The Grey Man

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.

CHAPTER XLIII

THE MOOT HILL OF GIRVAN

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!'

CHAPTER XLIV

THE MURDER UPON THE BEACH

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.'