The Grey Man

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.

CHAPTER XVII

THE CORBIES AT THE EAGLE'S NEST

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!'

CHAPTER XVIII

BAIRNS' PLAY

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.'