'It was indeed the gallantest charge that ever was made,' said I, 'since
that of Norman Leslie, when, on the day before Renti, he drava into the
midst of sixty Spaniards with but seven Scottish lances at his tail.'
'Sir,' said I, 'I am no historian, but a soldier. Yet is it a part of
the training of a good fighter, that he should know the great deeds
which have been done in the wars before him by brave men, so that he may
emulate them when he himself is launched upon the points.
'It is well said, sir squire,' said Auchendrayne, bowing to me.
So, with a courteous farewell, in which there was to be seen no grain of
hate nor as much as a glint of the teeth or the wolf, he bade us go our
ways. 'And, above all things, he cried after us, 'mind your prayers.
'Tis a good lesson for the young to remember.'
*CHAPTER XXXIV*
*IN THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY*
Now, through being over-careful with my chronicle, I have spent too much
time on our conferences. But we were, indeed, at the parting of the
ways, and needed all advice. On our way to Culzean we met one who told
us that the Earl had gone home that day to Cassillis. Nell besought me
to ride thither, for she had a request to make to the head of her house
ere she went her ways back to Culzean.
So to Cassillis we rode, and at the gate encountered Robert Harburgh,
dressed, as usual, in his dark, close-fitting doublet, and with his
long, plain sword by his side. With him I abode while Helen went within
to pay her duty and service to the Countess--who, as Nell told me
afterwards, never stopped praising the ancient days when she was the
Chancellor's wife, and had one of the ladies of the Court to attire her.
'Now,' she said bitterly, 'John grudges it if I take a milkmaid
half-an-hour from the butter-kirning to help to arrange my hair.'
Presently the Earl came out. He showed himself well pleased and kind,
as, indeed, he ever was with me--perhaps because I never asked aught of
him in all my life.
'Helen, our cousin,' said he, 'desires that she may go and bide among
the heather with your good mother at Kirrieoch. What think ye of that?'
I told him that I had not heard of it--that she had spoken no word to
me.
'See to the matter,' he said with significance. 'I have been advised
concerning Sir Thomas and his last words. And if you prove worthy, I
know no reason why ye should not have the lass. But first ye must find
the treasure of Kelwood or bring down her father's murderers--one of the
two. And then, when that is done, I pledge you my knightly word that ye
shall have both the lass and a suitable providing. Besides which, if I
am in favour with the King, ye may even get a clap on the shoulder from
the flat of a royal sword. But that,' said he, 'I can nocht promise ye,
for with King Jamie no man's favour is siccar.'
I told him that I kenned not rightly if the lass would have me; that I
never spoke a single word of love to her but what she lightlied me.
'In good time,' said the Earl, smiling and nodding. 'The lass that wants
in time of stress to gang and bide with the minnie, will draw not
unkindly to the son in times of ease.'
Then came Nell with a knitted shawl from the Countess to wear among the
hills, for Earl John and she were kind folk enough in all that touched
not the getting or spending of gear.
I asked my lord also for the company of Robert Harburgh to help me in
the escorting of Nell fitly to the little tower of Kirrieoch on the side
of the Minnoch water.
'Ay, ay; let him gang,' said the Earl. 'The honeymoon is by, and his
wife will be the fonder of him for lying her lane till he comes hame to
her again.'
So Robert Harburgh and his long sword went southward from Cassillis
along with us, riding mostly with the Dominie, while I rode behind with
Nell.
I told her all our plans as we went. How we must seek the treasure; and
how we must, above all things, find the boy Dalrymple.
'I will go with you upon your quest,' the staunch little Dominie had
said to me, when he heard of our adventure. And so it fell out that we
four rode steadily to the south, till we came in the evening to my own
hill-land, where the whaups cry, where the burnies go chuckling to
themselves and clattering over the pebbles, and where all the folk's
hearts are kindly and warm. My mother took my lass in her arms when we
told her our purpose and Nell's request.
'And I will help you with the kye?' said Nell, blithely, to her.
'Ay,' answered my mother. 'Ye will help with the drinking of the milk,
and that will e'en bring some roses back into your cheeks, my puir bit
shilpit lassie.'
And though there passed not a look by the common between us when we
parted, I think my mother shrewdly jaloosed what were my hopes.
Thus we left them standing by the loan dyke, the two old folk and Nell
with her yellow hair a-blowing in the midst. And I, that knew not
whether I might ever see them again, waved a hand, and resolved to
return with a name and a barony at the least; or, if my lot were
perverse, to leave my bones in some stricken field.
It is hard for a man to part from a lass--and in especial from one to
whom he dares not make love as he has done to others, all because those
others have told upon him, till he fears the ridicule of his real love
more than rapier thrusts. Right bitterly did I regret that I had done my
by-courtings so near home; because, on my very life I dared not venture
a sweet word to Nell Kennedy for fear of her saying, 'That is even what
you said to Kate Allison, the Grieve's lass.' Or as it might, 'Keep to
your customs. It is not your usual time yet by a quarter-of-an-hour to
put your arm about our waists.'
Now this is monstrously unfair to any man, who, after all, is compelled
to conduct his affairs with some sort of rule and plan of attack. I was
a fool--well do I know it. I ought to have gone further afield than the
Grieve's house. I am sure there are plenty of lasses in Carrick fairer
to look upon than Kate Allison, though I am free to admit that I thought
not so at the time.
So as we went back it was arranged that Robert Harburgh should ride to
the woodland country about Auchendrayne, and there, from his
headquarters at Cassillis, keep his eye upon the doings of the Mures,
because his person was unknown to them of Auchendrayne's household.
The Dominie and I undertook the more uncertain work, but we had made our
plans and were not to be put off. The neighbourhood of the Benane was
well known to all that trafficked about the town of Girvan. It was a
dangerous and an ill-famed place, and many innocent people had very
mysteriously lost their lives there, or at least disappeared to return
no more. In order, therefore, that we might be more free to pursue our
wanderings, we left our horses behind us. Indeed, Dom Nicholas was even
now cropping the sweet grasses on the side of the Minnoch water, with my
father to show him where they grew thickest and my mother to give him
oats between times, till the brave beast was in some danger of being
overfed.
As we neared Girvan, we came into a country of the bitterest partizans
of the Bargany folk. Here dwelt James Bannatyne of Chapeldonnan, one of
the great intimates of John Mure, and much beholden to him. Here also
was Girvan Mains, over the possession of which much of the black blood
had arisen. So, for our safety, we gave ourselves out to be plain
merchants travelling to Stranrawer in order to get a passage over to
Ireland.
When we came to the farmhouses where we were to stay for the night, we
always asked of the good man, in the hearing of his wife, concerning the
state of the country. Was it peaceful? Were the bloody feuds staunched,
and could honest men now live in peace? We heard, as was natural, a
great deal of abuse of the Earl and of our faction, as the greediest and
worst-intentioned rascals in the world. That from the goodman; but when
the wife got her tongue started, she would tell us much that was no
credit to Drummurchie and others on the side of the murderers. Soon we
were fully certified that we were already in the country where
Drummurchie and Cloncaird and the rest of their party were being
secretly sustained by their friends. Yet we could not come at them,
which perhaps was as well, seeing that my person was well known to them.
I found the little Dominie a right brave companion. When we sojourned at
houses, he had a way with the bairns that kept them on the trot to do
his will, and pleasured to do it--a manner also of cross-questioning the
parents about their children which showed them his interest and his
knowledge. Then he would most wisely and soberly advise them to see and
give this lad Alec a good education, to make that one a merchant because
of his cleverness with figures, and this a dominie or a clerk, because
he did not give promise of being fit for anything else. It was as good
as a play to hear him, and made us much thought of whereever we went.
Yet he was ready with his fighting tools also. Once when we went by
Kildonan and a pack of dirty vagabonds bade us stand, what was my
surprise to find that Dominie Mure having laid down his pipes and out
with his blade, was already driving among them before I had got so much
as my hand on the sword blade. And I am no laggard, either, with the
iron, as all may know by this time. But with his great bristling fierce
head and his rapier that thrust up unexpectedly from below (yet which
with the length of his arm reached as far as a tall man's), the Dominie
gave the rascals a fright and a wound or two also, which started them at
the run. Even then he followed, thrusting at them behind till they
shouted amain, and took across the fields to escape the pricking of his
merciless weapon. And ever as they ran he cried, '"Halt and deliver!"
did ye say? I will give you a bellyful of "Halt and deliver!"'
*CHAPTER XXXV*
*THE OGRE'S CASTLE*
So being wearied with the chase we went to the nearest farm, which, as
it happened, was that of Chapeldonnan. It stood quite close by the
roadside. A tall, large-boned woman came to the gate with a pail of
pigs' meat in her hand.
'What seek ye?' she said. 'We want nae travelling folk about
Chapeldonnan.'
We told her that we were merchants going to Ireland, and that we had
been attacked by a set of rascals upon the way, whom we had made flee.
'They are no that ill in this pairt o' the country. They wad only hae
killed ye,' she said, as if that would have been a satisfaction to us.
'It is doon aboot the Benane that the real ill folk bide.'
I told her that killing was enough for me, and that I was puzzled to
know what worse she could mean.
So with some seeming reluctance she bade us come in. The wide quadrangle
of the farm buildings was defended like a fortress. The gate was spiked
and barred with iron from post to post, as though it had been the gate
of a fighting baron instead of the yett of a tenant, devised only to
keep in the kye.
We asked civilly for the master of the house, and somewhat hastily the
woman answered us,--
'The guidman's no at hame. He has been away ower by at the Craig trying
to win the harvest of the solan geese and sea-parrots.'
'Your husband is tenant of the rock?' I said, for it is always worth
while finding out what a man like James Bannatyne may be doing, or at
least how much he thinks it advisable to tell.
'Ow ay,'she said, 'and a bonny holding it is. Gin it werena for the
Ailsa cocks, the conies, and the doos, it wad be a mill-stone aboot our
necks, for we have to pay sweetly for the rent o' it to my Lady of
Bargany.'
'But,' said I, 'it belongs to the Earl, does it not?'
The mistress of Chapeldonnan looked pityingly at us.
'Ye are twa well-put-on men to be so ignorant. Ye maun hae been lang
awa' frae this pairt o' the country no to ken that the neighbourhood is
very unhealthy for the friends o' the Earl o' Cassillis to come here.
Faith, the last that cam' speerin' for rent and mails in this quarter
gat six inch o' cauld steel in the wame o' him!'
'And what,' said the Dominie, 'became o' him after that? Did he manage
to recover?'
'Na, na. He was buried in Colmonel kirkyaird. The good man of Boghead
gied him a resting-grave and a headstone. It was thought to be very
kind o' him. It was Boghead himsel' that stickit him.'
'Ye see what it is to be a Christian, good wife!' said the Dominie.
'Ow ay, lad,' said the woman, placidly. 'That was generally remarked on
at the time. Ye see, Boghead was aye a forgiein' man a' his days. But
for a' that, it was the general opinion o' the pairish that the thing
might be carried ower far, when it cam' to setting up my Lord of
Cassillis's folks wi' graves and headstones!'