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.
*CHAPTER VIII*
*THE LAIRD OF AUCHENDRAYNE*
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?'