'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.'
'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.
*CHAPTER XIX*
*FIGHTING THE BEASTS*
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.
*CHAPTER XX*
*THE SECRET OF THE CAIRD*
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.