I continued my circuit, standing upon
the stone ledge and groping above me, for it was possible
that there was some fresh passage which from this alcove
might lead to the outer air.

Suddenly, while I was searching with my hands at the
top of the steps of stone, and, without the least warning, my
finger tips fell upon something which felt colder than the
stone.  I touched metal—then the projection of a keyhole,
then the iron corners of a chest.  I ran my hand along the
pattern of the metal bands which bound the lid.  What
wonder that my heart beat vehemently, for I knew in that
moment that I had my hand upon the Treasure of Kelwood!





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.. _`THE CAVE OF DEATH`:

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   CHAPTER XL


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   THE CAVE OF DEATH

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For a moment there in the darkness I stood dazed, and my
head swam, for I bethought me of the Earl's words, as well as
of the words of the Minister of Edinburgh, and I knew that
my fate stood upon tip-toe.  For here in the finding of this
box lay all my life, and it might be my love also.  But
again another thought crossed the first, damming back and
freezing the current of hot blood which surged to my heart.
The caird's words in the Grieve's kitchen also came back to
me, 'You will find the Treasure of Kelwood in the cave
of Sawny Bean in the head of Bennanbrack over against
Benerard.'

If this were so, there was little doubt but that we stood
in the most instant and imminent danger of our lives.  Yet
I could not bring myself to leave the treasure.  Doubtless I
ought to have done so, and hastened our escape for the sake
of the girls, Nell and Marjorie.  But I thought it might be
possible to convey the chest out, and so bring both our
quests to an end at once—that for treasure, by the recovery
of the box which had been lost and found, and then lost again
upon the Red Moss, and that of vengeance, by the certain
condemnation of the Auchendraynes upon Marjorie's evidence.

The next moment mighty fear took hold on me.  All that
I had heard since my childhood, about the unknown being
who dwelled upon the shore-side of Benane and lived no man
knew how, ran through my mind—his monstrous form, his
cloven feet that made steads on the ground like those of
a beast, his huge, hairy arms, clawed at the finger ends like
the toes of a bear.  I minded me of the fireside tales of
travellers who had lost their way in that fastness, and who,
falling into the power of his savage tribe, returned no more
to kindlier places.  I minded also how none might speak
to the prowler by night, nor get answer from him—how
every expedition against him had come to naught, because
that he was protected by a power stronger than himself,
warned and advised by an intelligence higher than his own.
Besides, none had been able to find the abode, nor yet to
enter into the secret defences where lurked the man-beast of
Benerard.

And it was in this abode of death that I, Launce Kennedy,
being, as I supposed, in my sane mind, had taken refuge
with two women, one the dearest to me on earth.  The
blood ran pingling and pricking in my veins at the thought.
My heart cords tightened as though it too had been shut
in a box and the key turned.

Hastily I slipped down, and upon a pretext took the
Dominie aside to tell him what it was that I had found.

'Ye have found our dead warrant then.  I wish we had
never seen your treasures and brass-banded boxes!' said he
roughly, as if I had done it with intent.

And in troth I began to think he was right.  But it
was none of my fault, and, so far as I could see, we had been
just as badly off in that place, if I had not found it at all.

After that I went ranging hither and thither among all
the passages and twinings of the cave, yet never daring to go
very far from the place where we were, lest I should not
be able to find my way back.  For it was an ill, murderous,
uncanny abode, where every step that I took something
strange swept across my face or slithered clammily along
my cheek, making me grue to my very bone marrows.  I am
as fond of a nimble fetch of adventures as any man, as
every believing reader of this chronicle kens well by this
time, but I want no more such darkling experiences—specially
now that I am become a peaceable man, and no
longer so regardlessly forward as I once was, in thrusting
myself into all stirs and quarrels up to the elbows.

Then in a little I went soft-footed to where Marjorie
and Nell had bestowed themselves.  When I told them how
we had run into danger with a folly and senselessness that
nothing could have excused—save the great necessity into
which, by the hellish fury of our enemies, we had been
driven—it was indeed cheerful to hear their words of trust
and their declarations that they could abide the issue with
fortitude.

So a little heartened, we made such preparations as we
could—as preparing our pistols and loosening our swords.
Yet all had to be done by touch, in that abode of darkness
and black, un-Christian deeds.

It was silent and eerie beyond telling in the cave.  We
heard the water lapping further and further from us as it
retreated down the long passage.  Now and then we seemed
to catch a gliff of the noise of human voices.  But again,
when we listened, it seemed naught but the wind blowing
every way through the passages and halls of the cave, or
the echoed wing-beatings of the uncanny things that
battened in the roofs and crevices of this murtherous cavern,
unfathomed, unsounded, and obscure.

But we had not long to wait ere our courage and
resolution were tested to the uttermost.  For presently
there came to us, clearly enough, though faintly at first,
the crying and baying of voices fearful and threatening.
Indeed they sounded more like the insensate howling of dogs
or shut-up hungry hounds in a kennel than kindly human
creatures.  Then there was empty silence, through which
the noise came in gusts like the sudden, deadly anger of a
mob.  Again it came, more sharp and double-edged with
fear, like the wailing of women led to unpitied doom.  And
the sound of this inhuman carnival, approaching, filled the
cave with shuddering.

This direful crying came nearer and nearer, till we all
cowered paleface together, save Marjorie alone—who, having
been, as it were, in hell itself, feared not the most merciless
fiends that might have broken loose therefrom.  She stood
a little apart from us, so far that I had not known her
presence but for the draught of air that blew inward, which
carried her light robe towards me, so that its texture
touched my face, and I was aware of the old subtle
fragrance which in happy days had well-nigh turned my
head in the gardens of Culzean.

But Nell Kennedy stood close to me, so close that I
could hear her heart beating and the little nervous sound of
the clasping and the unclasping of her hands—which thing
made me somewhat braver, especially when she put both her
palms about my arm and gripped it convulsively to her, as
the noises of the crying and howling waxed louder and
nearer.

'I am vexed that I flouted you, Launce,' she whispered
in my ear.  'I do not care a docken what you said to Kate
Allison.  After all, she is not such a truth-telling girl, nor
yet by-ordinary bonny.'

I whispered to her that I cared not either, but that I
was content to die for her.

'Oh, but you might have lived for me,' she moaned,
'if I had not led you into all this trouble.'

'Nay, Nell, my dear,' said I, hastily, 'speak not so.
You have ever been our saviour and our best fortune
hitherto, and so shall be yet.'

Then (mock us not) in the darkness of the cave we
kissed each other once or twice, amorously and willingly,
and the savour of it was passing sweet even when we looked
for naught but death.

'Give me a dagger,' Nell said to me, and I gave mine
own to her, which she put away in her bosom, as I judged,
and again took my hand.

Then the horrid brabblement filled all the cave, and
sounded louder and more outrageous, being heard in
darkness.  Suddenly, however, the murky gloom was shot
through with beams of light, and a rout of savages, wild
and bloody, filled the wide cave beneath us.  Some of them
carried rude torches, and others had various sorts of
back-burdens, which they cast down in the corners.  I gat a gliff
of one of these, and though in battle I had often seen things
grim and butcherly, my heart now sprang to my mouth, so
that I had well-nigh fainted with loathing.  But I commanded
myself, and thrust me before Nell, who from where
she sat could only see the flickering skarrow of the torches
upon the roof and walls—for the place seemed now,
after the former darkness of Egypt, fairly bursting with
light.

Then I knew that these execrable hell-hounds must be
the hideous crew who called Sawny Bean lord and master.
They were of both sexes and all ages, mostly running naked,
the more stalwart of them armed with knives and whingers,
or with knotted pieces of tree in which a ragged stone had
been thrust and tied with sinew or tags of rope.  The very
tottering children were striking at one another, or biting
like young wolves, till the blood flowed.  In the corner sat
an old bleared hag, who seemed of some authority over
them, for she pointed with her finger, and the uproar calmed
itself a little.  The shameless naked women-crew began to
bestir themselves, and heaped broken driftwood upon the
floor, to which presently a light was set.

Then the red climbing flame went upward.  The wood
smoke filled the cave, acrid and tickling, which, getting into
our throats, might have worked us infinite danger, had it not
been that the clamour of the savages was so great that it
never stilled for a moment.  But in time we became
accustomed to the reek, and it disturbed us not.

More by luck than good guiding, the place where we
sat was, as I have said, favourably situate for seeing without
being seen—being a kind of natural balcony or chamber in
the wall, like a swallow's nest plastered under the eaves of
a barn.  We learned afterwards that it was a place
forbidden by Sawny Bean, the head of the clan, and so kept
sacred for himself when it should please him to retire
thither for his ease and pleasure, with whomsoever he would
of his unholy crew.  And to this no doubt we owed our
safety, for the young impish boys roamed everywhere else,
specially swarming and yelling about our boat, which they
had just discovered.  I noted, also, that when any of these
came in the way of the men, he was knocked down
incontinent with a hand, a knife, or a stick, as was most
convenient.  Sometimes the lad would lie a minute or two
where he had been struck, then up again, and to the
playing and disport he fell, as though nothing had
happened.

All this was horrid enough, but that was not the worst
of it, and I own that I hesitate to write that which I
saw.  Yet, for the sake of the truth, tell I must and will.
The cavern was very high in the midst, but at the sides not
so high—rather like the sloping roof of an attic which
slants quickly down from the rooftree.  But that which
took my eye amid the smoke were certain vague shapes, as
it had been of the limbs of human beings, shrunk and
blackened, which hung in rows on either side of the cave.
At first it seemed that my eyes must certainly deceive me,
for the reek drifted hither and thither, and made the
rheum flow from them with its bitterness.  But after a little
study of these wall adornments, I could make nothing else
of it, than that these poor relics, which hung in rows from the
roof of the cave like hams and black puddings set to dry in
the smoke, were indeed no other than the parched arms and
legs of men and women who had once walked the upper
earth—but who by misfortune had fallen into the power
of this hideous, inconceivable gang of monstrous
man-eaters.  Then the true interpretation of all the tales
that went floating about the countryside, and which I
had hitherto deemed wholly vain and fantastical, burst
upon me.

But there was that nearer to me which smote me down
like a blow taking a man at unawares.  As I stood up
to look, gripping nervously at my sword and peering over,
there came a gust off the sea, roaring up the passages of the
cavern.  For with the moon the wind had risen without.
The fire on the floor flickered upward and filled the place
with light.  I felt something touch my cheek.  Speedily I
turned, and, lo! it was a little babe's hand that swung by a
cord.  The wind had caught it, so light it was, and it had
rubbed my cheek.  By the Lord, it was enough and more
than enough.  I sank down and the spirit within me became
water because of that soft, sliding little hand.  Had the
naked devils come on to me then, I declare I had not found
power to lift my hand against them, nor so much as to set a
finger to the latch of a pistol.

But in a little while I was strengthened, for now,
as though I had never seen her before, I saw the true
face of the brave lass Nell Kennedy.  And it is passing
sweet, even in the presence of death, to see the eyes of the
beloved for the first time after declared and unashamed love
has come into them.  She never took her sad, steadfast regard
from my face, and, as I say, I was infinitely strengthened
thereby.

I could also mark Marjorie Kennedy.  And since she
stood erect, I knew that she had seen all the blasting horrors
I had witnessed—except, perhaps, the babe's hand a-swing
by its cord.  Yet there was no blanching of her face.
Rather, she stood and eyed the scene with a calm and assured
countenance, like to a stake-kissing martyr ere the flames
are lit.

If ever any soul had cast out fear it was that of Marjorie
Kennedy, for unfathomed hate can do that as well as
perfect love—and especially in a woman.

But when my eyes fell on Dominie Mure, I got a yet
greater start.  The little, thickset man, who had been my
brave companion through such a multitude of dangers, seemed
to be transformed.  A still and biting fury sat inexorably on
his lips.  He gripped his blade as if he would spring straight
over the wall of rock upon the bestial crew.  So afraid was
I to look upon him and read his intent in his burning eyes,
that I undid for a moment the clasp of Nell's hand upon my
shoulder and crawled to him.

'Have a care what you do, Dominie,' I whispered in his
ear.  'Remember, it is of the women we have to think.'

For as clearly as if I had read it in print, I saw his desire
and his determination.  He thought of young Mary Torrance,
the lass that had been spirited away.  And the red stain on
the grass, and the ghastly garniture about the walls of the
monster's cave, had revealed to him the conclusion of the
untold tale.

But my words stopped him dead, like a bullet in the
heart of a springing wild cat on the bough.  He looked
just once at me, and his eyes had the same wild glare.  But
there came that into them which told me of a thought
greater than the stark revenge on which he had been all
intent but a few moments before.

I bent still nearer to his ear.

'Dominie,' I said, 'if they come at us, mind that we
are not to leave the lasses alive to fall into their bloody
hands.'

He looked at me with a haggard face and shook
his head.

'I cannot do it!' he said, and set his hands over his
eyes to hide the torches' flare.

When he looked up again I pointed to the loathed
things that decked the walls in the eaves of the cave, and
to the pickle barrels that stood in the corners.

The Dominie understood and nodded.

'Surely you can if *I* can,' I whispered to him.  'I will
take care of Nell—my love, if you—'

And I looked at Marjorie so that he understood fully.
Then came my eyes back to Nell.  They felt hot and dry.

For I was taken with the reek in them, and my heart rose
within me to think that in a swift tale of moments I might
have to take away the sweet life from my own heart's love.
But when I went back to her, there was a new light of
understanding in the face on which the flicker of the fire
was reflected from the roof.  I knew that she had seen and
understood the import of my colloquy with the Dominie,
and our looking from the one to the other of them.

Yet the fear had strangely gone from her face.  I
declare she looked almost glad.  She set her lips to my
ear.

'Launce,' she whispered, 'I want none but you to do
it—if so be that it comes to that.  You will, will you
not, Launce?'

Then I knew that she had understood all the love she
had seen in my face.  For, indeed, I would rather had killed
my sweetheart a hundred times, than let her fall alive into
the hands of such a ghastly, bestial devil's crew.

So Nell Kennedy, trusting me with the manner of
her death as though it had been a little love-tryst between
ourselves, sat looking up at me with such eyes of love and
trust that they went nigh to make me forget that
Cimmerian den and the ghoulish beasts that rioted in it.





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.. _`THE WERE-WOLF OF BENERARD`:

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   CHAPTER XLI


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   THE WERE-WOLF OF BENERARD

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Thus we sat a long time, waiting.  Suddenly there was
a pause in the noise which filled the cavern below.  I
thought for a moment that they had discovered us.  But
Marjorie moved her hand a little to bid me keep down.
And very carefully I raised my head over the rock, so
that through the niche I could as before look down upon
them.

The water-door of the cave was now entirely filled
by a black bulk, in shape like a grizzly ape.  Even in
the flickering light I knew instantly that I had seen the
monster before.  A thrill ran through me when I
remembered the man-beast, the thing with which I had
grappled in the barn of Culzean the night I out-faced the
Grey Man.  And now by the silence and the crouching
of the horde beneath me, I learned that their master had
come home.  The monster stood a moment in the doorway
as though angered at something, then he spoke in
a voice like a beast's growl, certain things which I could
not at all understand—though it was clear that his progeny
did, for there ensued a tumultuous rushing from side to side.
Then Sawny Bean strode into the midst of his den.  It
happened that by misadventure he stumbled and set his foot
upon a lad of six or seven, judging by the size of him, who
sprawled naked in the doorway.  The imp squirmed round
like a serpent and bit Sawny Bean in the leg, whereat
he stooped, and catching the lad by the feet, he dashed
his head with a dull crash against the wall, and threw him
quivering like a dead rabbit into the corner.

The rest stood for a moment aghast.  But in a trice, and
without a single one so much as going to see if the boy
were dead or only stunned, the whole hornet's byke hummed
again, and the place was filled with a stifling smell of burning
fat and roasting victual, upon the origin of which I dared
not let my mind for a moment dwell.

When Sawny Bean came in, he had that which looked
like a rich cloth of gold over his arm—the plunder of some
poor butchered wretch, belike.  He stood with this trophy
in front of him, examining it before the fire.  Presently he
threw it over his shoulders, with the arms hanging idly down
in front, and strode about most like a play-actor or a mad
person—but manifestly to his own great content and to the
huge admiration of his followers, who stood still and gaped
after him.

When he had satisfied himself with this posturing, the
monster looked towards our place of refuge.  A great spasm
seized my heart when I saw him take the first step towards
us, for I guessed that it was his forbidden treasure-house in
which we lurked.

So I thought it had certainly come to the last bitter push
with us.  But something yet more terrible than the matter
of the boy diverted for the moment the monster's attention.
The lad whom he had cast to the side had been left alone,
none daring to meddle.  But now, as he passed him, Sawny
Bean gave the body a toss with his foot.  At this, quick as
a darting falcon on the stoop, a woman sprang at him from,
a crevice where she had been crouching—at least by her
shape she was a woman, with long elf-locks twisting like
snakes about her brow and over her shoulders.  She held an
open knife in her hand, and she struck at the chieftain's
hairy breast.  I heard the point strike the flesh, and the cry
of anger and pain which followed.  But the monster caught
the woman by the wrist, pulled her over his knee, and bent
back her head.  It was a horrid thing to see, and there is
small wonder that I can see it yet in many a dream of the
night.  And no doubt also I shall see it till I die—hear it
as well, which is worse.

Then for a long season I could look no more.  But when
I had recovered me a little, and could again command my
heart, I saw a great part of the crew swarm thick as
flies—fetching, carrying, and working like bees upon spilled
honey about the corner where had lain the bodies of the
lad and the woman.  But it was not in the ordinary way
that these were being prepared for burial.  In the centre of
the cave sat Sawny Bean, with some of the younger sort of
the women pawing over him and bandaging his wounded
shoulder.  He was growling and spitting inarticulately all
the while like a wild cat.  And every time his shoulder hurt
him as the women worked with the wound and mouthed
it, he would take his other hand and strike one of them
down, as though it was to her that he owed the twinge of
pain.

Presently the monster arose and took the gold brocade
again in his hand.  I thought that of a certainty now our
time was come, and I looked at Nell Kennedy.

God knows what was in my eyes.  My heart within
me was ready to break, for the like of this pass had never
man been in.  That I should have to smite my love to the
death within an hour of my first kiss and the first owning
of her affection.

But she that loved me read my thought in mine eyes.

She bared her neck for me, so that I could see its tender
whiteness in the flicker of the fire.

'Strike there,' she said, 'and let me die in your arms,
who art my own heart's love, Launcelot Kennedy.'

I heard the beast-man's step on the stair.  I looked
from Nell's dear neck to her eyes and back again to her
bosom.  Then I lifted my hand with the steel in it, and
nerved myself for the striking, for I must make no mistake.
And even in that moment I saw the gleam of a dagger in
Marjorie's hand also.

Suddenly a tremendous rush of sound filled the cave.
The blade fell from my hand, and by instinct, not knowing
what we did, Nell and I clasped one another.  The clamour
seemed to be about us and all round us.  Roaring echoes
came back to us.  The bowels of the earth quaked.  Yet
methought there was something strongly familiar in the
sound of it.  I turned me about, and there, standing erect
with all his little height was the Dominie.  His cheeks
were distended, and he was blowing upon his great
war-pipes such a thunderous pibroch as never had been heard
east of the Minch since the island pipes skirled on the Red
Harlaw.

What madcap possession had come upon his mind, I
know not.  But the effect I can tell.  The pack of fiends
that caroused and slew beneath, stood stricken a moment
in amaze at the dreadful, incomprehensible sounds.  Then
they fled helter-skelter, yellyhooing with fear, down the
narrow sea-way from which the tide had now fully ebbed.
And when I looked again, there was not a soul to be seen.
Only over the edge of a lappered cauldron the body of the
murdered woman (or, at least, a part of it), lay doubled—a
bloody incentive to make haste out of this direful
Cave of Death.

The Dominie stepped down from our hidden alcove as
though he had been leading a march, strutting and passaging
like the King's piper marching about the banqueting table
at Holyrood.  I declare the creature seemed 'fey.'  He was
certainly possessed with a devil.  But the very fearlessness of
the deed won into our veins also, for with steel or pistol
in each of our hands we marched after him—ready, and,
indeed, eager, to encounter aught that might come in our
way.  Ay, and even thus we passed out of the cave, hasting
down the long passage without a quiver of the heart or a
blenching of the cheek—so suddenly and so starkly, by way
of unexpected hope, had the glorious music brought the hot
blood back to our hearts, even as it had stricken our cruel
foes with instant terror.

Thus dryshod we marched out of the cave of Sawny
Bean, and, as I am a true man, not so much as a dog
barked at us.  But when we emerged into the grey of a
stormy morning and reached the cliff's edge, we heard
inland the wild voices of the gang yelling down the
wind, as though the furies of fear were still pursuing them
and tearing at their vitals.  What they expected I know
not, but I conceive that they must have taken the
Dominie's pipes for whatever particular devil they happened
to believe in, come to take them quick to their own place.
Which, after all, could not be much worse than the den
in which we had seen them at their disport.  Nor could
all the torturing fiends of lowest hell have been their
marrows in devilish cruelty.





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.. _`ANE LOCHABER AIX GIED HIM HIS PAIKS`:

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   CHAPTER XLII


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   ANE LOCHABER AIX GIED HIM HIS PAIKS

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So once more the world was before us, and strangely peaceful
it seemed, as if somehow or other we had died in stress
and riot and been born again into an uncanny quiet.  There
remained for us now only the bringing to pass of righteous
judgments upon the wicked ones who had compassed and
plotted all this terrible tale of evils—these murders without
end, these hellish cruelties and death-breeding deceits.  For
the vengeance must not fall alone on the crazed outlaw and
his brood, since the chief criminals were those that were
greater and wiser than Sawny Bean and his merciless crew.

It was, as I say, the breaking of a stormy morrow when
we faced up the brae, sword in hand, finding none to
withstand us, for all had fled before the music of the wild
Highland drones.  Then in the sustaining quiet I asked
the Dominie by what inspiration he had thought of such
a mad thing as thus blasting upon the war-pipes.

'Oh it just came to me!' said he, lightly.  And with
that he wiped his chanter and set the drones under his arm,
letting them hang down as though they had been the legs
of a lamb which a herd has found on the hill.

But our troubles were not yet over, for we had to pass
through many miles of Bargany country ere we could reach
our own folk.  I proposed to turn landwards, for that, as
the crow flies, is the shortest road.  But the Dominie
denied me, saying that since those cruel monsters of the
were-wolfs band had fled that way, the closer we kept to
the coast, the safer we should be.

We made, therefore, only such a detour as would enable us
to escape the town of Girvan, which was a strength of our foes,
and passing by Killochan, a pleasant and friendly tower, well
set in a wooded valley with a view of our old strength of
Ailsa, we hastened as fast as we could march with the
women in our company to Culzean.

Now near by Killochan there was a school and a schoolmaster,
the name of him John Guid.  He had been for a
long season a friend and crony of our Dominie Mure.  To
him we resorted, or rather the Dominie went alone to seek
him, while I abode with Marjorie and Nell.  It was over in
the afternoon when he came back, and what was our joy to
hear behind him the trampling of a pair of hardy ponies, for
with the weariness of her terrible quest and the stress of the
night in the Cave of Death, Marjorie looked dismally near
to her end.  And, indeed, I am not sure that Nell was
greatly better.

Marjorie had passed some part of the long march in
telling us in bits and snatches the tale of her sufferings,
her flight and capture, and how by evil and hateful hands
she had been flung into the water from off the Heuch of
Benerard.

It was a tale of most tyrannous wrong, and shall be
kept for its own place, when Marjorie came to tell it to
a greater and more powerful than either Launcelot Kennedy
or Dominie Mure of Maybole.

I shall, therefore, let the reader wait yet a brief space for
the explanation of many things which are dark to him
now, and which had been equally dark to me till that
gusty, rain-plashing morning.

So we four fared northward over the moors of Carrick,
with Marjorie and Nell riding upon the garrons, and the
Dominie and myself hasting along by their side with a
hand apiece in their stirrup-leathers.  We were just by
the edge of the Red Moss, and going straight and snell
for my Lord Earl's house of Cassillis, when Nell, who
was ever our most keen-eyed watcher, cried out that we
were pursued.  And when I had turned me about and
looked, I saw that of a surety it was so.

Then I thought that if it should happen that we were
attacked, it might be as well to have the advantage of
position.  So I posted our party on a little heathery mound,
having an open lairy moss in front with dangerous quags,
trembling bogs, and square black islands of moss and
peat standing in the midst, all gashed and riven.  Here
we waited, the two men of us under arms in front,
and the maids standing close behind the horses, with the
bridles loose in their hands.

I had cast my cloak over the shoulder of Nell's sheltie to
clear my arms for the fray, if indeed it should come to the clash
of blows; and it pleased me well to see her catch it without a
word, and fold it like a wife who watches her husband and is
pleased to anticipate his need.  This indeed (I say it twice)
pleased me well, for I knew that she had done with daffing
with me any more, and that she had at last forgotten all
the matters concerning that pretty tell-tale Kate Allison.

The three men who rode toward us were at first to
our sight like ships low down on the sea-line.  But they
mounted steadily, spears and pennons first, after that the
shine of armour, and then the heads of their horses, becking
and bowing with the travail of the moss.

Then verily we that stood had anxious hearts, for we
knew not whether they might chance to be friend or foe,
and, indeed, it was well that we looked for the worst.  As
they came nearer we saw that the two who rode ahead were
armed in a knightly way, and gripped lances in their hands.
But the third, who came behind and held a little aloof,
was plainly clad in a grey cloak and hat.

'It is Auchendrayne and a younger man, with the Wolf
of Drummurchie in their company; it could not well be
worse,' said the Dominie.  'We are like to be hard
bested.'

And I knew that Marjorie Kennedy looked once more
upon the man who, in cold blood, had slain her father, and
also upon the man who according to the law, was her
husband.

I had looked for them to call a parley, and had set
myself in front to acquit me well in the barter of words
before the damsels; but I was not prepared for the event
as it happened.

For without a word of preamble, warning or speech-making,
John Mure of Auchendrayne (he in the cloak of
grey) cried out, 'Have at them!  Slay them every one!
'Tis now too late for whimsies.  It is our lives for theirs
if we do not.'

So with that the two younger men-at-arms came on,
couching their long lances and riding directly at us.  I
stuck my sword downward by the point, naked in the soft
moss at my side, so that I should not have it to draw out
of the sheath when it came to the pinch.  And for the last
time I looked at my pistol priming, and longed horribly for
one of my lord's new hackbutts of the French pattern out
of the armoury of Cassillis.

But wishing would not bring them or I had had a dozen,
each with a good Culzean man behind it, with his finger
on the touch.  But yet you may depend that my imagination
bodied them forth, standing there useless in the press,
oiled and burnished, as I had seen them.  And all the while
the two villains came on.

Now, in a plain place we had had but little chance to
stand against them, cumbered with the women as we were;
but the peat hag I had chosen for our defence on the edge
of the Red Moss favoured us.  When, however, I had fired
my pistol and made nothing of it, save only the clink of the
bullet whizzing off the plate metal, they got time to ride
round the main obstruction.  Then it had gone hard with
us indeed, but that the Dominie Mure, as the horses came
forward, blew so sudden a snorting blast upon his pipes, that
one of the steeds swerved and stumbled, almost throwing
his rider to the ground.  Then, ere he had time to recover,
the Dominie was upon him with his sword, springing upward
and striking like an angry etter-cap ever at the face,
so that it took the horseman all his time to defend himself.

The other drave at me full tilt with his long spear, and
though I leapt aside from the lance-thrust, I, with only my
pistol and sword, had been no better than a dead man at
the next turn.  But Marjorie Kennedy, giving the bridle
reins of both horses to her sister, seized the Dominie's
Lochaber axe.  She sprang behind the visored man, and,
hooking the bent prong in his gorget collar behind, she
pulled him down from his horse with a clash of armour.
Then, after that, there remained nothing for me to do, but
to set my sword to his throat and bid him yield himself.

By this time the frightened horse which had stumbled
first became perfectly mad, and turning in spite of all that
Thomas of Drummurchie could do, it galloped away with
him, belly-to-earth, across the Red Moss.

Then the man in the grey cloak also put his horse to
its speed, so soon as he saw how the matter was like to go.
For he had kept at a distance and taken no part in the
fighting.  We were therefore left alone, victorious, without
a wound, and with the man in the visor, our prisoner.

He seemed to be stunned with his fall, so Marjorie
stooped and undid his laced steel-cap, shelling his head as
one shells the husk of a nut from the kernel.

The man whom she revealed was James Mure the
younger of Auchendrayne, her wedded husband.

We stood thus some time in wonderment what should be
the upshot.  Marjorie Kennedy (I cannot while I live call
her by any other name) stood looking down at the man to
whom in foulest treachery she had been given.  Then after
a while Nell touched my arm, and lo! on the Moss, there
was yet another man on horseback coming towards us.  I
knew the beast.  It was the same on which the Wolf of
Drummurchie had ridden.  But the man was other than
the Wolf.

The thing was a mystery to us.

But at last Nell, whose eyes were like an eagle's for
keenness—though, as I have before observed, of heavenly beauty,
cried out, 'It is Robert Harburgh—we are saved!'  Which
was no great things of a saying, for I myself had saved her
ten times during that last night and day, if it came to any
talk of saving.  Yet I think from that moment she began
to draw away a little from me.  Whether as remembering
some of my old ploys with that tricksy lass who was now
Robert Harburgh's wife, or partly lest she should have
seemed to be over-ready in owning her love for me.

At any rate, after I had thought over her unkindness
and sudden chill a little while, I was not sure that it might
not be after all the best sign in the world.  For as the
reader of this chronicle must have gathered, I am a man
of some penetration in these matters, and it is not given to
any woman to twine Launcelot Kennedy in a knot about
her little finger.

Also I have had very considerable experience.

'Faith,' cried Robert Harburgh, when he had ridden up,
'whom have we here?'

I answered him with another question.

'Where gat ye that horse, Robert?'

'I got it,' he replied, readily and also calmly, 'from a
man that is little likely to need it again, at least for a tale
of months.'

'From Thomas of Drummurchie?' I asked.

'Who else?' said Harburgh, simply, as though the fact
had been sufficient explanation; as, indeed, it was—in the
way he said it.

But all the while Marjorie stood looking calmly down at
James Mure.  He recovered little by little from the stunning
knock, and presently made as if he would sit up.

'Tie his hands,' said Marjorie Kennedy.  And then
seeing that we hesitated—'nay, give me the halter,' she said,
'I will do it myself.'  And there on the open moor, with
the bridle of his own beast, I declare she did the binding
featly and well.

'Now, listen, James Mure,' she said, raising her voice,
'ye have steeped your hands in my father's blood.  Ye have
shed yet more blood to cover that crime, even the blood of
an innocent young child.  With these hands that are tied,
you did these things.  I am your wife.  I will never
leave you nor forsake you till you die.  I will see that
you have fair and honourable trial; but be assured that I
shall testify against you truly as to that which I know and
have seen.

She turned to us with her old easy way of command,
imperiously gracious, but sharper a little than her ordinary.
'Mount him on that horse,' she said, like a queen who
issues commands to her court.

And this was she who had walked gladsomely with me
in the garden at Culzean, and who in smiling maidenly
condescension had given a love-sick boy her favour to wear.
What agony of hell had passed over her spirit thus to turn
the sweet maiden to a woman of stone?

'Whither shall we take him?' said I, for it seemed to
me not at all expedient to delay longer than we could help
in that disturbed and fatal part of the country.

'To the Earl, on his way to the King!' replied Marjorie
Kennedy.

'If ye bide still half-an-hour where ye are, ye will see
the Earl come hither,' said Robert Harburgh.  'He rides to
the south to hold his yearly Court of Bailiary on the borders
of Carrick.'

For since the great defeat of the Bargany faction, and
the death of the young chief at the gate of Maybole upon
that memorable day of snow, my Lord Cassillis had gained
more and more in power, so that none now was able to
make any head openly against him.  The death of Sir
Thomas, my good master, had also thrown all that
additional weight of authority upon his shoulders.  Indeed
Earl John bode fair to be what his father had been before
him—the King of Carrick.

His titular jurisdiction had always included the southern
parts of the district.  But it was only of late that he had
made himself so strong as to be able to enforce his authority
there.

Now, however, Earl John was riding to hold his Court
near Girvan, in a country which not a great while ago had
been purely a stronghold of his enemies, and which still
swarmed with the disaffected and rebellious.

So even while we stood and waited there, Nell cried out
that a cavalcade rode southward toward us by the edge of
the Red Moss.  It was not long before we could discern
the fluttering pennons of blue and gold, which denoted the
presence of the Earl.  He had with him a noble retinue of
well-nigh four hundred—all handsomely armed—many of
them knights and gentlemen of his own name.

We waited for them to come up with us, I meanwhile
keeping close by Nell's side, and Marjorie Kennedy standing
steadfastly at her husband's head and looking at him, while
Robert Harburgh marched up and down with his hands under
his points and whistled the 'Broom o' the Cowdenknowes.'

When the Earl John, riding first as was his custom,
perceived who we were, he lighted down with much courtesy
to salute his cousins.

'How do you, ladies?  And what, by the grace of God,
brings you hither with so small a company in such a
dangerous place?'

Then said Marjorie, 'Earl of Cassillis, you are my
cousin; but you are also Bailzie of Carrick and hold the
power of life and death.  I take you and all your company
to witness that I deliver over to you this man, called James
Mure of Auchendrayne.  He is twice a convict murderer—right
cruelly he slew my father and your uncle, and I charge
him also with the fact of the murder of William Dalrymple,
a poor boy of tender years, whom he killed with his own
hands to cover the first deed—both which accusations I
shall in due time make good.'

The Earl was manifestly mightily astonished, as well he
might be, at the Lady Marjorie's declaration; but he was
glad also, because it was no light thing for him to lay
the enemy of his house by the heels, and, seeing good
prospect of getting the Mures attainted and denounced,
to be able to make himself omnipotent in all the lands of
the south.

'Bring the man along with us!' he commanded.  'Let
him have all tendance and care; but let a double guard be
placed over him.'

'I will be his guard!' said Marjorie, firmly.  'I, and
no other!'

Nevertheless, Earl John named a retinue to ride with
Marjorie and her husband, in the name of a guard of
honour; but really because he felt his fingers already on
the throat of his house's enemy.

And as we rode back the way we had come—now no
longer in fear and trembling, but in manifest state and
pomp—Marjorie sate humbly upon a sheltie by the side
of the man who was lawfully her husband, and yet whom
she had most sacredly vowed to bring to the gallows.

And for the present the Dominie and I resolved to keep
the secret of the Cave of Death, and of the fearsome inner
place where was bestowed the Treasure of Kelwood.

But immediately after the Court of Justiceaire I resolved
to make it known to the Earl, for so Nell and I had made
our compact.  And as for the Dominie he might be relied
upon to speak or to be silent even as I bade him.





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.. _`THE MOOT HILL OF GIRVAN`:

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   CHAPTER XLIII


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   THE MOOT HILL OF GIRVAN

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As may well be imagined, two hundred gentlemen with
their retinue of as many more of the commonalty made a
gallant stir, and required almost the providing of an army.
So that as we went southward the people were well warned
to repair to the Court of my Lord Bailzie of Carrick, for the
office of Earl John was the greatest of the Lowland hereditary
jurisdictions.  Though the house of Cassillis has never
been so beloved of the people nor yet so careful of their
rights as that of the Agnews of Lochnaw, who from very
ancient times have been Sheriffs of Galloway.

Nevertheless, it was a right solemn gathering which
assembled on the little hill outside the town of Girvan,
where such feudal courts had always been held.  Within
the enclosure, formed by the fluttering blue and gold
pennons of the Earl, there was set a high seat for Cassillis
himself.  In front of him, at a draped table, sat his adviser
and assessor, Lawyer Boyd of Penkill, while all round
the gentlemen of his house and name sat or stood according
to their degree, just outside the line of pennons, within
which none might come save the accused and they who
gave their evidence.

Then the trumpeter from the summit of the Moot Hill
of Girvan made proclamation with three blasts of his
horn that the session was open, and that all men's causes
were to be brought to the probation.

First there came sundry usual complaints of stouthreif
and oppression, for the country was yet very unsettled.  A
woman cried for vengeance on Thomas of Drummurchie,
called the Wolf, for the carrying off of her daughter.  But
as Drummurchie was already ten times attainted, it seemed
as though little would come of it.

But Robert Harburgh strode forward and cried out,
'By your leave, Earl of Cassillis, the Wolf of Drummurchie
will carry off no more tender lambs, neither mell
with other men's wives any more.  The dainty ladies of
Ayr need no more draw their purses to rescue him, neither
to provide him with costly gear.  For he has gone to a
country where he shall be keeped bien and warm, beiking
forever foment the hottest fires of Satan, so lately his master
here on earth!'

And with that he threw the arms and accoutrement of
the Wolf on the green with prodigious clatterment.

'But this,' said the Earl John, 'though greatly creditable
to our squire and of excellent omen for the peace of Carrick
from this day forth, gives not this poor woman again her
daughter.'

For he did not wish to assign any reward to Robert
Harburgh besides the lands which had already been given
him, perhaps desiring to retain so valiant a sworder near
to his own person and estate.

'I had been to the house of Drummurchie ere I settled
accounts with the Wolf himself,' replied Robert Harburgh,
in the same manner of exceeding quiet, 'and there have I
set all things in order, sending every man's daughter to
her father's house and every man's wife back to his keeping.'

'Retaining none for yourself!' cried Earl John, for
daffing's sake.  For that was his idea of a jest.

'Whatever my desires, I have married a wife that sees
to that—even as hath also my Lord Earl!' quoth Robert
Harburgh.

And so the laugh was turned against the Earl John,
because all knew how carefully the ancient Countess kept
the valleys about Cassillis and the Inch clear of buxom dames
and over-complacent maids.  For, in his youth, Earl John had
the name of being both generally and most subtly amorous.

Yet, strange to say, the jest thus broken at his expense,
put the Earl into a good key, for it was only the
outlay of money that he grudged.  So he cried out,
'Robert Harburgh, your tongue can be as sharp as your
rapier.  You have rid us of a great curse here in the
south, and there is muckle need in these parts of such a
sword and such a tongue as yours to keep the landward
oafs in civility.  You shall have the lands of Drummurchie,
with ten men's fighting charges to hold them against all evil
folk till such time as the land be quiet.'

And Robert Harburgh bowed low to his lord and
retired.  As he went I clapped him on the back, and said,
'Robert, I would that my long sword had done as muckle
for me.'

'Steady on the hilt!  Keep your point low, your tongue
silent, and it shall do more!' he answered over his shoulder
as he went by.

Then was brought forward James Mure of Auchendrayne,
clad only in the suit of russet leather which he had
worn under the mail wherein he had been taken.  He was
ever a hang-dog, ill-favoured oaf, and now looked sullenly
and silently upon the ground.

His names and titles were first declared.

'Who accuses this man, and of what?' cried Earl
John in loud tones.

And every man in the assembly moved a little, as
though he itched to be the accuser himself.  But since there
was none that directly knew of our adventure, no one
stood forth save our Marjorie and Nell, till I myself
stepped forth with them, with Robert Harburgh and the
Dominie a little behind us.

'Now speak out,' whispered Harburgh of the Long
Sword to me, 'and let your nimble wit win you a wife.'

And I looked at Nell, and resolved that if she slipped
through my fingers, it should not be the fault of my lack
of address.

'Who accuses this man?' cried the herald, taking the
word from his master, for the Lords of Carrick and
Cassillis were beyond the paltry fashion of pursuivants.

'I do!' said Marjorie Kennedy, and all men set their
eyes on her.  Neither, so long as the case lasted, did
they withdraw their eyes from her face.  Then she opened
her mouth and spoke firmly and sternly her accusation.

'I, Marjorie, daughter of the Tutor of Cassillis, in law
wife to this man, charge James Mure the younger of
Auchendrayne with the murder of my father, committed,
as all men know, upon the sandhills of Ayr.  I also accuse
him of the murder of William Dalrymple, the lad who
carried the message to Auchendrayne concerning my father's
journey.'

'Cousin,' said Earl John, 'you have doubtless abundant
proof to support these strange charges?'

Marjorie Kennedy stood up among us, tall like a lily
flower, and she held her head erect.

'Hear you, John of Cassillis, and all men,' she said.  'I
will tell my tale.  Of my own griefs I will say naught, for
in no realm do a woman's heart-breakings count for a
docken's value.  It is enough that my father in the
simplicity of his heart gave me to this man, as an innocent
sacrifice is cast to a monster to appease his ravening.  These
many months I dwelt in this man's castle.  I have been
prisoned, starved, tortured—yet all the Mures in
Auchendrayne could neither prevail to break my resolve, nor yet
could they close my mouth concerning the things which
I saw.

'And now I, that am no more bound to this man than
I was when he took me out of my father's house of
Culzean—I, who have never looked upon him that is my wedded
husband save with eyes of hatred, never lain by his side,
stand here to denounce James Mure and his father for black,
cruel, repeated, defenceless MURDER!'





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.. _`THE MURDER UPON THE BEACH`:

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   CHAPTER XLIV


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   THE MURDER UPON THE BEACH

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Marjorie Kennedy rang out the last words like a trumpet.
Not even the Earl's herald could have been heard further.

'All men hear my tale before they judge,' she went on.
'It was the morn before my father's death-day.  From my
window in the house of Auchendrayne I had seen this man
and his father, with Thomas of Drummurchie and Walter of
Cloncaird, come and go all day with trappings and harness,
because they knew that the time was nigh at hand for my
father's riding to Edinburgh.  It chanced that I was looking
down through the bars of my prison-house, for there was
little else to do in the house of Auchendrayne.  It was
about eleven of the clock when I saw a young lad, dusty
from head to foot, venture a little way within the castle yett
and stand as one that looks about him, not knowing where
to turn.  The court was void and silent, and the lad seemed
distressed.  But while he thus stood James Mure and his
father came down the turnpike stair and stepped, talking
whisperingly together, out into the flagged court.

'It was John Mure the elder who first saw the lad and
called him.  I saw the boy put a letter into his hand, the
which he opened carefully and read, passing it to his son,
who read also.  Then James Mure stepped back and called
Thomas of Drummurchie and Cloncaird.  They came both
of them, and the four bent their heads together over the
writing.

'Then in a little John Mure closed the letter again as it
had been and gave it with certain charges to the boy.'

'Saw you that letter or knew you aught of its contents?'
asked the Earl John.

'Nay,' said Marjorie Kennedy, 'my window was too far
from, them, and they spoke low and with privity among
themselves.'

Then was my time.

'My Lord Bailzie of Carrick,' said I, 'may it please you
it was I, Launcelot Kennedy of Kirrieoch, some time squire
to Sir Thomas of Culzean, who sent that letter.  I sent it
from Maybole by the hands of William Dalrymple, the lad
whom the Lady Marjorie saw come within the castle yett
of Auchendrayne.'

The Dominie stood forward.

'And it was I, Robert Mure, schoolmaster in the town
of Maybole, who wrote that letter.  I wrote it as Launcelot
Kennedy set me the words, for he is a man readier with
the sword than the pen, though he hath some small skill even
of that.  But that day he was hot upon his game of golf
(which I hold to be but a foolish sport which rapidly obscures
the senses), so I, having, as is mine office, pen in hand, wrote
the letter for him.  Also I sent one William Dalrymple,
called for a nickname Willie of the Gleg-foot, with it to
John Mure at his house of Auchendrayne.  I bear witness
that after a space this boy came back, with the story that he
had found John Mure from home.  But when we charged
it upon him that the letter had been thumbed and opened,
he grew confused and confessed that he had been compelled
to bring back that message by Mure himself, who had
broken the seal and given it again to him, even as the
Lady Marjorie has said.'

'And what further proof do you offer of all this?' asked
the Earl, bending forward with eagerness to catch the
Dominie's words.

The Dominie put his hand into the inner pocket of his
coat and pulled out, among various pipe reeds and scraps of
writing, a letter which he kept carefully folded in a leathern
case by itself.

'There is the thing itself; may it please your lordship to
look upon it,' said he, calmly.  And as soon as he had said
that, the Earl rose eagerly to see the famous missive which had
drought about all this turmoil.  There was also a stir among
the folk that were gathered about, for all strained their
eyes as if they could see that which was going on, and read
the writing at that distance.

'It is a most notable proof,' said the Earl, 'and so we
receive it.  But can you not produce the lad William
Dalrymple?'

'That can we not,' said the Lady Marjorie; 'but I,
and I alone, can tell you all the story of his death—blacker
even than the other, because done to a young lad against
whom even these cruel murderers could allege no quarrel.'

And again there could be heard the sound of men settling
down to deep attention throughout all the crowd at the diet
of Justiceaire.  And they even crowded in a little past the
pennons, so that the heralds had to beat upon the ground
with the butts of their halbards, as though to bruise their
feet, before they could force them to give back.  But James
Mure abode stupidlike and sullen before his judge, while his
accuser stood not three feet from him and told her story.

'It was just when the bruit of my father's death began to
go abroad against the Auchendraynes,' so Marjorie Kennedy
again took up her tale, 'and when John Mure the elder began
to fear that the matter of the letter would be made manifest,
that I again saw the little lad William Dalrymple.  One
night I observed James Mure leading him rudely by the
neck into one of the barred cells which underlie the stables.
And to that place with his own hands he carried food and
water once every day thereafter.

'Then came to visit John Mure one Sir Robert Montgomery,
the Laird of Skelmorlie.  And with him they sent
the lad, on pretext to be a page at his house of Loch Ranza,
which he keeps for the King's hunting lodge on the Isle
of Arran.  What befell there I cannot tell, but it was
not many weeks before William Dalrymple was back
again.  And this time they sent him (as he told me
afterwards) to the Lowlands of Holland, there to serve in the
Lord Buccleuch's regiment, which, first as a trumpeter
and after as a soldier, he did.  Nevertheless, being but
young, he wearied easily of the stress and chance of foreign
war, and so returned as before.

'Then when, in spite of all, the boy came back, and
it was told to John Mure that William Dalrymple was
again in his native town, he was neither to hold nor to
bind.  He neither rested nor slept till he had again brought
the lad to his house, where he abode for some weeks, but
not so closely shut up as before, so that it was often my
chance to see him as he came and went about the court,
and even to converse with him.  But in a little while he
vanished, and from that time I saw him no more.

'Now, the bitterness of my life and my desire to bring
to justice the murderers of my father caused me at last
to quit the house of Auchendrayne.  For now I held, as
I thought, the strings which would draw mine enemies
to their doom.  So upon a night I had it set to escape,
she that was my maid helping me, with one other that was
a body servant of Auchendrayne's and my tire-woman's lover.

'When I came out I found a pony waiting for me, and
it was my purpose to ride to the house of my kinsman, the
Earl of Cassillis.  But, as I journeyed, what was my great
affrightment to come upon a company of two, who rode some
little way before me.  I could easily have turned bridle-rein and
ridden another way, but for something which came into my
heart to make me follow on.  For in a trice I recognised the
riders to be John Mure and his son, the father being wrapped
in his great cloak of grey, as is his custom.  And by this
I knew him.

'So I followed them, but not very near.  And because
my beast was a stable companion of their horses, he went
after of his own accord—till, by the first breaking touch or
morn we came to a waste place upon the edge of the sea,
where in a secret dell I dismounted and tied my pony to a
broom-bush which shot out over a sandy hollow.

'Then, yet more secretly, I followed them across the
sandhills, and on the very edge on the links, where the
turf ceases underfoot and there is only sand, John Mure and
his son, this man before you, waited.  For a while they
stood listening and talking low together, so that, though I
lay hidden behind a whin which overgrew a little turfy dell, I
could neither hear what was said, nor yet by reason of the
bareness of the sand, dared I to adventure nearer them.
'But they waited not long before one came down to
meet them over the turf, bringing a lad with him.  Then,
immediately James Mure whistled a call, and the reply
came back in like manner.

'"You are late, James Bannatyne," I heard John Mure
the elder say; "what has taigled you?"

'"My sea cloth is not so well accustomed to night ploys
as your cloak of grey!" the man growled as he came along
sullenly enough.

'Then the three men of them walked a little apart, and
came in their circuit very near to the hollow where I lay.
While down on the shore the young lad stood and yawned,
with his hands in his pockets, like one that shivers and
wishes he were back in bed.  Nor had he, I am confident,
even then any thought of evil.

'But the talk of the three, as I heard it in snatches, was
black and bitter.

'The darkest counsel was that of the man who stands
here, for James Mure said only, "The dead are no
tale-pyets."  And again, "We have had enough of this silly,
endless, hiding-and-seeking work.  Let the earth hide him,
or the sea keep him—and be done with it!"

'Now John Mure the elder, and the man whom they
called James Bannatyne, seemed at the least inclined to
discuss milder councils.  Bannatyne was all for sending
the lad over to Ireland.  And John Mure listened as though
he might be persuaded.  Yet I knew his guile, for even
when he stood with his back to his son, I saw him lift up
his hand for a signal.  And with that and no more, James
Mure rushed at the poor lad and overbore him to the
ground.  And there upon the sands of the seashore, this
James Mure set his knee on the bairnie's breast, and with
bloody hands choked and worried him till there was no
life left in the lad.  And his father also went and held the
lad when he fought, his white, reverend beard waggling in
the wind, till at last the bairn lay still.  But James
Bannatyne stood by and clasped his hands, as the boy tossed and
struggled for his dear young life, for I think he was now
mainly sorry that he had brought the lad to his death.

'Then I could stand the vileness no longer without
protest.  So I, Marjorie Kennedy, even though I well
knew that they would certainly do the like to me, rose
from my hiding-place in the sand-hollow, and cried,
"Murderers, cease from your cruel work.  God will come
and judge you!"

'Whereat John Mure came hastily to where I stood and
gripped me.  "You have seen all," he said, "then you must
die.  Let us see if God will come and help you!"

'So I defied them to do their worst with me, for madness
had come upon me at the sight of the monstrous cruelty to
an innocent bairn.  And for the time I cared not what
should become of myself.

'Then I called to James Bannatyne requiring of him
to declare if he too were a murderer like the other fiends,
and to call upon him to protect the innocent.

'"We will settle all that in the one payment, mistress,"
said John Mure to me.

'So by force I was compelled to abide with them, John
Mure the elder taking me cruelly by the arm, while he
sent the others to cast into the sea the dead body of the lad.
But even so oft as they threw him in, so often the waves
cast him out again upon the shore; and that though there
was a strong wind off the land, which blew the tops from
the waves and drave the sand in hissing streams into the sea.

'So when for the third time the boy had been tumbled
upon the beach, John Mure bade Bannatyne bring his boat,
saying that they would cast the loon afloat out in the deeps
of the bay, so that the outerly wind might drive him to the
coast of Ireland.  After that they would return betimes to
attend to other matters—by which I took him to mean that
they would do that for me, which I had so lately seen them do
for the young boy.  And, indeed, I looked for no other mercy
at their brutal hands.  So in a little space James Bannatyne
brought his boat, and with hard endeavour they launched
her, and compelled me to accompany them.  There was a
strong wind from the east, and we were soon blown far
out into the wild sea.  There they cast the body of the
lad overboard, and turned to make again for the shore.
But though they all took oars and laboured in rowing,
sames Bannatyne taking twain, they could make nothing
of it; but were rather worse than they had been before
they started.

'So they began to be afraid, and I was right glad thereat,
for I looked that the doom of the twice guilty murderers
should speedily come.  And so the pain of this trial and my
witnessing might have been spared.

'Now the Mures were the most fearful of the quick-risen
storm, being as it were inland bred.  It was all that
James Bannatyne could get them to do to sit still.

'"Ye will wreck us all and send us red-hand before our
Maker, with the lad's body not cold in the water, and his
spirit there to meet us at the Judgment seat!" said he.

'And with that John Mure rose in his place, and in
despite of the swaying and plunging of the ship, into which
the water came lashing, he cried out, "The Wraith, the
Wraith!  It is following us—we are doomed!"'

'And lo! when I looked, I saw that which chilled me
more than the whistling tempest.  And if it feared me to
the soul, judge ye what it must have been to the guilty
men whose hands were yet red with the blood of the
innocent.

'For there, not thirty yards behind the boat, and
following strongly in our wake, as a stark swimmer might
do, now tumbling and leaping in the wash of the seas and
now lunging forward like a boat that is towed, was the
murdered boy himself.  And thus he followed with a smile
on his face, or what looked like it in the uncertain light of
the morning.

'So with that the men who rowed fell on their faces
and could not look any more, though the prodigy followed
us a good while.  Only John Mure sat wrapped in his grey
cloak steering the boat, and I sat beside him.  Little by
little we came to the land, but as it had been sideways,
having been driven by the wind to the other side of the
wide bay.

'There we disembarked and the Mures kept me close
all that day in a place of strength on the seashore, till it was
night.  They plied me to promise silence, for they believed
that I would keep my word if once I pledged it.  They
offered me all that they had of honour or place in the
country.  There was nothing, they said, that was not
within the power of their compassing.  For since the
death of Gilbert of Bargany the King needed someone
in Carrick strong enough to count spears with the Earl of
Cassillis.

'But very steadfastly I withstood them, declaring that
I should certainly reveal all their murder and treachery,
both in the matter of the death of my lather, and in that
which I had seen done upon the sands to the young lad
William Dalrymple.

'So finally seeing that they could prevail nothing, they
went out and kept silent watch by the door till the even.
Then as soon as it was dark they opened the lock and bade
me come forth.  And this I did, knowing for a certainty
that my last hour was come.  Yet my life had not been so
pleasant to me as to be very greatly precious.  So I followed
them with no very ill will, nor yet greatly concerned.
Then on the craggy top they gave me, for the sake of
their house and good name (as they said), one more chance
to swear silence.  This I would not accept, and they, being
startled with the approach of a boat upon the water which
steered towards our light, pinioned my arms, and thrusting
something into my mouth, forthwith threw me over the
cliff into the sea.  And as to the mode of my rescuing
and standing here before the Earl my cousin, young
Launcelot Kennedy, my father's squire, can tell.  And
also my sister and Robert Mure of Maybole.'





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.. _`THE MAN IN THE WIDE BREECHES`:

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   CHAPTER XLV


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   THE MAN IN THE WIDE BREECHES

.. vspace:: 2

She ceased suddenly after this long account of her
adventuring, and the folk stood still in amazement, having
held their breath while she told of the killing of young
William Dalrymple and of the Wraith.  And then there
arose a great cry from all the people,—

'Tear the murderer in pieces—kill him, kill him!'  So
that Cassillis had to summon men-at-arms to keep back that
throng of furious folk, for the death of my master seemed
to them but a little thing and venial, compared to the killing
of a lad like William Dalrymple.  And this was because
the people of Carrick had been used all their days to family
feuds and the expiation of blood by blood.

The Earl was about to call me up to give an account of
my part in the affair, and I was preparing myself to make a
good and creditable appearance—a thing which I have all
my life studied to do—when there was heard a mighty
crying in the rear of the Bailzie Court.  Men cried 'He comes!
He comes!' as though it had been some great one.  And
everybody turned their heads, to the no small annoyance of
Earl John, who when on his Hill of Justice loved not that
men should look in any other direction than his own.

The ranks of the men-at-arms opened, and there strode
into the square of trial, which was guarded by the pennons
of blue and gold at the four corners—who but John Mure
of Auchendrayne himself, wearing the same cloak of grey
and broad plumed hat which had been his wont when he
went abroad upon dangerous quests!  With him was another
shorter man, whose face was for the time being almost hidden,
for he had pulled the cloak he was wearing close about his
mouth.  He walked with an odd jolt or roll in his gait,
and his breeches were exceedingly broad in the basement.

It was small wonder that we stood aghast at this sudden
compearing of the arch criminal, whose misdeeds throughout
all the countryside had filled the cup of his wickedness
to the brim.

'Seize him!' cried the Earl, pointing directly at John
Mure.

And his Bailzie's men took him roughly by the shoulders
and set him beside his son.  Then it was to be noticed, as
the two stood together, that there was a great likeness
between father and son.  The elder man possessed the same
features without any evident differences in outline.  But so
informed was his face with intelligence and power, that
what was simply dull cruelty and loutishness in the one
became the guile of statecraft in the other.

'Wherefore, my Lord Earl,' cried John Mure of Auchendrayne,
'is this violence done to me and to the heir of my
house?  I demand to know concerning what we are called
in question and by whom?'

Then the Earl of Cassillis answered him,—

'John Mure of Auchendrayne, know then that you are
charged, along with this your son, with the bloody murder
of Sir Thomas Kennedy of Culzean, Tutor of Cassillis; and
also with the cruel death of William Dalrymple, the young
lad who brought you the message to your own house of
Auchendrayne, telling at what hour the Tutor should pass
the trysting place, where he was by you and yours foully
assaulted and slain.'

'And who declares these things?' cried Mure, boldly,
with a bearing more like that of an innocent man than
that of any criminal that ever I saw.

The Earl bade us who had accused them so justly to
stand forth.  Then John Mure eyed us with a grave and
amused contempt.

'My son's false wife, whom sorrow has caused to dote
concerning her father's death—her night-raking rantipole
sister, and her paramour, a loutish, land-louping squire—the
Dominie of Maybole, a crippledick and piping merry-Andrew
that travelled with them—these are the accusers of John
Mure of Auchendrayne.  They have seen, heard, noted
what others have been ignorant of!  Nay, rather, is it not
clear that they have collogued together, conspiring to bear
false witness against me and mine—for the sake of the frantic
splenetic madness of her who is my son's fugitive wife, whose
wrongs exist only in her own imaginings.'

'You have forgotten me!' said Robert Harburgh,
quietly, stepping forward.

'I know you well,' said John Mure, 'and I would have
remembered you had you been worth remembering.  You are
my Lord of Cassillis's squire and erstwhile a gay cock-sparrow
ruffler, now married to the Grieve's daughter at Culzean.'

'Well,' said Harburgh, 'and what of that?  Can a
man not be all that and yet tell the truth?'

'That I leave to one who is greater, to judge,' said
John Mure.

'And I do judge, John Mure,' cried the Earl, rising
in his chair of state.  'I judge you to be a man rebel
and mansworn, a traitor and a man-slayer.  For a score
of years ye have keeped all this realm of Carrick in a
turmoil, you and they that have partaken with you in
your evil deeds.'

'Loud, swelling words are but wind, my lord Earl of
Cassillis,' answered Mure of Auchendrayne, a dry smile of
contempt coming over his features.

'Now I will show thee, bold ill-doer,' said the Earl,
fiercely, 'whether I speak the words of a dotard or no.
Forward, men, take him up and bind him.  Methinks we
have yet engines within the castle of Dunure that can
make him declare the rights of this murderous treason!'

Then I rejoiced, not for the torture of our enemy,
but because at last the Earl saw fully with our eyes, and
would right us against the cruel oppressor of Marjorie
Kennedy, and for the murder of my gentle and courteous
master.

But ere the men could carry out the orders of the
Earl, the broad-breeched man who had accompanied
Auchendrayne, and who had all the while stood still and
watchful, dropped his plaid, which like a mask he had held
beneath his eyes.  He was a middle-sized, fleshy man,
with no great dignity of face, and with a weak mouth that
dribbled perpetually at the side as if the tongue were too
large for it.  He wore a slashed doublet very full at the
sleeves, baggy trunks, and a sword in a plain scabbard
hanging at his side.  I saw nothing further very particular
about the man save the shambling inward bend of his knees.
But it was with dumb amaze that the Earl looked at
him, standing there arrested in the act of pointing with his
hand at John Mure.  He stood with his jaw fallen, and
his eyes starting from his head.

'The King! the King!' he muttered in astonishment,
looking about him like one distracted.

'Ay, Baron Bailzie of Carrick, even your King,' said the
man in the wide trunk hosen, 'come to see how his sometime
High Treasurer of Scotland executes just judgment in
his own regality!'

The Earl came quickly to himself, and he and all the
people took off their hats.  He stepped down and made his
obeisance to the King, bending humbly upon his knee.
Then he ushered the King to the throne whereon he himself
had been sitting, and took a lower seat beside Adam Boyd
of Penkill, his assessor in ordinary.

The King rose to speak.

'My Lord Earl and gentlemen of Carrick,' he said,
with dignity enough, but with a thick and rolling
accent as if his tongue had been indeed too big, 'I know
this case to the bottom.  I am fully persuaded of the
innocence of our trusty councillor, John Mure of Auchendrayne—who
is besides of the fraternity of learned men, and
one that hath a history of this realm in script ready for the
printers, wherein he does full justice both to myself and to
my noble predecessors.  He hath, as I should nominate it,
an exactness of expression and a perspicuity of argument
that have never been matched in the land.  I propose shortly
to make him my historiographer royal.  Also I, the King,
do know him to be a man well affected to the right ecclesiastical
ruling of this kingdom, and minded to help me with
the due ordering of it.'

The King puffed and blew after his speech, and we and
all that were there stood silent, for to most of us he might
as well have spoken in the Hebrew of which he boasted
himself so great a master.  Then he went on:—

'I have left my Lord Mar and my retinue some way in
the rear.  For we go to hunt the deer in whatever forest
the goodwill of our loyal subjects may put at our disposal.'

'You are right welcome, my liege,' said the Earl John,
starting up and standing bareheaded, 'to my hunting lodges
and retinue, both in the Forest of Buchan and also at my
house of Cassillis.'

The King bent towards him royally, for James the Sixth
had manners when he liked to show them—which, in truth,
was not always.

'I thank you, trusty councillor,' said he; 'it is nobly and
generously done—qualities which also marked your all-too-brief
tenure of the office of High Treasurer of Scotland.
But for the judging of this our worthy subject, I propose to
take that upon myself, being wholly persuaded of his
innocence.  And as for those that have falsely accused him, let
the men underlie my will in the prison most convenient, and
the women be warded meantime in their own house and
castle, till I cause to be known my whole pleasure in the
matter.'

We stood aghast, and knew not what to say, so completely
had Auchendrayne turned our flank with the King.
Not a word had we found to allege when the officers of the
court, to whom the charge was given, came to put the iron
rings on our wrists and march us off, even as we had hoped
and expected to see Auchendrayne and his son taken.

And as the Dominie and I were haled away we could see
Auchendrayne bending suavely over the King's high seat,
and His Majesty inclining to him and talking privately
back and forth, with many becks and uncouth graces such
as he had used in his address to the Earl and his people.

'He is the very devil himself,' said the Dominie,
meaning Auchendrayne and not the King; 'he hath not halted
to cozen the greatest man in this realm with his lying
tongue!'

But I said nothing, for what had I to say?  I had
seen lands, honours, love, and consideration vanish at a
stroke.





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.. _`THE JUDGMENT OF GOD`:

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   CHAPTER XLVI


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE JUDGMENT OF GOD

.. vspace:: 2

The court of the Baron Bailzie of Carrick broke up in
confusion.  It had been arranged that we should ride all
together to the north, even to Culzean, where His Majesty
might have due entertainment provided for him nearer than
at my lord's castle of Cassillis.  Also it was upon this
shoreside road that he had left the Earl of Mar and the favourite
attendants with whom James the Sixth ordinarily sallied
forth to the hunting.

Those of the Auchendrayne and Bargany party who
hated us, clamoured that the Dominie and I should be
left warded in the lock-fast place of Girvan, where our
enemies would soon have ta'en their will of us.  But Robert
Harburgh moved my lord, who went about dour and heartsick
for the failure of his plans in the matter of the Mures,
to have us brought on, with purpose to lodge us within the
ancient strengths of Dunure.

So that as I rode hand-tied at the tail of the King's
retinue, I was yet near enough to have sight of Marjorie
and Nell who rode before us.  And this was some comfort
to my heart.

The way lay for miles along the seashore, which is
here sandy, with a broad belt of fine hard beach whereon
the horses went daintily and well, while at our left elbows
the sea murmured.

The King and John Mure rode first, and His Majesty
constantly broke into loud mirth at some witty saying of
his companion's.  Level with them, but riding moodily apart,
was the Earl, while James Mure the younger rode alone by
himself behind these three.

I groaned within me for the exaltation of our enemy
and at the shortsightedness of anointed kings.

'Is there a God in heaven,' I cried aloud, 'thus to make
no sign, while the devil is driving all things headlong to
destruction according to his own devising?'

There was a God in heaven.

For, quick as an echo that answers from the wood,
there before us upon the sands, just where the levels had
been overflowed at the last tide, lay a thing which halted
the advancing cavalcade as suddenly as an army with banners.
The men crowded about, and, having in the excitement
forgotten us their charges, we also were permitted to look.
And this is what we saw.

There upon the ribbed sea sand lay the dead body of the
boy William Dalrymple.  I knew him at a glance, for all
that so much had come and gone since that day when I
played at the golf game upon the green of Maybole.  He
lay with his arms stretched away from his sides, his face
turned over, and one cheek dented deeply into the sand.  It
was a pitiful sight.  Yet the lad was not greatly
altered—wind-tossed and wave-borne as he had been, and now
brought to cross the path of the unjust at the very nick of
time, by the manifest judgment and providence of God.

'What means this?' said the King.  'Some poor
drowned sailor boy.  Let us avoid!'  For of all things
he loved not gruesome sights nor the colour of blood.  But
James Mure suddenly cried aloud at the vision, as if he
had been stricken with pain.  And as he did so, his father
looked at him as though he would have slain him, so
devilish was his glance of hate and contempt.

But a woman who had come running hot-foot after
the party, now rushed to the front.  She gave a loud
scream, ear-piercing and frantic, when she saw the tossed
little body lying all abroad upon the sand.

'My Willie, my ain son Willie!' she cried.  For it was
Meg Dalrymple.  All her ignorant rudeness seemed to fade
away in the presence of death, and as she lifted the poor
mishandled head that had been her son's, each of us felt that
she grew akin to our own mothers, widowed and bereaved.
For I think that which touches us most in the grief of a
widow, is not our feeling for a particular woman, but our
obligation to the mother of all flesh.

So when Meg Dalrymple lifted her son's head, it might
have been a mourning queen with a dead kingling upon her
knee.

'My ain, my ain lad!' she cried.  'See, lammie, but I
loved ye.  Ye were the widow's ae son.  Fleeter-footed than
the mountain roe, mair gleg than the falcon that sits yonder
on the King's wrist, ye were the hope o' thy mither's life.
And they hae slain ye, killed my bonny wean, that never
did harm to nae man—'

She undid a kerchief from about the white, swollen neck
of her son.

'Kens ony man that image and superscription?' said she,
pointing to an embroidered crest upon it.  John Mure
strode forward hastily.  He had grown as pale as death.

'Give it me.  I will pass it to His Majesty,' he said,
holding out his hand for it.

But the woman leaped up fiercely.

'Na,' she said; 'the butcher kens his knife; but he
would only hide it in the day of trial.  I will give it to my
ain well-kenned lord.'

And she put the napkin into the hands of the Earl of
Cassillis, who looked at it with the most minute attention.

'This kerchief,' said the Earl, gravely, 'has the crest and
motto of John Mure of Auchendrayne.'

The King looked staggered and bewildered.

'Let all dismount till we try further of this thing,'
he said.

But John Mure would have had him go on, saying that
it was yet more of the plot.  But the King would not now
hearken to him; for he was an obstinate man, and oftentime
he would listen to no reason, though his ear was ever open
enough to flattery.  Besides, he thought himself to be the
wisest man in all the islands and kingdoms of the
world—wiser, even, than Solomon the son of David.

So His Majesty commanded his inclination, and went
up to the body.  There was also a rope around the neck
with a long end, which was embedded in the sand.  With
his own hand the King drew this out.

He held it up.

'Kens any man this length of rope?' he asked, looking
about.

Now, one strand of sea-cordage is like another as two
peas; but this was our Solomon's way of judging—to find
out the insignificant, and then pretend that it told him a
mighty deal.

Yet it so happened that there was a man there from out
of the shoreside of Girvan.  He was a coastwise sailor, and
he took the rope in his hand.

'This rope,' he said, turning it about every way, 'is
Irish made, and has been used to tie bundles of neat hides.'

'And who,' again asked the King—shrewdly, as I do
admit, 'who upon this coast trades with Ireland in the
commodity of neat hides?'

'There are but myself and James Bannatyne of Chapeldonnan,'
replied the man, honestly and promptly.

'And this is not your rope?' said the King.

'Nay,' said the man, 'I would not buy a pennyworth of
Irish hemp so long as I could twine the hemp of Scotland—no,
not even to hang an Irishman would I do it.  This is
James Bannatyne's rope!'

Then said the King, 'Bring hither James of Chapeldonnan!'

And they brought him.  He stood forth, much feared
indeed, but taking the matter dourly, like the burly ruffian
he was.  Nevertheless when put to the question he denied
the rope, and that in spite of all threats of torture.  Yet I
could see that the King was greatly shaken in his opinion,
and knew not what to think.  For when John Mure
drew near to touch his arm and as before say somewhat in
his private ear, the King drew hastily away and looked at
Auchendrayne's hand as though there had been pollution
upon it.  So I knew that his opinion was wavering.  Also
the poor body in the mother's arms daunted him.

Suddenly he clapped his hands together and became
exceedingly joyous and alert.

'I have it,' he cried, 'the ordeal of touch.  It is God's
ordinary and manifest way of vindicating His justice.  Here
is the dead body of the slain.  Here are all the accused and
the accusers.  Let it be equally done.  Let all touch the
body, for the revealing of the secrets of the hearts of
wicked men.'

Then John Mure laughed and scoffed, saying that it
was but a freit, a foolish opinion, an old wives' fable.

But for all his quirksome guile he had gotten this time
very mightily on the wrong side of the King.  For His
Majesty was just mad with belief in such things as omens
and miracles of God's providence.  So the King shook him
off and said, 'It is my royal will, that all who are tainted
with the matter shall immediately touch or be held guilty.'

And the saying comforted King James, being, as it were,
easily pleased with his own words and plaiks.

So they brought us forward from among the crowd bound
as we were, and first of all I touched fearlessly the poor dead
body of the lad.  Yet it was with some strange feeling,
though I knew well that I was wholly innocent.  But yet
I could not forget that something untoward might happen,
and then good-bye to this fair world and all the pleasant stir
of life within it.

Then after me the Dominie touched—even Marjorie
and Nell doing it with set faces and strange eyes.

It was now the turns of the real murderers, and my
heart beat little and fast to see what should happen.

'Let Auchendrayne the younger touch first, being the
more directly accused!' cried the King.

But James Mure seemed to flame out suddenly distract, like
a madman being taken to Bethlem.  He cried out, 'No, no,
I will not touch.  I declare that I will not go near him!'

And when John Mure strove to persuade him to it, he
struck at him fiercely with his open hand, leaving the stead
of his fingers dead white upon his father's cheek.  And
when they took his arm and would have forced him to it, he
threw himself down headlong in the sand, foaming and crying,
'I will not touch for blood!  I will not touch for blood!'

But in spite of his struggling they carried him to where
the body lay.  And, all men standing back, they thrust his
bare hand sharply upon the neck where the rope had been.

And, it is true as Scripture, I that write declare (though
I cannot explain) it, out from the open mouth of the lad
there sprang a gout of black and oozy blood.

Whereat a great cry went up and James Mure fell
forward oh the sand as one suddenly stricken dead.  All
crowded forward to see, crying with one voice, 'The
Judgment of God!  The Judgment of God!'

And I shouted too, for I had seen the vindication of justice
upon the murderer.  The blood of Abel had cried out of
the waste sea sand.  The mark of God was on the guilty.

Then suddenly in the midst of the push I heard a stirring
and a shouting.

'Stop him! stop him!' they cried.

I looked about, and lo! there, sitting erect upon his
horse and riding like fire among heather, was John Mure.
He had stolen away while all eyes were on the marvel.
He had passed unregarded through the press, and now he
rode for his life southward along the shore.

I gave one mighty twist to the manacles on my wrists,
and whether those that set them had been kindly, being of
my own name and clan, or whether the gyves were weak,
I cannot tell.  At all events, my hands were free, and so,
with never a weapon in my possession, I leaped on a
horse—the same, indeed, which the King had been riding—and
set it to the gallop after the man whose death was my life.

It was the maddest, foolishest venture, for doubtless my
enemy was well armed.  But I seemed to see my love, and all
the endowment of grace and favour I was to receive with
her, vanishing away with every stride of John Mure's horse.
Besides, there was a King and an Earl looking on; so upon
the King's horse I settled down to a long chase.

I was already far forward ere behind me I heard the
clatter of mounting men, the crying to restive horses to
stand still, and the other accompaniments of a cavalcade
leaping hastily into the saddle.  But when I looked at John
Mure upon his fleet steed, and saw that I upon the King's
horse but scarcely held mine own, I knew that the stopping
of the murderer must be work of mine, if it were to be done
at all.  So I resolved to chance it, in spite of whatever
armoury of weapons he might carry.

But first I cleared my feet of the great stirrups which
the King used, so that if it came to the bitter pinch, and I
was stricken with a bullet or pierced with steel, I should not
be dragged helpless along the ground with my foot in the
iron, as once or twice I had seen happen in battle.

And that, though an easily memorable, is, I can bear
witness, not a bonny sight.

My charger stretched away as though he had been a
beagle running conies of the down into their holes.  But
John Mure's horse went every whit as fast.  I saw well
that he made for the deep, trackless spaces of Killochan
wood.  The oak trees that grew along its edge stretched
out their arms to hide him; the birken shaw waved all its
green boughs with a promise of security.  I shortened my
grip upon the stout golden-crowned staff which the King
carried at the pommel of his saddle.

Yet as John Mure drave madly towards the wood, and
sometimes looked over his shoulder to see how I came on,
I was overjoyed to notice a wide ditch before him which he
must needs overleap—and at that business, if at no other, I
thought to beat him, being slim and of half his weight.

So I kept my horse to the right upon better ground,
though it took me a little out of the straight course for the
wood.  His horse at the first refused the leap, and I counted
upon him as mine.  But I counted too soon, for he went
down the bankside a short way to an easier place, where
there was a landward man's bridge of trees and sods.  Here he
easily walked his horse across, and, having mounted the bank,
he waved his hand at me and set off again toward the wood.

But now while he had an uneven country to overpass I
had only the green fields, rich in old pasture and undulating
like the waves of an oily tide when the sea is deep, and
there is no break of the water.  He was at the very edge
of the wood before I came upon his flank.  Then I gave a
loud shout as I set my horse to his speed and circled about to
head him off.  But John Mure, though an old man, only
settled himself firmer in his saddle, and with his sword in
his hand rode soldierly and straight at the wood, as though I
had not been in front of him at all.

It was wisely enough done, for his heavier beast took
mine upon the shoulder and almost rolled me in the dust.
He came upon me, not front to front as a rider meets his
foe in the lists, but, as it were stem to side, like two boats
that meet upon converging tacks.

Yet I managed to avoid him, being light and supple,
though he leaned far over and struck savagely at me as he
passed.  Again at the third shock he had almost overridden
me and made me die the death.  But I had not practised
horsemanship and the art of fighting in the saddle so
long for nothing.  Indeed, on all the seaboard of Ayr
there was no one that could compare with me in these
things.  Therefore, it was easy for me, by dint of my quickness
and skill, to swerve off to the right and receive the sword
stroke in my cloak, which I carried twisted about my left arm.

Then keeping still between the wood and John Mure, I
met him this time face to face, with my eyes watching the
direction of his eye and the crook of his elbow, that I might
know where he meant to strike.  For a good sworder knows
the enemy's intent, and his blade meets it long ere thought
can pass into action.

So it was no second-sight which told me that he meant
to slash me across the thigh when he came a-nigh me.  I
knew it or ever his blade was raised.  So that when he struck
I was ready for him and measured his sword, proving my
distance as it had been upon parade.  And as the blade whistled
by me, I judged that it was my turn, and struck him with
all the force I could muster a crashing blow upon the face
with the heavy butt of the King's stave, which stunned and
unsettled him so that he pitched forward upon his horse, yet
not so as to lose his seat.

Nevertheless, owing to the swing of my arm, the stroke
fell also partly upon his horse's back, which affrighted the beast
and set him harder than ever to the running.  So that I was
passed ere I knew it, and the wood was won.  But I was
not thirty yards behind him, and looked to make the capture
ere we reached the further side.  And but for a foul trick I
should have done it.  It so happens that there is a little hill
in the woods of Killochan, and I, seeing that John Mure was
riding about one side, took round the other, thinking that
I had the shorter line of it.

But he, so soon as he saw me make round the corner,
turned his horse into its own hoof-marks and sped away back
again—as it had been to meet them that pursued, but at the
same time bearing enough to the south to clear them easily.
So that when I came round the hill I saw no quarry, and only
heard the boughs crashing in his wake.

Nevertheless, without the loss of a moment, I took the
line of his retreat (as I thought), yet not so correctly but
that when I issued forth from the wood I saw him nigh half
a mile in front.  Again he waved a contumelious hand
which made me so fiercely angry that I tightened my
waist-belt, and vowed to go no more to sunny Culzean if I
took not back the head and hands of John Mure at my
saddlebow.

So, with set and determined brow, I rode ever forward.
It was the cast of the die for me, for Nell herself, our life
together, and our green pastures and lavender-scented napery
cupboards were all to come out of the catching of this enemy
of our house.  It is small wonder therefore that I was
passing keen upon the matter.

Yet, in spite of my endeavours, I gained but little.  And
it was already greying to the twilight when I came to a place
by the seashore, waste and solitary, where there were but few
houses about.  I had seen John Mure ride in thitherwards.
And so I followed him full tilt, reckless of danger, being
weary-heart with the ill-fortune of my riding and quest.

But as I entered the narrows of the pass, a stone flew
from an ambuscade.  I felt a hot, stunning blow upon the
head, and with the pain I remember laying hold of my horse's
mane and gripping tight with the hand on which a broken
manacle still jangled.  Something warm flowed over my brow,
and suddenly I saw everything red, as though I had been
looking through the stained glass of some ancient kirk—red
flowers, red grass, red sand, and red sea.

That was all I saw, and I do not remember even falling
to the ground.





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.. _`THE PLACE OF THE LEGION OF DEVILS`:

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   CHAPTER XLVII


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   THE PLACE OF THE LEGION OF DEVILS

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When I woke it was exceedingly dark, but a darkness with
shooting lights and hideous sounds.  At the first start I
thought that I was dead and in the place of torment.  And
when I grew a little more awake, I wished to God that I
had been.  For all about were swart naked men and
harpy-clawed women dancing round me, while on a cask or
keg at my head sat John Mure himself, wrapped in his cloak
and regarding me with gloating, baleful, bloodshot eyes.

Then I knew that I was lost indeed.  For by the
flickering light of a dying fire of driftwood I could see that I
was again in the cave of Sawny Bean, in the same wide hall
with the strange narrow hams a-swing on the roof, the
tubs of salt meat festering under the eaves, and the wild
savage crew dancing about me.

What wonder that my heart fainted within me to be
thus left alone in that den of hideous things, and especially
to think of the free birds going to their beds on the cliffs
above me and the fishing solan geese circling and
balancing home to the lonely rock of Ailsa.

'Ha, Sir Launcelot Kennedy,' said a mocking voice, as
the deafening turmoil quieted a little, 'you are near your
honours now—that is, if there be such bauble dignities
either in heaven or hell.  The Treasure of Kelwood in
hand, John Mure's life out of hand—and there on the
shelf (as it were) are your broad acres and your bonny
lady!'

I was silent, for I knew that nothing could avail me
now.  It was useless to waste words.

'But ere all that comes to pass,' he went on, 'there
are sundry little formalities to be gone through.—Oh, we
are right dainty folk here in Sawny Bean's mansion.
You shall be kept warm and cherished tenderly.  There
are here twenty sonsier queans than the one whose heart
you desire.  Warmly shall they welcome, sweetly shall
they cherish handsome Sir Launcelot.  Their embracements
shall sting you more than all sweethearting raptures.'

Again he pauses to observe the effect of his words.

'You that so lately held me in chase, like a steer that
has escaped from the shambles.  Now you yourself are in
the thills.  You that have crossed me a thousand times
in my plans since that frore night in Sir Thomas Nesbitt's
yard in Maybole, you shall now be crossed in a new fashion.
You that wagged tongue so merrily at another's expense,
you shall see your tongue wag upon the redhot brander
to an unkenned tune.

'You that have ridden so fast and so far, you shall ride
your last ride—ride slowly, very slowly,' cried the fiend in
my ear, 'for I shall hoard every drop of your blood as
John of Cassillis hoards his gold rose nobles.  I shall
husband every minute of your life, as though they were
the hours of young bridal content.

'Ye have bruised my old face indeed with your oaken
staff, but I will cherish yours, that is youthful and
blooming.  Tenderly shall we take off the coverture of hide,
the tegument of beauty.  Sawny Bean has famous skill
in such surgery.  Gently will we lay you down in the
swarming nest of the patient ant.  We have read how
Scripture bids the sluggard go to the ant, for if that makes
him not lively, nothing will.  I have ofttimes commented
on the passage at family worship.  And I must see that
the young and headstrong, like you, my Lord Launcelot,
give heed to that which is commanded.'

But in spite of all his terrible threatenings, I bode still and
answered him never a word.  They laid logs of driftwood
upon the fire, till the whole inside of the cave grew bright
and clear; and all the monstrous deformity of the women
and the cruel hideousness of the men were made apparent
as in broad daylight.  Some of them were painted and stained
like demons, and danced and leaped through the fire like
them, too.  For such monsters have not been heard of,
much less seen, in the history of any country as were
Sawny Bean and his crew in the cave upon the seashore
of Bennanbrack.

'Bring me a knife,' cried John Mure from where he sat,
for he appeared like a chief devil among a company of
gibbering lubber fiends.  He had still his grey cloak about
him.  His plumed hat was upon his head, and he looked,
save for the eyes of him in which the fires of hell burned, a
civil, respectable, well-put-on man of means and substance.
As, indeed, save for his evil heart he might have been, for
he came of as good a family as the Earl of Cassillis, or, as
it might be, as I myself, Launcelot Kennedy of Kirrieoch.

So when Auchendrayne asked for a knife, Sawny Bean
himself, the ruffian kemper, low-browed, buck-toothed, and
inhuman, brought it to him with a grin.  He made as if he
would have set it in me to the hilt.  But John Mure stayed
him.

'Bide,' he said, 'not so fast.  There is long and sweet
pleasuring to come before that—such slow, relishing delight,
such covetous mouseplay of the brindled cat, such luxurious
tiger-licking of the delicate skin till it be raw, such
well-conceited dainty torments as when one would bite his love
and be glad of it.  He shall taste them all, this frolic squire
of errant-dames, this gamesome player upon pipes, this
curious handler of quaint love tunes.  Ere we pluck the
red rose of his life, he shall sate himself with new delicious
experience—rarer than the handling of many maidens' tresses.'

I was moved to speak to him.

'I ask not mercy,' said I, 'for I own that I would have
killed you if I could.  But as you are a valiant man, give
me a sword and let me make a stand for it against you all,
that as I have lived so I may also die fighting.'

But he mocked me, hurrying on in his heady turmoil of words.

'"If I be a man," you say—who said that I was a man?
Do I act as other men?  Is my knowledge like that of
other men?  Do I company with other men?  Call you
that a man?'  (He pointed to Sawny Bean, who for
wantonness sat on an upturned tub, striking with a keen-edged
knife at the legs of all that came by for mere delight
of blood, storming at them meantime with horrid imprecations
to approach nearer and be flicked.)  'Or call you these
men?'  (He showed me some of the younger cannibal race
gnawing like kennelled dogs at horrid bones.)  'Nay, my
dainty wanton, you shall not enter Hell through the brave
brattle of warring blades, nor yet handling your rapier like
a morris-dancer.  But as the blood drains to the white from
the stricken calf, so shall they whiten your flesh for the tooth,
and so reluctantly shall your life drip from you drop by drop.'

And I declare that this scornful fiend telling me of
tortures in choice words made me scunner more than the
prick of the knife.  For the abhorred invention quickened
the imagination and set the nerves agate.

So that I was honestly glad when he took knife in
hand—a shoemaker's curved blade with a keen cutting edge.

'Strip him naked!' he cried.  And very cheerfully so they
did, smiting me the meantime with the broad of their hand.

Then John Mure leaned over me delicately, and made
as though he would have traced with his knife the jointing
of my limbs, saying, 'Thus and thus shall the she-tribe
dismember your body when the torture of the ant's nest is
ended.'  And again 'Here is toothsome eating, Sawny
Bean, thou chief lover of dainty vivers.'

Then, as the evil man went on with his pitiless jestings,
his grey cloak began to waver before me, his face to glow
like fire, and I fainted or dwamed away till the sharp knife
pricked me into consciousness again.

Yet Auchendrayne overdid his threatening, for the too
sharp relish of the words issued in tranced dulness ere the
matter came to action.  And of torture there was none
that I can now remember or bear the mark of—save only
the slight scores of the knife which he made when he showed
me where they would joint and haggle my body.

Indeed, I mind no more till I came to myself, lying on
my back, with the cave all empty save for John Mure—who
sat, as before, with his hand to his ear listening.

But there sounded a great and furious uproar down by
the cave mouth, the deep baying of bloodhounds, the fierce
cry of many voices striving for mastery, and above all the
shrieks of the smitten.

Surely, I thought, there is a battle fierce and fell at the
cave's mouth.  John Mure sat and listened for a long space,
and presently he looked over at me.

'I will even make sure of him, come what may,' he said.

And with that he took the knife and came nearer to
smite me in the breast, and I lay as one dead already,
waiting for the stroke.

But even in that moment as I held my breath a ravening
hound darted within the cave, overleaped the embers of
the fire, and pinned the grey-haired murderer to the earth by
the throat.  He struck out desperately, but the dog held
him fast.  Another and another came in, till, as it seemed,
he was in danger of being torn to pieces of dogs.

But me they minded not at all, for (as I say) I lay as
one dead.

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And this is the story of the chase as Nell told it to me
when all was over.

As they of the King's company looked from the shore
towards the south, there in the distance was John Mure on
his horse disappearing into the wood, and I (as it seemed)
at his very heels.  Both of us were leaning far forward,
like men that run a race.  And because she knew that I
carried no equipment with me, Nell leaped upon a horse
with a sword laid before her crosswise on the saddle.

Whereupon I turned to Nell and called her the bravest
maid in broad Scotland, with other names as I could mind
them.  But she set her head aside, and would content me
nothing (though I was minded for kindness), saying only,
'If you do not desire to hear the tale, then I am saved the
fash of telling it.  'Tis no time for fooling,' said she, 'when
I am speaking of the saving of your life.'

'Nell,' said I (for I was nettled at her indifference),
'thou art an unseasoned lass, skilless in love's mysteries.'

'I want none of Kate Allison's love-skilling at second
hand,' said Nell, harking back like a pretty shrew on her
former taunts.  'Since ye are so wise, unriddle me the
manner of your saving from the cave of Sawny Bean, and
I am content to yield me to your teaching in the mysteries.'

Yet even with this fair promise I could not, but desired
her instead to continue her tale-telling.

'Well,' said she, 'Robert Harburgh it was who, next
after me, took horse—and not far behind either.  For he had
but to disentangle the bridle from his arm, while I had to
beguile another to lend me his horse.

'So, in a little, we were all after you, and we took the
wood in the very place you entered.  But naught could we
find save the trail of you all confused among the trees.
Then what a chasing hither and thither there followed.
Even the King searched for you like any common man, and
puffed and blew upon his purple cheeks like the Dominie
on his pipes.  And he that had been our companion, this
same Dominie, went about everywhere, seeking and crying
each time that he came near to me, "Reckless loon, reckless
loon, well he deserves to be unbreeched and soundly paid for
this hardiness."

'Then we utterly lost you, and I believe they would
have given up the search.  But I minded me of the dogs
that James of Chapeldonnan keeps for his own purposes,
which on my way to Ailsa I had seen his wife feed.  So I
told the Earl John of them, and he had James Bannatyne
brought, and bade him bring them to set on the trail, promising
him his life if the matter were brought to a good issue.

'And so Robert Harburgh and a few swords were sent
to Chapeldonnan with James Bannatyne—with his life upon
it if he played them false, and Robert Harburgh's sword near
his ribs each time that he faltered or failed to remember.  And
the good wife, seeing her man in such deadly case, came
back herself to plead with the King for him.

'So the Chapeldonnan pack was laid on the trail, and
fine well-hungered bloodhounds they were.  But so soon as
I heard the first deep bay, when, with noses on the ground,
they took the line of the shore, it went to my heart that
since you were the last to enter the wood the dogs would
first seize you.  So I cried a word to Robert Harburgh, and
we two that loved you spurred horses and sped on well-nigh
level with the dogs.

'And through all the windings and wimplings of your path
we followed till we came to the shore, where, together with
the King's oaken staff which had been in your hand, we
found the place all trampled with naked feet and stains of
blood.  So we traced you across the shore grass to the sand
and over the sand into the sea, with a company of bare feet
and many stains of blood.

'Then for a moment I knew not what to think.  But
Marjorie, my sister, cried out, "It is the vile wretches of
Sawny Bean's band who have taken him to the Cave of
Death!"

'Then I remembered that the entrance to the cavern
was among the rocks, and yet because of the gladness that
was in our hearts when we issued forth, I had taken no
very great pains to mind the exact place.  Nor was the
Dominie aught the wiser.  For he had been wholly intent on
blowing upon his pipes.  But Marjorie minded better than any
of us the cleave in the rocks, and showed us to a nearness
where the cave entrance was.  But the tide had flowed in,
and we had perforce to wait and calm our impatience as best
we might till it went back again, ere we could follow into
the cave mouth.  But by this time it was dark, so that the
men-at-arms had to find rosin torches and set them alight.

'Thus with the flambeaux blazing and the smoke wavering
red overhead we took our way along the wet edge of the
sea.  But the tide had washed away all traces of blood and feet.
Up and down the coast we wandered trying every covert.
And yet for our lives we could not hit upon the right cave's
entrance.  The dogs ran yelping and nosing here and there,
but for long nothing came of it.

'Then Earl John and the King himself threatened
James Bannatyne to reveal the place.  But he denied that
he had any knowledge of the cave.  And whether he spoke
truth or no I cannot say.  But his wife went to the King
and holding his bridle rein, she said, "Well do I ken, your
Majesty, that my man's life is forfeit, but he is my husband.
And at least, so far as it concerns him and me, betwixt
barn-door and bed-stock I can rule him as a wife should.
Gin I persuade him to lead you to the spot, will ye on your
word, give me my ain man's life?"

'So the King promised, though Earl John hung a little
on the form of the words.  Then went the goodwife of
Chapeldonnan to her husband.  And what she said to him
I know not, for they spake privily and apart.  But though
at first he shook his head and denied, as I could see, that he
had any knowledge of the Cave of Death, yet in a little
while he took some other thought and ran forward to grip
one of the dogs.

'Then went James Bannatyne on ahead, with all of us
hotfoot after him, with the torches and the swords.'

'And you also, Nell,' said I,' 'were you lurking with
the men-at-arms, and which had you, a sword or a torch?'

'I had both,' said Nell Kennedy, shortly.  And went
on with her tale as if she had been speaking of milking-stools.

'James Bannatyne took the dog into all the wide cave
mouths and made him smell the walls and floor above the
tide mark, talking to the brute all the time and encouraging
him.  But for a long time it was still in vain.

'At last the other dog which had been left to itself, bayed
out suddenly from among the rocks, where it had found a
dark and dismal archway with a wide pool of water in it,
which we had passed time and again without suspicion.
And at the entrance to this place we found the second
hound, with tail erected, baying up the cave mouth from
the edge of the pool.

'Then so soon as James Bannatyne brought in his well-taught
dog, it began to smell hither and thither with erected
ears and bristling hair.  Presently it swam away into the
darkness.  And because the men hesitated to go after the
beast, I took the water to show them the way.'

Hearing which, I had made my acknowledgments.

But Nell said, 'No, no; hear my tale first.'

'Then with me there came Robert Harburgh, and after
him the Earl and all his company with their torches.  The
pool proved shallow, and after many turns and windings we
came to a wide place—indeed, to the same beach with sand
and dripping fingers of stone where we had first found
ourselves.  And here also we passed the remains of our boat, for
it was to this point that we had rowed that night when we
took refuge in the lion's den.  The savages had broken most
of it up for firewood, yet enough remained so that I knew
it again.

'But ere the men-at-arms had time to gather behind us,
a host of wild creatures armed with stones, knives, and
sheath-whittles burst upon us, yelling like demons of the pit.
Women also there were, some half clad and some wholly
without cleading.  And then and there was a fight such as
you, Launce, love to tell about, but I have no skill in.  For
the men-at-arms shot, and we that had but swords struck,
while the wild folk shouted and the savage women bit and
tore with their nails till the cavern was full of confused noise
and the red reek of burning torches.  But ever as the slain
rolled among our feet they gripped to pull us down, so that
in the intervals of his fighting Robert Harburgh went
hither and thither "making siccar," as he said, with a coup de
grace for each poor clawing wretch.

'And in the narrow doorway through which you found
the way, stood the chief himself, with his eyes fiery-red, and
his hair about his face.  He gripped a mighty axe in his
hand, and with it he stood ready to cleave all that came
against him.  Even the men hesitated at his fearsome aspect.
And it was small wonder.  But I knew that there was no
other way to the innermost cave, so I cried to them to
overpass the rabble and drive forward at all hazards.

'How it came about I know not, but a moment after I
found myself opposite to Sawny Bean himself and engaging
him with your sword—just for all the world as if it had been
in the armoire room of Culzean on a rainy day, and you
again teaching me the fence of blade against Lochaber axe.
But though I had not wholly forgotten my skill, doubtless
the giant had soon made an end of me, for he struck fiercely
every way.  But sudden as the heathcat springs on the hill,
the little Dominie leaped upon him and drove his sword into
his heart.  So that Sawny Bean fell with Dominie Mure upon
his breast.  Then because he was not able to pull out his
sword again, being too close, the Dominie gripped his dagger
and struck again and again, panting.  And between each
blow he cried out the name of a lass—"Mary Torrance!
Mary Torrance!" he said.

'Then it was that the hounds over-leaped the two of
them struggling there in the arch and sprang on, and after
them came Robert Harburgh and I.  We two first entered
the murky place of death.  The dogs were mouthing and
gripping the Grey Man.  But you lay naked upon the sand
as it had been dead.'

This was the matter of Nell's tale, and I will now in
turn take up mine own part in it, from the time at which
the dogs gripped my remorseless enemy, and as it had been,
the life went out from me.





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.. _`THE FINDING OF THE TREASURE OF KELWOOD`:

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   CHAPTER XLVI1I


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   THE FINDING OF THE TREASURE OF KELWOOD

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When I came to myself the cave was filled with armed
men and the confused clamour of voices.  The torches
spluttered and reeked, and I could feel that my naked body
was covered with a woman's cloak wrapped well about me.
Someone was binding up my head; and as she examined
to see if all had been rightly done, I saw that it was Nell
Kennedy.  So I called her softly by her name.

But she bade me not try to rise; and looked again to
my head to see that it had no serious wound.

Then came John the Earl and asked how I did.  Whereupon,
minding, as is my wont, to have old Time by the
forelock, I spoke of his promise.

'Here,' I said, 'is the murderer John Mure.  Here is
the gang of monsters, and now I will put you in the way
of obtaining the Treasure of Kelwood, if you will fulfil the
promise which you made to me.'

'What was that?' he said shortly.  For though Earl
John liked promising well enough, he was not so fond of
performing if it cost him aught, as in this case it was like
to do.

'My sweetheart here, my knighthood, and a suitable
down-sitting of land,' said I, knowing that it was now or
never with me.

Then he demurred a little, and hesitated, so that for a
moment I thought all was lost.

'Your sweetheart you shall have,' he said at last, 'but
the others are not in my gift—save a holding of land,
perhaps, which I can let you for a trifling return when it
falls vacant.'

And so rejoiced was I to think of getting my lass that
I might have consented to this; but Nell was behind me,
and upon pretence of arranging a knot of the bandage upon
my forehead, she whispered in my ear, 'Threat him with
telling the King about the treasure.'

So, knowing her wisdom, I obeyed her.

'Well then, Earl John,' said I, 'if that be so, and a
knighthood and suitable heritages are not in your power to
bestow, here at hand is the King.  Give me leave to speak
with him.  He is fond of treasure, and I can put a brave
one under his hand!'

'Hush!' said the Earl, looking about him with
apprehension.  For the King was yet in the place with Mar and
Lennox, ordering the taking down and burying of the
strange, white, narrow-shaped hams, and the other things
that turned the gay, squeamish folk that came with him pale
and sick only to look upon them.

'Hush!' he said again, 'above all things beware what
you say to the King.  Show the Kelwood treasure to myself
alone, and you shall have Barrhill—ay, and all Minnochside
from the Rowan-tree to the forks of Trool, and I will even
speak to the King about the knighting!'

'Will your lordship please to declare it before witnesses,'
said I, Nell prompting me as before, for my head was dazed;
but hers was singularly clear.

So he called to him certain honourable men of his name,
and promised faithfully.  'Are you content?' said he.

So I said, 'Nelly, show them the treasure.  Here is the key!'

And she rose and took them to the box—which, by the
blessing of God remained still where we had left it in the
recess—and she fitted the key in the lock, and it turned
without a sound.  And there the Earl bathed his hands in
the set jewels, the loose stones of price, and the coined,
golden money, plashing them through his fingers with a
sound like a spout of water, till for fear of the King, I
advised him to close it again.

'It is worth the bargain,' said he, 'though I am sorry to
have promised away fair Minnochside.  I trow it was
woman's wit that guided you in the asking, and not that
thick-bandaged head-piece of thine, Launcelot Kennedy.'

But I answered not, knowing how to leave well alone
when a man is pleased with himself.  So the Earl placed
Robert Harburgh to guard the chest, and to lie discreetly
concerning it if any of the King's men should come near,
saying that it was but some foulness appropriate to the den.

But none came asking, and thus was the Treasure of
Kelwood conquest for ever to the family of Cassillis.

As for Sawny Bean's monstrous brood, is it not recorded
how they were carried through the country to Edinburgh,
and as how they went the folk flocked in from leagues away
to see and execrate them.  They were hurried straight to
the sands of Leith, where, without process of trial or pleading,
and in the manner prescribed for such fiends, they were
executed out of hand as enemies to the human race in general.

Thus, mainly through my instrumentality, was the
country rid of a monstrous foul blot such as no land since
the flood has ever been cursed with.  Though I deny not that
Dominie Mure and Nell Kennedy helped well according to
their possibles, yet the most part of the credit was rightly
given to me, who had twice adventured my life within the
Cave of Death—though, as I admit, on both occasions
against my will.

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.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1



Once more the City of Edinburgh swarmed with
Kennedys, come thither to the great trial.  There had
not been so great a concurrence of Westland folk in
Edinburgh, since the memorable day when young Gilbert of
Bargany cleared the causeway of us of the house of Cassillis—for
which afterwards we were one and all put to the horn,
to our great and lasting honour, as hath been related.

At the West Port I met Patrick Rippett, he who had
taunted Benane at the Maybole snowballing.

'Whither is your eye gone?' I asked him, for he had a
black patch where his left eye should have been.

'A fause loon pyked it out and offered it me back on the end
of his rapier!' said Patrick Rippett, with the utmost unconcern.

'And what said ye to him?' I asked of Patrick, because
he was not a man to take a jest (and such a jest) for
nothing.

'Faith, I juist bartered him fair.  I offered him his heart
on the point of mine!' said Rippett, and so strolled away,
ogling the snooded maids at the windows of the high
lands as best he could, with the one wicked orb which was
left to him.

I was walking with my father at the time.  He had
ridden the long way from Kirrieoch on a white pony, all to
pleasure my mother.

'Ye maun gang and hear the laddie gie his evidence,'
she bade him.  'They will fright him to deid else, amang
thae Edinburgh men o' the law.  They are no canny.  So
long as Launce gets striking at them with the steel I ken
he is safe and sound.  For his hand can e'en keep his head,
as a Kennedy's ever should.  But wha kens what they may
do to my laddie when he stands afore the justicers, and the
lawyer loons come at him wi' their quips and quandaries?'

'Faith then, good wife,' said my father, 'ye shall come
too.  And thou and I shall ride to Edinburgh like joes that
are newly wed.'

And though at first she denied, yet at the last she
consented, well-pleased enough—having a desire to purchase
garmentry more suitable for the wife of a laird and the
mother of one who was to be made a knight.

When my mother went out for the first time, she held
up her hands and exclaimed at the noise and bustle of the
High Street—the soldiers who were for ever marching to
and fro in companies with drums and pipes, the lasses that
went hither and thither with a shawl about their heads, and
bandied compliments—and such compliments—with swashbucklers
and rantipole 'prentice lads.  'The limmers, they
need soundly skelping!' said my mother, 'for a' that they
carry their heads so high, and their kirtles higher than
their heads!'

'Surely scantly that!' said my father.

'But ay,' continued my mother, not heeding him in her
press of speech, 'such hair-brained hempies wad be dookit in
the Limmers' Dub on Saturday in every decent country, and
set on the black stool of repentance ilka Sabbath day.  I
wonder what the King and the ministers o' Edinburgh can
be thinkin' o'?'

There was, however, for most of us a long and weary
waiting, ere in the town of Edinburgh the High Court of
Justiciary was ripe for the hearing of the case against the
Mures.  But when at last the great day came the whole
West Country was there.[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Sir Launcelot Kennedy, of Palgowan
and Kirrieoch, appears somewhat
to have confused the dates of the first
and second trials of John Mure of
Auchendrayne.  Indeed, weakness in exact
chronology is common to his record
and to the contemporary Historie of the Kennedies,
which was written about the
same time by a partisan of the other side—it
may even be by John Mure of
Auchendrayne himself.

.. vspace:: 2

And though many a face was joyous as were ours, eke
many were sad and lowering.  For it is strange that such
ill men should have some to love them, or at least so it was
with John Mure the elder.  And so there were in the city
Mures by the score, fighting, black-avised MacKerrows,
cankered Craufords, with all the disbanded Bargany
discontents from the south of Carrick, Drummurchie's broken
band from the hill-lands of Barr, together with many others.
So that we kept our swords, as at our first visit to the town
in the days of Gilbert Kennedy, free in their scabbards while
we ruffled it along the pavement.

And I mind what my mother said, the first time she went
down the plainstones with me.  We met young Anthony
Kennedy of Benane, and I perceived that it was his intent
to take the wall of me.  So I squared myself, and went a
little before with my hand on my rapier hilt and my elbows
wide, also cocking fiercely my bonnet over my eye—which
assurance feared Anthony so greatly that he meekly took the
pavement edge, and I went by with my mother on my
arm, having, as I thought, come off very well in the matter.

But my mother stood stock still in amazement.

'Laddie, laddie, I kenned na what had taken ye—ye
prinked and passaged for a' the world like our bantam cock
at Kirrieoch, when he hears his neighbour at Kirriemore craw
in the prime of the morn.  Gin ye gang on that gait, ye will
get your kame berried and scarted, my lad.  So listen your
auld mither, and walk mair humbly.'

At this I was somewhat shamed, and dropped behind like
a little whipped messan; for my mother has a brisk tongue.
My father said not a word, but there was a look of dry
humorsomeness upon his face which I knew and feared more
than my mother's clip-wit tongue.





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.. _`THE GREAT DAY OF TRIAL`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XLIX


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE GREAT DAY OF TRIAL

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At last, however, the trial was set, and we all summoned
for our evidence.  It was to be held in the High Court of
Justiciary, and was a right solemn thing.  A hot day in
mid-summer it proved, with the narrow, overcrowded bounds of
the town drowsed with heat, and yet eaten up with a plague
of flies.  The room of the trial was a large one, with a dais
for the judges at the end, the boxes for the prisoners, and
a tall stool with steps and a bar on which to rest the hands,
for the witnesses.

And in the long, dark, low, oak-panelled room what a
crush of people!  For the report of the monstrous dealing
of the Mures and the strangeness of their crimes, had caused
a mighty coil in the town of Edinburgh and in the country
round about.  So that all the time of the trial there was a
constant hum about the doors—now a continuous murmur
that forced its way within, and now a louder roar as the
doors were opened and shut by the officers of the court.
Also, in order to show themselves busybodies, these pot-bellied
stripe-jackets went and came every minute or two, pushing
right and left with their halberts, which the poor folk had
very peaceably to abide as best they might.

But the disposition of the rabble of the city was a marvel
to me.  For being stirred up by the Bargany folk and by
the Earl of Dunbar, Mure's well-wisher, it was singularly
unfriendly to us.  So that we were almost feared that the
criminals might, after all, be let off by the overawing of the
assize that sat upon the case.  But finally, as it happened,
those who were chosen assize-men were mostly landward
gentlemen of stout hearts and no subjection to the clamour
of the vulgar—such, indeed, as should ever be placed upon
the hearing of justice, not mere bodies of the Luckenbooths,
who, if they give the verdict against the popular voice, are
liable to have their shops and stalls plundered.  And James
Scrymgeour of Dudhope, a good man, was made the
chancellor of the jury.

There were many of the great Lords of Session on the
bench.  For a case so important and notable had not been
tried for years, and the Lords of Secret Council appointed
my Lord President himself to be in the chief place in his
robes, as well as five other justices in his company, that the
dittay might be heard with all equal mind and with great
motion of solemnity.

It was eleven by the clock when the judges were ushered
in, Sir John Fenton of Fentonbarns, Lord President, coming
first and sitting in the midst.

Then the crier of the court shouted, 'Way for His
Majesty—for King James the Sext make way!'

And all the people rose up while King James was
coming in.  He sat upon the bench with the justices
indeed, but a little way apart, as having by law no share in
their deliberations.  Nevertheless he was all the time writing
and passing pieces of white paper to them, whereat they
bowed very courteously back to him.  But whether they
took any notice of their import I know not.

Then the prisoners were brought in.  John Mure the
elder, with his grey hair and commanding presence, looked
out of from beneath his eyebrows like a lion ignominiously
beset.  James Mure the younger came after his father, a
heavy, loutish, ignorant man, but somewhat paled with his
bloody handling at the instance of the Lords of Secret
Council.  Also in accordance with the promise of Earl
John in the matter of the finding of the cave, James
Bannatyne of Chapeldonnan was not set up for trial
along with them, which was a wonder to many and an
outcry to some of the evilly affected.

Then the court being set, the dittay was read solemnly
by a very fair-spoken and courteous gentleman, Thomas
Hamilton of Byres, the King's advocate.  He spoke in a
soft voice as if he were courting a lady.  And whenever he
addressed a word to the prisoners, it was as if he had been
their dearest friend, and grieved that they should thus stand
in jeopardy of their lives.

Yet, or so it seemed to me, John Mure was ever his
match, and answered him without a moment's hesitancy.

Then, after the advocate's opening, the evidence was
led.  They called upon me first to arise.  And I declare
that my knees trembled and shook as they never did before
the shock of battle.  So that only the sight of Nell's pale
face and my mother holding her hand, at all gave me any
shred of courage.  But, nevertheless, I went, with my
tall, blue-banded hat in hand and my Damascus sword by my
side, to the stance.  And there I told all that I had
seen—first of the murder at the Chapel of St Leonards, with
the matter of the Grey Man who sat his horse a little
way apart among the sandhills.  Yet could I not declare
on mine oath that I knew of a certainty that this man was
the accused John Mure of Auchendrayne.  Though as
between man and man I was wholly assured of it.

I told also of the sending of the letter and of the
confusion of the lad upon his return from the house of
Auchendrayne, and of all the other matter which came
under my observation, even as I have detailed them in
this history, but more briefly.  Then a tall, thin, leathery
man, Sir John Russell the name of him, advocate for the
Mures, stood up and tried to shake me in my averments.
But he could not—no, nor any other man.  For I wasted
no thought on what I ought to say, but out with the
plain truth.  So that he could not break down the
impregnable wall of the thing that was, neither make me
say that which was not.

Then there came one after the other the Dominie,
Meg Dalrymple, Robert Harburgh, and lastly my own Nell.
But they had little more to tell than I had told at the
first, till the herald of the court cried out for Marjorie Mure,
or Kennedy, called in the pleas the younger lady of
Auchendrayne.

Then, pale as a lily flower is pale, clad in white, and
with her hair daintily and smoothly braided, she rose and
gave her hand to my Lord Cassillis, who brought her
with all dignity and observance to the witness stance.  So
firmly she stood within it, that she seemed a figure of
some goddess done in alabaster, the like of that which I
had once seen at the entering in of the King's palace at
Holy rood House.

There was the stillest silence while Marjorie told her
tale.  The King stood up in his place, with his hat on his
head, to look at her.  The judges gazed as though they had
seen a ghost.  But in an even voice she related all the terrible
story, making it clear as crystal, till there stood out the full
wickedness of the unparalleled murders.

'You are the wife of James Mure, the younger prisoner,'
said the man of leather, the advocate Russell,; 'how then
do you appear to give evidence against him?'

'I was first the daughter of Thomas Kennedy of Culzean,
whom these men slew!' said she.

And this was her sole answer.  The lawyers for the
defence, as was their duty, tried to make it out that her
evidence was prejudiced, and so to shake it.  But the King
broke out upon them, 'No more than we are all prejudiced
against foul murder!'

So they were silenced.  But the judges were manifestly
ill at ease, and shifted in their seats—for even the King had
not liberty of speech in that place.  Yet no man said him
nay, because he was the King, and, save it were Maister
Robert Bruce, not many cared to brook his sudden violent
rages.

Then was entered James Bannatyne, who had been
brought to confession (in what fashion it boots not to
inquire), and he in his turn detailed, line by line, all the
iniquity.  So it seemed that now the net was indeed woven
about the cruel plotters.  But my Lord President, by the
King's authority, was instant with the prisoners to confess the
murdering of Sir Thomas and of the other—yea, even offering
his life (but no more) to either of them who would reveal
the matter, and tell who were complices in the conspiracy.

And I think James Mure the younger was a little
moved at this offer, for I saw him very plainly move and
shift the hand that was upon his head.  His father watched
him with a sharp eye, and once set his manacled wrist upon
his son's shoulder, as it had been to encourage him to remain
firm.  He himself stood erect and undaunted all the time
of the trial, like a tower of ancient strength, while his son
sat upon a stool with his back against the bars of the box, as
it seemed careless of the crimes which were alleged against
him.  He had not even lifted his eyes when his wife
Marjorie went into the place of witnessing.

At last it was all over, and the men of the jury spoke
earnestly together, while John Mure watched them with his
lionlike eyes shining from under his hassock of grey hair.
The King sat impatiently drumming his hands upon a rail.
He would have liked, I could see, to go over to confer with
them.  But even King Jamie had hardly dared so much as
that.

After a short space for consultation their president of
assize, Sir James Scrymgeour, stood up in the body of the
court with a little paper in his hand,

'King's lieges all, are ye agreed in your verdict?' asked
my Lord President.

'We are,' said Sir James, firmly.

'And what is your finding?'

There was a great and mighty silence so that the anxious
tapping of the King's fingers on the wooden bench could be
heard.

'We find them both GUILTY—' said Sir James.

He would have said more in due form, but there was a
thunderous shout from all the Westland folk that were in the
hall, so that no more could be heard.  But the King was seen
upon his feet commanding silence, and the macers of the
court struck here and there among them that shouted.

Then when the tumult within was a little hushed, my
Lord President rose to pronounce sentence.  But he had
scarce opened his mouth, when there came through the open
windows the angry roaring of the mob without.  For the news
had already reached them, and Dunbar and others were busily
employed stirring them up to make a tumult on behalf of
the murderers.  My Lord President had a noble voice and
the words of condemnation came clear and solemn from him,
so that they were heard above the din by every ear in the
hall—ay, and even as far as the outer port.

'We discern and adjudge John Mure of Auchendrayne
and James Mure his son and apparent heir to be ta'en to the
Mercat Cross of Edinburgh, and there their heads to be
stricken from their bodies—as being culpable and convict
of many treasonable and heinous crimes.  Which is
pronounced for DOOM!'

And when the officers had removed the prisoners, Marjorie
Kennedy walked forth from the hall of judgment, as silent
and composed as though she had been coming out of the
kirk on a still summer's morning with her Bible in her hand.





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.. _`THE LAST OF THE GREY MAN`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER L


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE LAST OF THE GREY MAN

.. vspace:: 2

It was the morn of the execution.  Justice, delayed for
long, was that day to let fall its sword.  We of the Cassillis
colours mustered in the dead of the night, for there was no
force save the City Guard within the walls.  And we had
recently had overly many proofs how little these men could
do with the unruly commons of Edinburgh if it pleased them
to be turbulent.  So it had come to be bruited abroad, that
there was an intent to prevent the execution and deliver
the murderers out of the hands of justice.

But we were resolved that this should not be.  So, as
was our bounden duty, we armed us to support the right
and to keep the King's peace against all riotous law-breakers.
The Earl gave to me the command of one half of the
band, reserving the other for himself.  And already he
called me Sir Launcelot, though I had not yet received the
acknowledgment of knighthood from the King.

At the first break of day it was to be done.  Of this we
had private notice from the turnkey of the Tolbooth.

I had worked earnestly upon my mother and Nell that
they should abide from the business—which was, indeed, not
for womankind to see.  Though I knew that there would
be many there, ay, even dames gentle of degree.  But my
father marched with me.

'Shall I put my harness off me,' said he, 'when there is
a chance of a tumult, and of the defeating of the solemn
justice of Providence and of King James?  God forbid!
Wife, help me on with my jack.'

So I placed my father in my own command, and I set
him in the second rank with Hugh of Kirriemore beside
him and Robert Harburgh in front of him, where I judged
he would not come to any great harm.  And we Kennedies
had the King's private permission thus to come through the
town under arms.  When we arrived at the place the tall
scaffold had already been set up at the cross, and even ere
we arrayed us first about it, many a candle had begun to
wink here and there in the tall windows of the High Street.

The Earl was to command a second strong guard from
the prison port to the scaffold, lest the rabble should try to
overwhelm the City Guard and the marshal's men as they
convoyed the prisoners to the place of execution.

Thus we of the first band stood grimly to our arms a
long time after the gloaming of the morning began.  The
hum of the folk gathering surrounded us.  There was,
however, little pleasance or laughing, as there is at an
ordinary heading or hanging; and that did not betoken
good, for when the populace is silent, it is plotting.  This
much I had learned in my long service and afterwards as a
knight-at-arms.  Therefore I hold it the true wisdom to
strike ere the many-headed can bite.  That, at least, is my
thought of it.

Slowly and slowly three or four dark figures on the
scaffold grew clearer to our eyes, till we could see the
headsman and his assistants waiting patiently for their work to be
brought to them.  The chief of these was a man mighty of
his arms.  He had a black mask upon his face, and was
naked even to the waist.  A leathern apron like a smith's
was done about his loins, and he stood leaning his broad axe
upon the block.  The sun was just beginning to redden the
clouds in the east, when the door of the Tolbooth fell open
with a loud noise.  At the very same moment the rooks and
jackdaws arose in a perfect cloud from the pinnacles of St
Giles as well as from the whole city.  And in a black
clanging cloud they drifted seaward.  Which was looked upon as
a marvel by them that watched for freits.  For they said,
'These be John Mure's devils that have forsaken him.'  And,
indeed, whether there was aught in it or no, certain is
it that the birds came not back for many days.  At least,
not to my seeing, but then I was much occupied with other
matters.

As the procession came out, the Earl John and his men
filed on either side in a triple line, with the axe-men of the
guard marching close about the prisoners.  John Mure
walked first in his grey cloak, but bareheaded, striding
reverend and strong before all.  Behind him came his son.
And hand in hand with him (O marvel of marvels!) was
she that had been in name his wife, even Marjorie Kennedy.
And as they came, the light grew clearer.  There seemed
to be almost a smile upon the Lady Marjorie's face.  And
James Mure listened intently as she spoke low and steadily
to him.

For Marjorie had in these days become (as it seemed)
a woman removed from us, supported by no earthly food.
For none touched her lips, her strength being upheld by
some power from above; at least, so I think.  She had
received permission from the King to be with her husband in
his last hours.

'I have fulfilled the Lord's justice, for my duty was laid
upon me,' she said, 'but I would not kill both body and
soul.'

How she effected it I know not; but certain it is that
during the weeks of waiting she had won James Mure in some
sort to contrition and prayer.  And now with his hand in
hers, they walked together along the short way to the scaffold
foot; but old John Mure strode scornfully on before, heedful
neither of man nor woman.  And I swear that I could not
but in some measure admire at him, devil of cruelty as he
was.

They climbed the scaffold—John Mure calmly as though
he were leading a lady to a banquet table—but his son
faltered and had fallen at the ladder foot, save for the hand
of Marjorie, who walked in white by his side, accompanying
him faithfully to his end.

'I am his wife,' she said.  'It was I who brought him
to this.  Ye will not twain me from him on this day of
shame.  Never have I owned James Mure as my husband
before, but I own him now.'  These were her words, when
the captain of the guard was instant with her to depart home.

And I declare that the doomed man looked at her with
something like a beast's dumb gratitude in his eyes, which,
when you think on it, is a thing marvellous enough.  And
I ask not that it shall be believed.  Yet I saw it, and will
at any time uphold the truth of it with my sword if need be.

At last they stood upon the scaffold platform, and the
headsman made ready.  Then there sounded above the
mingled roar of the multitude the blowing of a trumpet.
And the King's gay favourite, the Duke of Lennox, rode to
the foot of the stage.  He had a paper in his hand.

'A pardon!  A pardon!' yelled the people.

My heart gave a great leap and stood still.

'They never dare!' cried I.  'Lads, stand firm.  If
the King hath pardoned the murderers, shall we of the
West?  Will ye follow me, lads?'

And they whispered back, 'Ay, that we will.  We will
help you to do justice upon them.  The Mures shall never
leave this place alive, though we all die also.  We shall not
go back to Carrick, shamed by these men's lives.'

So we arranged it, if by any chance there should be news
of a reprieve.  For it was by singular good hap that we were
the only company under arms in the city, save the few men
of the Town Guard.

But when Lennox made his way to the scaffold, we
heard another way of it.  I was almost underneath the
staging upon the front, and heard that which was said, almost
every word.

'The King to you two traitors about to die,' he read.
'His Majesty desires greatly to be informed of the certainty
of these things whereof you have been accused, and for which
you have been justly condemned—the murder of Sir Thomas
Kennedy, the matter of the bloody dagger thrown at the Red
House, the Treasure of Kelwood, and its taking out of the
changehouse on the Red Moss.  His Majesty the King
offers life and his clemency in a perpetual exile upon some
warded isle, to the first of you that will reveal the whole
matter.'

The King's favourite ceased his reading, and looked at
the condemned men.

And John Mure in his plain grey cloak, which he had
not yet laid aside, looked askance at Lennox, who shone like
a butterfly in gay colours, being tricked out in the latest
fitful extravagancies of fashion.

'We shall be grateful to His Majesty all our lives,' said
he, sneeringly, 'but the Solomon of Scotland is so wise that
he can easily certify himself of the truth of these things
without our poor aid.'

But James Mure the younger, where he stood with his
wife by his side, seemed a little struck with the message, and
began to listen with interest.

'Read that again,' he said to Lennox, abruptly.

And Lennox, prinking and preening him like a gay-feathered
Indian bird in my lady's bower, read the King's
mandate over again.

John Mure watched his son with the eye of a crouching
wild cat.  The younger man was about to utter something,
when his father said quickly to Lennox, 'I pray thee, my Lord
Duke, may I speak with you a moment apart?  I am the
first to accept the offer!'

And with that they came both of them to the side of the
scaffold where I was on guard, leaving James Mure standing
with drooping head by the block.

'Hark ye, my lord,' said Auchendrayne the elder, 'thy
master's terms are fair enough to be offered to a dying man
on the scaffold.  I will take them.  But on condition that
my son be executed before I reveal the secret.  For there are
but two of us left, and we have been close to one another all
our lives.  I would not, therefore, have my son think that I,
being an old man, for the sake of a year or two of longer life,
would reveal those matters for which he has already suffered
the torture of the extreme question, with so great constancy
both in the King's inquest chamber and before the Lords of
Secret Council.'

'That is easily arranged,' said Lennox, dusting at his
doublet.  'I have but to give the word to the executioner,
and he will do his duty first upon your son.  Then he will
halt till you have accepted the King's mercy, and given
pledge and earnest of full revelations concerning these hidden
and mysterious matters.'

This was Lennox's customary manner of speaking—as
he had learned it in the English Court, with womanish
conceits and a flood of words and gestures.  And as he spoke
he smiled upon John Mure, as though the old grey man in
the cloak and reverend beard had been some young and
easy-virtued dame of the Court.

And so taken up with himself was he, that he did not
observe the basilisk look which the arch-conspirator turned
upon him.

Lennox held up his hand to the executioner.

'In the King's name,' he cried to the man in the mask,
'do thine office upon the younger first, and speedily.'

'These are not my orders!' quoth he in the mask, curtly.

Lennox flashed a little ebon staff, with a golden crown
set upon the summit, before his eyes.

'Would'st thou argie-bargie with me?' he said, 'then
right soon another shall take thy bishopric and (as thou
dost others) shalt shepherd thee to Hades.'

Whereat Marjorie, robed in her clear-shining white,
took the hand of James Mure, the man that was about
to die.

'Husband,' said she, calmly, 'I have asked pardon for
thee from God—do thou also ask it now, ere swift death
take thee.  Ask it both from God and man.'

For she had been his ministrant angel in the prison.
And her own heart being changed—vengeance in the drinking
not seeming so sweet a cup as it had appeared in the
mixing.  She had also won the sullen mechanic heart of
him, who, according to the law of the land, had been so
long her husband.  She had showed him the way to a
certain sum of faith, penitence, and hope.  Which,
perchance, he snatched at, not so much for themselves, but
as the best things which were left to him.

'James, won thou forth on thy way.  Fear not!  Thou
shalt not be long alone,' she said to him.

And, staggering a little, he moved across the scaffold.
He would have fallen but that Marjorie set his hand upon her
shoulder and put her arm about him.  So he came forward
stumbling like a man in sore sickness, as doubtless he was.

'I am a sinful man,' he said, so that some, at least, could
hear him.  'Pray for me, good people.  Keep your hands
from blood, as I have not kept mine.  And, Marjorie,
though thou didst never love me, love me now, and bide
with me till I die.'

'Fear not,' she said; 'I will stand beside thee, and not
only here.  I have a message that I shall right soon be called
to journey with thee further, meeting thee somewhere by
the way that thou must go.'

And calling him again 'sweet brother' and 'James,' she
laid down his neck upon the block, and with one blow the
headsman featly did his office.  But Marjorie stood still and
received the poor head in a decent napkin after the masked
man had held it up.

John Mure looked at her and at her son all the time,
and an evil and contemptuous light shone in his eyes.

'Madam,' he said, 'it had done no harm had you begun
your care and attendance somewhat earlier.  Ye might have
made a decent preacher out of James.  He was never
muckle worth for aught else.'

Then Lennox came forward again with his paper.

'Now, John Mure,' he said, 'we have done according
to your desire.  Ye will now, I doubt not, having seen the
end and reward of iniquity in the person of your son, accept
His Majesty's so marvellous clemency, and be content to
reveal all the matter.'

He came a little near to the old man, airily whisking his
paper with his forefinger.

John Mure waved him aside with one hand, and held his
nose with the other.

'Pah!  Get apart from me, civet cat!' he cried.
'Think ye that I will have any dealings with you or with
your dullard fool master, King Baggy-breeches.  I saw that
ye might, perchance, were I first turned to dead clay and
lappered blood, chance to get something out of James there.
I saw him look somewhat too eagerly on your reprieve, for
much belated domesticity had turned him soft.  So I played
with you.  And now, wot ye well, ye shall know nothing
from me that your precious Solomon of asses cannot divine
for himself!'

He took off his cloak of grey and lace collar, baring his
neck for the dead stroke.

'Stay,' he said to Lennox.  'Since your wise King is so
curious.  Here is a history of divers matters that may
interest your master.  It may do him some good.'

The new minister of Edinburgh, a soft-spoken,
King-fearing man, came near.  John Mure looked at him.

'Of what religion art thou?' he asked.  'Ay, verily, of
the King's religion.  Were my time not so circumscribed,
I would have at thee with texts, thou time-serving rogue.
Ay, and would swinge thee with them soundly, too.'

'In what religion dost thou die?' said the minister.  For
it was a customary question in those days, when men were
forced to live and die on the borderland of many creeds.

John Mure smiled as he bent his head to the block.

'Of the ancientest persuasion,' said he, 'for I am ready
to believe in any well-disposed god whom I may chance to
meet in my pilgriming.  But in none will I believe till I do
meet him.  Nevertheless do thou, like a wise, silly bishop,
stick to the King and thy printed book!'

Which saying was remembered when the minister was
afterward made a bishop by the King's favour.

With these words, John Mure threw out his hands with
a sharp jerk—for that was the customary signal.  The broad
axe rose and fell, flashing in the sun a moment ere it crashed
dully upon the block.  The Westland men gave a shout,
and the heathen spirit of John Mure of Auchendrayne,
carrying such a load of sin and bloodshedding as never soul
did before or since, fared forth alone to its own place.





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.. _`MARJORIE'S GOOD-NIGHT`:

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   CHAPTER LI


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   MARJORIE'S GOOD-NIGHT

.. vspace:: 2

Even as the axe was falling, Marjorie Kennedy sank down
upon the platform of the scaffold, as though the stroke had
fallen upon her.  I sheathed my sword, and sprang upon
the slippery stage to hold her up.  When I took her in my
arms she was soft and pliable in all her limbs like a little
child.  Till now she had been like a woman of steel, or
rather like one carven in alabaster, as I have said.  But now
she lay in my arms like a new-born babe on the nurse's lap.

We carried her homeward, making strangely enough for
some distance but one procession with the bodies which were
going to be buried without the wall, while the heads were
taken to be set on the pikes of the Nether Bow.

To the Earl John's own lodging we brought her, and in
a room with a wide north-looking window we laid her down
on a bed.  Then we stood silently about her, Nell and I
being nearest.

In a little while Marjorie turned her head to the window.
The sun had risen on the sea.  A north wind was blowing.
All was very blue, and smacked of the morning freshness,
for the window was open, and the sea air blew off the firth
almost as salt it was wont to blow in at the windows of
Culzean.

Thrice she moved her lips to speak, but till the fourth
time no word came.

'I have done the work appointed,' she said, 'I ken not
if I have done it right.'

She paused a little, and her eyes, as she looked at the sea,
were very wide and wistful.

'It is a hard saying that "Vengeance is His."  I thought
it would be sweet—sweet,' she said, 'but now in the mouth
it is bitter.'

'Hush thee, Marjorie,' whispered my Nell; 'it was the
justice of God upon the murderers of our father.'

And I thought that she spoke well.

But Marjorie waved her aside.

'Like enough,' she answered, quietly, as one that has
not strength to argue, but yet holds the contrary opinion.
'Done, at least, is Marjorie's task.  I journey forth to take
my wages.  Fare you well.'

She turned her face a little outward so that she could
look upon the sea and the Fife Lomonds.

'A dearer shore,' she said, softly, and then she started a
little, quickly as if she had waked from sleep.

'Where am I?' she asked.

But ere we could answer—even Nell, who stood close
beside her and stroked her brow with a soft hand, she went
on,—

'Oh, what am I saying?  I was thinking on our
garden at Culzean, with its rose walks and the sweet
dreaming scent of the sea?'

She looked up at me, as it had been almost archly, yet so
as almost to break my heart.

'Launcelot, lad,' she said, 'hast thou thy gage that I
gave thee there?  Ye thought me once to be sweet.  And
I liked you, laddie, I liked you—with something just an
inch on the hither side of loving.  But now Nelly will love
thee a mile on the further side.  Come you, Nell,' she said,
beckoning her, 'brave, sweet sister!  Let not thy sharp
tongue longer injure thy warm heart.  Give me your hand,
little sister Nelly.  Where is it?  I cannot see—for the
bright shining light.'

And finding Nell's hand she put it into mine across the bed.

'Good-night, bairns,' she said, 'even so keep them till
the world ends!'

Then for a short space she was silent, and when she
spoke again it was very low, so that none save Nell and I
could hear.  But the words made us tingle as we caught them.

'Gilbert,' she was saying in a whisper, clear and distinct,
'is it not sweet to walk thus hand in hand on the green
meadows?  Are not the spring flowers sweet, lad of my love?
Shall I sing thee a song about them?  For, though thou
know'st it not, I can sing both high and low.'

Then she spoke as it had been liltingly and gladsomely.

'Gilbert, let me set this spray of the bonny birk above
thine heart.  Methinks it hath a strange look.  I kenned
not that it grew in this countryside.'

She broke into a weird lilt of song that sent the tears
hasting to our eyes.  But Marjorie was smiling as she never
smiled on me, and that made me weep the more.

   |  *'It neither grew in syke nor ditch*
   |    *Nor yet in any sheuch,*
   |  *But at the gates o' Paradise,*
   |    *That birk grew fair eneuch.'*
   |

'Gilbert, Gilbert,' she said lovingly, crooning like one
that is caressed, 'is not this right winsome?  That we are
walking here together on the living green—with all our
fashes, all our troubles left quite behind us.  There was surely
something long ago that wearied us, something that parted us
and twained us.  I cannot mind what it was.  I shall not
try to remember.  But, love of mine, it shall separate us no
more for ever and ever!'

Her voice had almost gone.  But once again it came louder.

'Keep my hand, Gilbert,' she said, trembling a little,
'there is a mist coming up over the green betwixt me and
the sunshine—a cold, cold mist from the sea.  But keep
thou my hand, dear love, clasp it tighter, and it will pass
over.'

I saw the death sweat break on her brow.

'Gilbert, Gilbert,' she whispered, searching above her
with her hands and opening her arms, 'clasp me closer.  I
cannot see thee, love, for the mist.  I cannot feel your
hand.'

I bent my ear.  I thought she was gone from us.  But,
as from an infinite distance I heard the words come to me.
They were the last, spoken with great relief.

'The mist has gone by, dear love!  The mist has quite
gone by!'

And she lay still, smiling most sweetly.





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.. _`HOME-COMING`:

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   CHAPTER LII


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   HOME-COMING

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The snows of another winter had fallen, frozen, and lain
long ere they were at last whisked away by the winds of a
brisk and bitter March.  It was now again the springtime
upon the face of the earth—the time of the earliest singing
of the mavis, of the sweet piping of the blackbird on the
tree.  The grasses were green, too, over the unforgotten
grave of our Marjorie.  But we who loved her had won to
a memory that was not now wholly sorrow.  Specially we
remembered the sweet and profitable end she had made,
when after many days of bitter winter in her heart,
forgiveness and love at last unsealed her bosom.

It had been a long winter for us all, because it behoved
that I should go to London, there to be made one of His
Majesty's new knights.  For I had told all my tale to the
King, being so charged by the Earl John.

'Yet,' said he, 'keep ever your thumb upon the matter
of the Treasure of Kelwood.  And I will keep mine right
effectually upon Currie, the ill-conditioned thief thereof.'

And so he did, and for the same Laird of Kelwood's sake
chiefly, he set to mending and patching our old tower of
defence on Craig Ailsa, in which he gave one Hamilton the
charge of him as prisoner, together with John Dick the
traitor and two or three more.

'It was a fine, quiet place,' said the Earl John, 'and
would give such rascals time and opportunity for
repentance—which,' added he, 'seems more than I am ever likely to
get with all this throng of business on hand.'

For the Earl John was now waxen one of the greatest
men in broad Scotland, and withal he had all the power
worth considering in the shire of Ayr.  So that even the
Craufords, wanting now their ancient chief, and broken
with bickerings among themselves, sent an embassy of
peace and goodwill to him.

It chanced that it came when the Earl was in a good
humour.

'Ah, John Crauford,' said Cassillis, ''tis a changed
day since Bargany and you chased us off Skeldon Haughs.
It looks as if the sow had not been flitted so far after all.
But ye shall have the peace ye ask.  For we live under
a gracious King who loves quietness as much as when he
dwelt here in our kindly North.  And he is now the better
able to enforce it.  Therefore, look ye to it.  I will
maintain you Craufords in your heritages of Kerse—which by
my power as Bailzie, I might legally declare forfeit.

'But I will tell you what ye must do in return.  Ye
shall render me place and precedence at kirk and market.
Ye shall build up your private door in Dalrymple Kirk,
and ye shall abide from taking your places there till ye
have seen me seated.'

To this, dourly enough, the Craufords perforce agreed.
For, indeed, they could make no better of it, so great a
man was our Earl grown.

But to me he was ever kind, and proved none so ill-given
when it liked him.  For he said, 'Build you the
house of Palgowan and I will plenish it for you, and that
not meanly.  And you and my cousin Nell shall rear me
routh of lusty knaves to protect my south-western
marches, and keep down the reivers of the Dungeon!'  Which,
indeed (so far as I was concerned), I was right
willing to promise.

So it came about that the Earl would have it that our
wedding must be held in the ancient strength of Cassillis,
which sits by the waterside not so far from the town of Ayr.
And a bonny, well-sheltered place it is—not like Culzean,
which stands blusteringly on the seabrink, over-frowning all.
And because the Earl of Cassillis said it, so it was bound to be.

For he was our Nell's guardian, and besides we that were
to live under him, were none the worse of keeping in with
him.

When I went to do my courting, as often as not I found
Nell walking with him, and ofttimes flouting him.  And
when I would have cautioned her, 'Tut,' she said, 'he likes
nothing better.  If his own wife flouted him, he might stay
better at home.'

'Cousin,' Nell would say to him sometimes, 'Cousin
John, ye think ye are such a great man, yet a little
musket-ball, or a woman's finger-long bodkin, might let all thy
greatness out.  Ye should think oftener on that.

'What, Nell,' said he, 'is it that the hour of thy
marriage grows so near, that thou must test thy preaching
on me.  Keep the proof of the pudding for thine own
goodman.'

'Ah,' said she, 'perchance my cousin, the noble Countess,
has already given thee thy fill of it.'

'Thou art a forward chit,' said he, wringing her ear
between his finger and thumb.  'I hope Launce will swinge
thee tightly with a supple birch for thy often naughtiness.'

It was, indeed, a notable day when Nell and I were
married.  All the morning my heart was beating a fine
tune, lest something should happen ere I got my lass
carried off to our home.  Alone I rode from the Cove of
Culzean to the house of Cassillis.  I started brave and early,
and my good old horse, Dom Nicholas, rode for once the
right road and the ready, the gate that I longed to go.  I had
a rare fine coat of blue silk upon me, belted about the waist
with the King's belt, and with the King's order of knighthood
all a-glitter upon my breast.  Silver-buttoned was my
coat, and of solid silver, too, were the accoutrements of Dom
Nicholas—ay, to the very stirrups and the broidery on his blue
saddle-cloth.  I wore the Earl's Damascus sword, his first gift,
swinging at my side.  And as Dom Nicholas and I went
through Maybole, wot ye, if we kept not our heads up.
For the lasses ran out in clouds to watch us go past, and
what was even better, the lads sulked and turned their backs,
saying that they would be shamed to lay a leg across a
horse's back thus appareled.  For I knew well what they were
thinking.  Had I been trudging afoot in hodden, and they
riding by all in silk with a gold-hiked sword, that is just
what I should have said.  So the black envy eating into
their hearts and lowering on their brows cheered me like old
French wine on a cold day.

I had not gone far across the bent when I spied a
cavalcade before me.  It was the men of Culzean, whom
I had so often led in battle, come to give me a right gay
sending off.  And at their head rode James (now the heir),
mirthful Sandy, and mine own little Davie, dressed like a
page-boy in satin of blue and gold.

They gave me boisterous welcome, and they that dared
would have broken many jests of the time-honoured sort
upon my head.  But on such a day a lover's head is
helmeted alike against the hand of war and the strife of
tongues.

The Earl himself met us at Cassillis Yett.  Whereupon
I dismounted and bent upon a knee.  He raised me right
courteously and led me within, conversing all the while as to
an equal.  Such a repair of folk I never saw before in
Carrick or in Kyle.  And sweetest of all to me was to see
my father, for my mother had bidden at home to welcome
us when we should ride southward.

And among the first that came to bid me good fortune
were Robert Harburgh and his wife.  Now so soon as the
eyes of my ancient love crossed mine, I perceived well that
there was yet wickedness lurking in them.

And whensoever her husband was called away on some
business of the Earl's I had proof of it.  For Kate Allison
came near to me, and, setting her hand on the silver buttons
of my coat, as though to pick a thread, she said,—

'So, Launcelot—or, I should say, Sir Launcelot—is it
come to this?  You see there is none so disdainful but in
time their fall will come.'

'Nay, Kate,' I made answer, 'it was not I that was first
disdainful, for do you mind who it was that told me certain
truths in the Grieve's house at Culzean?'

'Ah Launce!' said Kate Allison, 'own it now.  Was
not I a kind leech, to bite one I loved so healthily all for
his good and for the cooling of his blood?'

'Kate Allison,' said I, 'thou wast ever a minx, a teasing
rogue of rogues.  But thy disdain might have gone near to
costing me my life!'

'Go to, Sir Want-wit,' said she.  'Did not I know all
the time that thy love for me was no more than a boy's
fondness for kissing comfits, and to be made of by a bonny lass?
Why, even then thou wast fonder of Nell's little finger than
of my whole body.'

I knew that Kate spoke true—for, indeed, it was many
months since I had so much as thought upon her.  But this
I told her not.  The Lord knows how seldom she had
thought upon me.  But when they meet together, old
sweethearts take pleasure thus in dallying with the past,
when all wounds have been healed and no hearts broken.

But she saw my eyes wandering, as I guess, every way
about, and she must needs tease me concerning that also.

'Nay,' she said, 'you will not see your posy, till she
comes in to the minister and you.  So e'en content ye for
a little with an old married wife and the mother of a family.
Ye shall have time and to spare with your bonny bride or
all be done.'

'Kate,' I said, 'ye will be my friend as of yore.'

'Ay, and hold my tongue,' answered she quickly.

'That you did not always, then,' said I, 'for there never
was such an uncouth love-making in the world, as with
your tell-tale tongue ye made mine.  I dared not lay my
lips to a tender word nor so much as seek a favour, as it
might be innocently betwixt man and maid, but it was
"That you said to Kate on such a night!" or "Think ye
that I count so little on myself as to be content with Kate
Allison's cast-off sweet speeches."'

And the pretty besom laughed.  For though a married
wife, she was not a whit sobered, as one might see by
her eyes.

'It served you greatly right,' said she, 'but do me some
justice.  Did you ever hear of my telling of the night of
the fair at Maybole, and of our home-coming by the
woodland way?'

'No,' said I, curtly.  For indeed I liked not that memory
specially well, and wondered that she did.

'Then,' said Kate Allison, 'rail no more against woman's
tongues.  For they are moveable yard measures, and let out
no more than likes them.'

At this moment they called to me from the great door,
and Kate Allison waved me off with a gay 'Up and away,
Sir Knight!'—which pleased me more from her than many
a *Benedicite* from another.

The minister had come, they said, and was waiting for
me.  I went in, and lo! to my wonder, who should he be
but Maister Robert Bruce, the sequestrated minister of
Edinburgh, with whom the King had at last wholly fallen
out concerning the matter of the Gowrie riot.

The Earl smiled at my wonderment.

'Art thou astonished,' he said, 'thus to see our ancient
friend in Carrick?  Thinkest thou that thy marriage will
not stand?  Truth it will, for even King James will think
twice, or he bids his bishop unfrock a man that bides with
me in my defenced house of Cassillis.'

'Sir Launcelot,' said Maister Robert Bruce, bending to
me with his ancient grace and most reverend dignity, 'this
is the happiest hour with me since I quitted my high town
upon the Long Ridge.  It is true that I wander like a restless
ghost seeking abode; but as yet the King hath not bent me—yea,
though thrice I have met him in dispute and conference.'

Then went the Earl out to bring in my Nell, and I
listened to the minister of Edinburgh speaking.  Yet, on
my life I could not fix my mind on a word he said, for there
was a jangling as of many bells in mine ears, and all the
pulses of my life beat together.  Then knew I of a surety
that none had power to touch my heart like Nell Kennedy,
the lass that would not need to change her name.

At last the door opened and she entered—leaning on the
Earl's arm she came.  There was a rim of gold about her
hair like a coronet.  And John of Cassillis bent over to
me, as he gave her into my hand.  'Take her,' he said, 'I
have set a coronet about her brows for to-day.  She is in
haste to be wed, or I might have put a real one there.
And what had Sir Launcelot done then, poor thing?'

And I think the cold, tall Earl John was more than
a little fond of our Nell, concerning which I often rally her
now.

So Nell and I were married.  And as though he had
known her and her teasing temper, Maister Robert Bruce
paused long on the promise to 'obey' when he came to put
the questions to her, and also upon the words 'obedient
wife.'  Wherefore I have ever held him to be a man gifted above
most with the second sight.

It was between the sweet hazel and the flowering May
that we rode south—we two alone.  For Robert Harburgh
had led a company of men with flower-wreathed lances and of
young maids on palfreys as far as the crossing of the roads
which come from Culzean, where there met us a party with
the loving cup.

But now at long and last we were won clear, and ever
as we rode we caught hands and laughed and loosed them
again—all for gladness to be alone.  And we looked in one
another's eyes, and nigh brought ourselves and our horses
to destruction by thus looking and overlooking.  Till I
felt mine old Dom Nicholas, a horse that loves not philandering,
grow restive and sulky under my thigh, tossing his
head up as one slighted for the unworthy.  And ever as
we went she charged it upon me that then and then, and
at such another time, I loved her not.  And ever I swore
that I did.  Thereafter, being beaten on that point, she fell to
declaring that she had loved me first and most—but I only
reluctantly and, as it had been, at second-hand.

Thus we made the miles and the hours go by, redding
up all our past life and planning our future, wondering the
while if the stir and clangour of war had indeed passed
away for ever.  For already there had come a new look
upon the land.  Whether it was the union of the crowns
and the new English wealth which made money more
plenty, I know not, at any rate certain it is that there had
arrived a security to which we in the lands of Carrick
had been strangers for many generations.

Then it was that the farmer began to set his oxen to the
plough in teams of a dozen or more, not fearing any longer
that there might come a glint of steel-harnessed riders over
the hill, who should drive his cattle before them and leave
himself lying in the furrow a-welter in his blood.

The wind blew sweet about us.  It seemed that never
had there been a spring like this one since the world began,
never such delicatest airs as those that stirred the crisps
about Nell's white neck when she bent it sideways to hearken
to my speeches.  I declare that were I not an unlearned
Scot, who takes to his pen only when work for the
sword waxes slack, I could praise my love in similitudes of
Arabian birds and ferny sprays, as well as Euphues' Delight
or even as in the gentle Sydney his Arcadia.

But as it is I waste time, for already I have spoke too
long, and must haste me to the end.  Though this is a part
of my life that I could love to linger on.  For what is
pleasanter than sunshine after storm and the bolts of ruin.

I declare it was five years since I had had time to look
at a robin.  But there seemed to be time for everything
this fine May day.

And ever as we went, it seemed that we had been a long
time alone, and that it would soon come time to be turning
back again.  Then to which soever of us the thought came,
that we were now on the long lane that has no turning
(save that which turns in at the kirkyaird loaning), there
would also come the desire to touch and to look.  And even
thus did Nell Kennedy often, reaching her hand across to
me from her gentle, equal-pacing steed.

Then would she fall back on the things that had been,
and which now were passed away.

'Yesterday, at such a time,' she would say, 'I thought
that to-day would never come.  And now—'

Whereupon with her eyes she would look the rest.

Then I told her how that I had seen the Dominie but
yestereven, when she was sewing at the pearling of her bridal
dress and thinking of me.  He had gone back with his pipes
to the school by the kirk at Maybole.

'And what said he of our wedding?' asked my dear.

'Why I was instant with him to come and bide at Palgowan,'
I made answer.  'Shall I tell thee what he said?'

'Ay, tell it me, indeed!' quoth she, blithely, stopping
a moment on a high-lying moorish summit, with her hand
above her eyes and looking to the Spear of the Merrick
towards which we rode.

'Well, then, he said that those that were but newly wed
had no use for carven negro-heads, wherein to put the ashes
of their loves.'

'He is none so ugly as that!' said Nell—with, I think,
a look at me which I took for a certain complaisance it
pleased me to see.

Then I told her how the Dominie had added that it was
not yet time for men of his profession to come about the
house of a newly-wedded knight.  But that if prosperity
should come to Palgowan and the din of bairns' voices, we
might ask him again in ten years or somewhat less.

'Oh,' said Nell, shortly, and rode a little further off.
Yet I flattered myself that I had said the thing pretty well.
For it was not at all in these terms that the Dominie had
put his offer.  Indeed, I was in a quandary how most
discreetly to deliver his message.

So, in the long twilight of May, we came riding down
Minnoch Water.  For, with the sun-setting, we had fallen
silent, and we looked no more so frankly at each other.
But with one accord we turned our eyes across the water to
watch for the light of my mother's candle in the little
window.

She heard us as we came; and there, lo! before I knew
it, she was at Nelly's saddle leather, helping her to
dismount, and the tears were running steadily down her face.
I think she minded the day when she, too, had come home
a bride to the little house of Kirrieoch among the hills.

'Oh, my bairn—my bairn,' was what she said, 'come
awa' ben!'

And it was to Nell that she said it.  Me she minded no
more than a cock-sparrow under the eaves.  Then came Hugh
of Kirriemore out to take the horses.  But I went, as is my
custom, to the stable with Dom Nicholas, for he never slept
well otherwise.  And when I came in again I found that
my mother had Nell already seated by the fireside, for it is
chill among the uplands in May.  The peats were burning
fine, and on the white board there was a supper set fit for a
prince and princess.

But all the time my mother never minded me at all,
save to rage on me for bringing the lass so far and so fast.

'But, mother,' said I, 'remember that if I had not
made some haste, all your fine supper would have been
wasted.'

And indeed it came not far from being that as it was, for
we could eat but little.  The finest of muirland fare seemed
somehow or other to stick by the way, tasting strangely dry
and sapless.  And after we had done we drew apart and looked
at the red ashes, while my mother rattled on about the simple
concerns of the sheep and the calves, which mountain-bred
folk vastly love both to speak of and to hear about.

Presently she leaned over me and took down the burnt
Bible out of the wall aumry.

'Here, Launce,' she said, 'read you the chapter this
night ere ye sleep.  It becomes a man wedded and the
head of a family.  Besides, your father is from home.'

I declare I would sooner have charged upon the level
spears.  But I had no choice with my mother, speaking as
she did when I was a boy, and my Nell sitting there crossing
her pretty ankles by the fireside.  So I manned to read
a portion.  It was about Jonathan clambering up a rock
(and a good soldier he was).  But the prayer fairly beat me.
However, ere we rose from our knees we said the Lord's
prayer all of us together.  So to rest we went, without other
word spoken.  And through the little window of the room
in which I was born, Nell and I could hear, ere we went to
sleep, the brattle of the burn hurrying down through the
peace of the hills, past our own new house of Palgowan
and so on toward the silence of the outermost sea.

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   THE END

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   COLSTONS LIMITED, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

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   *STORIES BY \S. \R. CROCKETT.*

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THE STICKIT MINISTER.
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ME AND MYN.
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   LONDON: \T. FISHER UNWIN.

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