'It has been opened,' said I. 'See, the wax is gone, and there are
finger-marks within.'
'So, indeed, it has,' said Dominie Mure. 'Boy, if you have opened it I
will tan you alive, outside and in.'
Whereat the boy began to weep.
'I have said what I was told to say,' he cried, and for all we could do,
nothing more could we get out of him--save that a dark man, faced like
an ape or a wild beast, had come some way home behind him and sorely
terrified him. So we sent the boy back to his mother, and, bidding
farewell for that time to the Dominie and to young Gremmat, I fared
along the way to Culzean to make me ready for the long journey of the
morrow.
*CHAPTER XXIX*
*THE MURDER AMONG THE SANDHILLS*
It was broad day and a pleasant May morn, when my master and I said our
farewells at the gate of Culzean. With my own hands I had saddled for
Sir Thomas his warhorse. But he, coming down arrayed in his plain suit
of dark Flemish cloth, bade me take him back to the stable and get
instead a pacing palfrey, which he loved because Marjorie had used to
ride it.
Then he kissed his bairns, for the lads and Nell stood by the door on
the landward side, watching us with earnest eyes.
'Keep the castle, James,' he cried, 'till I come back!'
'Ay,' said Sandy, 'we will keep it for you, faither.'
For Sandy came ever to the forefront, setting himself naturally before
the slow and quiet Jamie.
Then Nell came near and kissed her rather. But she and I only looked
the one at the other as friends look, for at least before folk we did
not so much as touch hands.
So down through the woods Sir Thomas and I went sedately and quietly,
now into little caller blinks of morning sunshine which glinted straight
and level between the trees, and anon coming out upon a bare knoll as
into a room with a removed and spacious ceiling. For there at our feet
was the plain of the sea, sparkling and blue, beyond it again the hills
of Arran, and to the south the shoulder of the Craig of Ailsa, heaving
its bulk skyward like a monster of the ocean stranded in the shoreward
shallows.
Very pleasant was my master's discourse as we went, of the wonderful
peace that he was going to bring upon the land of Carrick from his
dealings with the King and Council in Edinburgh. Specially he spoke
with thankfulness of the present friendship of Auchendrayne, of the
young Bargany who should for long be under tutors and governors, and of
our own Earl, now tired of the feud and eager for a lasting peace.
'It needs,' said he, 'but that one should take on him all the burden and
heat of the day, and carry the matter through. And I, that am no
warrior, but a quiet man dwelling in mine own house and fit only for
daunering about mine own fields, may be able to do more in the matter
than many battalions. For I have some influence with the King--a man
that loves grave discourse upon occasion.'
So pleasantly talking together in this fashion, speaking ever the
kindliest things of the enemies of his house, and all the time making
many excuses for them, Sir Thomas kept his palfrey at the amble.
Presently we came to the castle of Greenan, which stands on a sea crag,
and looks right bravely over the Bay of Ayr and down upon the little
town thereof. It belongs to Kennedy of Balterson, a gossip and
well-wisher of Culzean's.
'Now,' said my master, 'I must see if Balterson is at home. I think
truly that he is, for there is a reek coming up very freely from the
lum. Now John was ever a big eater and a long lier abed in the
mornings. What a pleasantry if I should raise him from between the
blankets! It would be a great cast-up all the days of his life.'
So we lighted down in front of the castle yett. I tied the horses
together, and walked about the cliff edge, looking out to sea and over
the sands of Ayr, thinking of many things. Mostly my thoughts ran on
the treasure of Kelwood, and whether I should ever win it. Of Nell,
too, and what she meant by patting me on the cheek when we met my
mother, of the Tutor's words to my father that one day I should have a
handle to my name and a down-sitting as good as any. Plenty of pleasant
things I had to think about that caller morn in May, as indeed a young
man of spirit ought to have.
And it was not very long before Sir Thomas came forth arm in arm with
John Kennedy of Balterson, a grave and portentous man of heavy figure,
richly arrayed, more like the provost of a town than a country laird.
And these two paced up and down the narrow terrace walk of Greenan
Castle, turning and returning, wheeling and countering as on the
quarterdeck of a ship. But of the matter of their discourse I know
nothing, though I guessed it to have been concerning the making up of
peace between the feudal enemies in the lands of Carrick and Kyle.
It was near to ten of the clock, and already close upon the time which
had been appointed for the tryst with Auchendrayne, that we mounted at
the yett of Greenan to ride on our way to Holmestone Ford.
'Sorry am I,' said my master, 'that I have not spoken a word with John
Mure ere I go. But I know his loving desire for my success, and he well
knows my affection for him.'
We rode down from the castle crag of Greenan, and presently came out
upon the links. These are here all sandy, cast up into rounded mounds
and hills, and bitten into by the little pits and dungeons, called of
them that play at the golf, 'bunkers.'
'Launcelot, ride a little way in front. It approaches the hour of noon,
and I would do my devotion and meditate a little alone,' said Sir Thomas
to me. So I drew myself a bowshot before him, riding upon Dom Nicholas,
and taking my hat in my hand. I rode easily, enjoying the sea breeze
that cooled my brow and tossed my hair. I wondered if ever the time
would come, when I also should be thinking about my religion at noon of
a fine heartsome day. It seemed a strange time enough for a hale,
well-to-do gentleman to set to his prayers.
Presently I saw a man standing upon my right hand somewhat above me upon
the crown of a sandhill. And he raised his hand as one that cried to
clear the course in the game, so I thought no more of the matter. But I
looked round, thinking perchance that he cried to my master, who was
riding with bared head and holding his little red Testament in his hand.
Suddenly, even as I looked at him, I heard the sound of shots behind me,
and, turning Dom Nicholas, I saw my master reel in his saddle, with
white blowing puffs of gunpowder rising all about him, from behind the
desolate sandhills among which the murderers had hidden themselves.
Drawing my sword, I set spurs to the sides of Dom Nicholas and galloped
towards them. I was aware, as I rode, of my master lying on his back on
the sand, and his palfrey galloping away with streaming mane. A little
black crowd of men stood and knelt about him, and I saw the flash of
steel again and again as one and another of them lifted a knife and
struck.
I yelled aloud to them in my agony and bade them wait till I came. So
they hasted to make front against me, some of them leaping on their
horses and others biding a moment to put as it had been booty into their
saddle wallets.
It was Thomas Kennedy, called the Wolf of Drummurchie, that withstood me
as I came thus furiously upon Dom Nicholas. With him I first crossed
swords, while one, James Mure of Auchendrayne, held off a little warily,
watching to win in at me when I should give him opportunity. With the
corner of my eye I saw the same man whom I had at first observed making
the warning signal. He held up his hand as before. Then he leaped on a
horse which he had by him in a hollow of the sands. He was, as I noted,
a tall man, with a hat pulled low over his eyes, and he wore about him
the long grey cloak which had been so fatal a sign to us of Cassillis.
But ere I could see more, I was in the thick of the murderers with my
sword. I struck and warded, not knowing what I did, but only striking,
with the anger of blood in my eye, till I gave Drummurchie a cut on the
shoulder, which made him fain to shift his sword arm. Then I wheeled and
attacked Cloncaird as furiously, who was a great mountain of a fellow,
red of face and brutal of heart. And I had readily enough done for him,
too, had he been alone, for he was no man of his weapons. But I could
see plainly enough three or four others charging pistols and training of
hackbutts, making ready to take an aim at me. Whereupon I knew that
there was no use of spending my life for naught. So, with my sword red
in my hand, I rode over the sandhills straight at the tall man in the
grey cloak; but such was the effect of an ill conscience that he took
his mantle about his mouth as one that fears being known, and set spurs
to his horse. I had not pursued far when I came to the top of a dune
and saw a little cloud of citizens that played at the clubs beneath me.
To them I rode as hard as I could, with the murderers' bullets
splattering here and there and throwing up little spirts of sand about
me.
'Murder! Foul murder!' I cried. 'Come hastily, for the Tutor of
Cassillis is done to death!'
One of the citizens held up his hand to me as if to bid me be silent,
for it was the putting stroke which his neighbour played, and of its
kind difficult, so that men held their breath. But when it was made and
the ball holed, they ran to me quickly enough, for, alas! murder was so
common in those days, that men took little notice unless he that fell
was one who was some kin to themselves.
Nevertheless, they hasted when I cried who was my master, and who were
the villains that beset him. For the players were all burghers of Ayr
and feared that they should underlie the angers of the Earl and of the
King, if they gave not ready help when this slaughter was done, as it
were, at their very gates.
Thus very quickly we came to my dear master. He was lying alone on his
back quietly gazing up to the sky, the red blood welling from many
ghastly wounds. All his rich plain Flanders cleading was torn and
disarranged by the villains, who had not disdained to despoil after that
they had murdered him.
Yet there was some life left in him, and he turned his head, smiling as
if thankful (after the hateful faces of his cruel enemies) to gaze at
the last upon the countenances of friends. He was, as I thought, past
speech; but he looked about him in a certain curious way he had when he
had lost something, and, being absent-minded, knew not for the moment
what. I showed him his empty purse; but it was not that. So I looked
round and saw nothing but some discharged pistols lying with broken
lingels abroad upon the sand, and the little book he had been reading as
his palfrey paced along.
So as soon as I showed the latter to him he put out his hand for it.
Then he held it a moment, kissed it, and gave it back to me.
'Be a good lad,' he said quietly and composedly. 'Fear not for me; I go
in friendship with all men. Poor, poor Cloncaird!' he said, thinking of
one of his murderers whom he had always befriended, 'it is a pity for
his wife and young family!'
Then he closed his eyes and we thought he had already passed from us.
But presently he opened them again and looked toward me.
'Be kind to Nelly!' he said, smiling so kindly at me, that my heart
nearly broke. He shook his head at seeing my grief and the tears
running down, for, indeed, I could not withhold them.
'There is no need,' he said, reprovingly, 'no need for the like of that
ava'. Be a brave lad, Launcelot, and just as true to your God as you
have proved to me, who have been a loving master to you here below. I
am only wae for the poor, misguided lads, that were so far left to
themselves as to lay me here like this.'
And with that there was but his body on the sands, for the spirit of the
gentlest master that ever a man served had gone its way to its own
Master.
But it was even as he said--for the end of such an one there is no need
of tears.
Then I stood up, and the terrible thought came in upon me like Solway
tide. How--how shall I take him home to Helen Kennedy--to his orphaned
bairns, and to the stricken house of Culzean?
*CHAPTER XXX*
*I SEEK FOR VENGEANCE*
Ay, well might I say it. How was I to face Nell Kennedy--she that had
with a long, kindly look committed her father into my keeping that very
morning? Tenderly we lifted the body, which in life had been so noble
and now was so pitifully mishandled. The villains had despoiled the
dainty garmentry, torn the lace, and snatched the jewellery which Helen
Kennedy had set in place as, daffing right merrily, she prepared her
father (as she said) to 'gang worthily and bonnily before the King.'
But the King he went before was One, as he himself would often say, that
looked not on the outer appearance but on the heart. And concerning
that last Thomas Kennedy need have had no fear that his would not be
well looked upon--for it was upright, and kindly, and true, nor did it
ever move to the hurt of any man in all this world. And as I took him
up, I saw still more clearly the black-hearted rage of the persecutors.
For it showed as manifestly as any other fact the hellish intent of the
murderers, that they had taken time, even while I was in the act to come
at them, to despoil my master of his purse with a thousand merks of gold
therein. Nay, his very ring of fine diamonds they tore from his finger,
and his golden buttons of wrought goldsmith work were riven from his
frilled sark--one murderous loon snatching one thing and the other
another, worse than brute beasts of the field.
We laid him gently upon the back of wise Dom Nicholas, that all the time
stood like a statue, and then when everything was ready, moved
graciously and soberly away, as though he had been well aware of the
melancholy burden he bore. Even thus we brought my dear master to the
sea terrace of Greenan which he had so lately left.
And when John Kennedy of Balterson heard the trampling of the horse on
the flags of the court, he came out crying loudly and heartily as was
the manner of the man.
'Wi' what's this, Culzean? Are ye back again?'
So running to the door he stood with his table-knife in his hand and a
bit of his mid-day meal thereupon, astonished beyond the utterance of
words.
'What's this? What's this?' he cried. 'Oh, sirs, what foul wark is
here? Wha has done this?'
And I told him their names--at least so far as I knew them.
'Thomas of Drummurchie!' he cried. 'It shall not be the uplands of Barr
parish that shall keep ye frae the stark sword of John Kennedy of
Balterson. And thou, Walter Mure of Cloncaird, that has so often sat in
this house of the Greenan, by the grace of God I shall lay thee as low
as thou hast laid my friend this day.'
But I begged Balterson to think of something else than the taking of
revenge--of which all in good time. So presently he got me a horse
litter with two steady-going beasts, and I walked alongside it with Dom
Nicholas arching his head and treading softly as if he also mourned.
Thus we came to the town of Maybole, which was as our own place. And
such dule and lament as there was that day saw I never anywhere.
For the town had loved him as its liege lord, far more than either John,
Earl of Cassillis, or his father the King of Carrick. Such a
congregation as met us at the town gate! The women all crying the cry
of death, the men cursing and calling vengeance. The minister was there
to pray, and all classes and conditions were moved to tears.
And ere we were well past the Foul Alley there were twenty men on
horseback to chase the murderers, with John Kennedy of Balterson at
their head. But they might as well have chased the wind, for by this
time, with the relays of horse that had been ordered for them, they were
safe among the wild Crauford country on the borders of Kyle.
Of the sad homecoming to Culzean itself I declare I cannot write at
length. At the entering in of the woodland I left them, and upon Dom
Nicholas I rode drearily forward to do the bitterest day's work of my
life--to tell Helen Kennedy that I brought only her father's corpse home
with me.
And, as the chance befell, it was at least half-a-mile before I reached
the home gate of Culzean, just where one sees for the first time the
grey turrets sitting against the dimpled blue of the incoming tide, that
I was aware of Nell Kennedy coming light-foot towards me, singing a
catch of a song and swaying a flourish of sweet may-blossom daintily in
her hand. I have never rightly loved the white hawthorn since that day.
But as soon as she saw me she stopped her song and clutched her fingers
close upon her palm, for the flowery branch had fallen at her feet.
'What is wrong?' she cried, when I came near to her. But I could not
answer till I had leaped from Dom Nicholas and taken her by the hand.
She turned round, keeping me at the stretch of her arm so that she might
read the news, good or bad, in my eyes.
'Is it my father? Tell me,' she said very calmly.
'Nell, it is your father,' I said as quietly. 'They set upon him and
hurt him, even when he had sent me on a little way before him that he
might be alone at his mid-day meditation--'
'Is he dead--tell me--is he dead?' she broke in. But I answered her
not; for I could not. So she knew, and in an instant grew as pale and
still as the man that was passed from us.
'Take me to him,' she said at length. And, seeing that I still
hesitated, she said, 'Do not fear for me. I will do all that a daughter
of Culzean should do.'
'They are bringing him hither now,' I said. 'I came hasting to tell
you. The feet of the horses that carry him are even now upon the brae.'
Then, when I had told her all, I ended the tale with my tears and with
crying out that which was in my heart, 'Oh, would to God I had died
instead of him!'
'Launcelot,' Nell said, with a wonderful quiet, 'that is useless, and
not well said. Be comforted. None would have done one-tenth so much as
thou hast.'
'Bless you, Nell!' I said, for I had feared greatly she would have
broken upon me with bitter railing.
It was by the great oak tree which sends its boughs over the road that
we met the bier, and the horses stopped. Even thus Nell Kennedy met her
father, and there was not a tear on her face, but only a great sweet
calm. She silenced the noisy limmer wives that went behind crying and
mourning aloud. So in this manner we went onward to Culzean, Nell
walking on one side of the bier and I on the other, leading Dom Nicholas
by the bridle.
And lo! as the body passed the drawbridge, a sudden gust out of the sea
snatched his knightly pennon from the topmost turret tower of the
battlements of Culzean, which was held a freit and a warning by all the
folk of Carrick. But though the master had come home to his own, yet
both Culzean and I were now masterless.
In due time we gave him stately funeral, carrying him forth upon a day
so calm, so breathless, that the banners did not wave as they swept the
dust. And thereafter all life seemed to stop, when we came home again
to the darkened house. James and Sandy, the two young lads, played no
more in the tennis-courts, but went about with linked arms speaking of
revenge. But little David abode with Nell and went forth only with her,
clinging winsomely to her hand; for we kept us close within bars and
warded ramparts, with the drawbridge up, watching the fruit ripening on
the walls of the orchard of Culzean all that splendid summer of the
murder of our lord and master.
Slowly I thought over many things, till the resolve to bring the matter
to a head came masterfully upon me. From the Earl as Bailzie of Carrick
I got warrant, according to my dead master's word and direction, to be
doer-in-ordinary for the young man James, who was now the heir of
Cassilis. For Earl John knew that Launcelot Kennedy was no self-seeker;
also they that stood about had told to him the Tutor's last words--that
I was to be a good lad and to be kind to Nelly. It was Adam Boyd of
Penkil, and David Somerville, hosier in Ayr, who told him this, and they
were two of those that played golf by the sandhills on the day of that
foul slaying under trust.
*CHAPTER XXXI*
*THE BLUE BLANKET*
Yet because I needed advice and had none to give it, I rode one day to
Edinburgh to see Maister Robert Bruce. I found the whole city in an
uproar. There was the beating of drums in all the streets and closes,
and a great multitude of the common folk crying out 'For God and the
Kirk!' Pikes danced merrily along the causeways, and good wives' heads
were thrust through all the port-holes in the windings of the stairs.
Their voices, shrill and vehement, kept up a constant deafening clamour,
each calling to her John or Tam to 'come awa' in oot o' that,' or
bidding them 'not to mell wi' what concerned them not.'
'What concern is the glory o' God o' yours--you that is but a baker in
Coul's Close?' I heard one wife cry to her man, and it seemed to me a
mightily pertinent question.
At last, after many inquiries, I heard how the Minister of Edinburgh had
bearded the King, so that he was gone off to Linlithgow in great
indignation, and how that in a day or two Maister Robert Bruce would
either be King of Scotland or lay his head on the block.
Yet the minister was in his study chamber when I went to seek him,
reading of his Bible and writing his sermon, as quietly as though there
had been no King in Scotland--save, as it might be, the King in whose
interest he had so often bearded King Jamie Stuart, sixth of that name.
Robert Bruce looked up when he saw me.
'Ah, Launcelot,' he cried, more heartily than ever I had heard him, 'ken
ye, lad, that you are likely to be at the horn for communing with a wild
rebel like me?'
'To be "at the horn" is no uncommon thing in Carrick,' I replied, 'and
makes little difference either to the length of a man's life or the
soundness of his sleep. I have been at the horn ever since I was
eighteen years of my age.'
'Well, Launcelot,' he said soberly, 'so it has turned out even as I
said. I know--I know. It is not in man that walketh to direct his
steps. But I saw ye were all "fey" at Culzean.'
Then I told him the purpose of my coming all the way to Edinburgh to see
him.
'What!' he said, 'ye have never come so far only to have speech of poor
Robert Bruce, that was yesterday Minister of Edinburgh, and to-day is, I
fear, doomed to lay his head on the hag-clog?'
I told him it was even so, and that, being the man of wisest counsel I
had ever known, I would have gone ten times as far to have his friendly
advice.
'Ay me,' he said sadly, 'wae is the man that has such a rumour and
report of wisdom, yet cannot counsel himself what he should do in his
own utter need.'
But, for all that, he went over everything that had happened in Carrick,
with a clearness most like that of a lawyer when he sets in order his
case before the judge. Then he sat a long while silent, with his finger
tips drumming idly upon his writing.
'So Bargany is dead,' he said at last. 'He was the only considerable
man of his own faction. Who is there to succeed him?'
'But a child!' said I, 'one that plays with puppets.'
'As do we all, Launcelot,' said Maister Bruce, smiling on me.
'And after him in that faction, of his own house and kin who comes--?'
he asked.
'There are none besides the Tutor's murderer, Thomas of Drummurchie, and
Benane his brother, but he is a deboshed man and of no account,' I made
answer, not seeing his drift.
'Who leads them then--?'
'John Mure of Auchendrayne is their only considerable man, and he has
waxen great and greater within these months.'
The minister nodded his head and sat still as one that considers all
sides of a question.
'And of you that stand by the gold and blue--who remains?' he went on.