The Grey Man

CHAPTER XXXIV

IN THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY

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!"'

CHAPTER XXXV

THE OGRE'S CASTLE

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.

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE DEFENCE OF CASTLE AILSA

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.