'Come to the door,' said I. 'I cannot bide still and see that poor man
suffer. He says that he has come with a letter from my Lord Cassillis.
It may be so. I will at least go and see. Drummurchie's thieves have
gone up the face of the rock, and the wounded man cannot hurt me much,
even if he were willing.'
Then the Dominie pled with me to bide where I was 'because,' said he,
'you know not whether it be not an ambush.'
'I cannot let a fellow-creature be crushed to pieces before my eyes and
abide to hear his death-cries,' I answered. 'Come down and hold you the
door open.'
So with that I undid the bolts and put the Dominie behind it. I set my
feet upon the jutting stones on which the wooden stair usually rested,
and so scrambled perilously down, holding on to the wall with my right
hand the while. When I came to him the lad was lying gasping on his back
with the stones edgewise on his breast. I asked him how he did. He
seemed past speech, but was able to motion me round to the further side.
There I stooped gently in order to raise the great block that lay upon
his bosom.
I stepped carefully about and turned my body to render him my aid as
tenderly as I could. But I got a sudden and terrible surprise, and
though I am not one much given to fear, I own that it shook my heart.
Even as I stooped over him, the fellow flung oft the stones as if they
had been featherweights, leaped upon his own feet with a bended pistol
in his hand, and stood in front of me, striding across the path which
led back again to the castle door.
At the same moment I heard a loud shout of warning from the Dominie,
that the enemy were again coming down the brae. I had no time to draw
my dagger, and for greater lightness I had left my sword behind. I saw
the rascal make him ready to fire at me, aiming at my heart. So I
remembered a French trick of high kicking which Robert Harburgh had once
taught me, for he had been in France at the schools with his master the
Earl, and had learned much there besides philosophy.
So I gave the fellow my foot, shod with toe-plates, full upon his wrist,
which knocked the pistol up against his chin with a stunning crash. In
the next moment I leaped at his throat and overbore him, spurning him
with my heel as I passed. I can remember leaping upon him with all my
weight from the top of one of the very stones the traitor had pulled
down upon himself.
Then I ran fleet-foot for the entrance of the castle. Others of the
enemy were just coming about the corner when I reached the projecting
points of stone. With my heart in my mouth I sprang up the little juts
of rock. I was almost within and in safety, but I had not counted upon
the swiftness and resource of my gentleman of the fallen stone. He was
hard upon my heels in spite of the thundering clout he had gotten on the
jaw from the pistol. But luckily my brave little friend the Dominie
stood ready behind the door, and as soon as my hindmost foot was over
the threshold, he set his strength to the iron handle and sent the massy
oak home to its fastenings with such force that it struck the pursuer
fair on the face with a stunning crash. As a stone is driven from a
sling, so he fell whirling over the stair head, and, unable to stop
himself, he went, gripping vainly at the rock-weeds, headlong over the
cliff.
This, however, being behind the door and fully employed in securing it,
we did not know at the time. But when we hurried again to the top of
the tower, we saw the enemy swarming down the cliff side to render him
some assistance, or it might be to recover his body.
'Ask him, when you get him, if he has another letter from my lord the
Earl,' cried the Dominie after them.
'And serve him right well, the treacherous hound,' muttered the little
man to himself, 'if you find him in pound pieces!'
But I said nothing, for I thought the fellow would mind the kick that I
gave him.
That night Thomas of Drummurchie and all his folk removed from the cave
where till now they had dwelt. They went over in our boat and in that of
James Bannatyne of Chapeldonnan to the mainland, being frightened (as I
guess) by our declaration that there were those coming who would deliver
them to justice. And also being dismayed, as I make no doubt, by our
staunch and desperate defence.
Thus were we left alone on the muckle weary rock which men call Ailsa,
and which thousands of free men and women look at every day without a
thought of the poor prisoned folk upon it.
*CHAPTER XXXVII*
*THE VOICE OUT OF THE NIGHT*
Now, so long as provisions last, Ailsa is none such a bad sanctuary, and
we might have passed the time there very well, had we possessed minds
sufficiently at ease for enjoying such a hermitage. The spring was but
a few yards above the castle, and it ran crystal clear into a little
basin which I cut in the rock. We had enough victual to serve us for a
month with the provision we had bought in Girvan, and with what I shot
of the puffins or Tammy Nories, which ran in and out of their holes all
day like conies in a warren.
Sometimes we would climb to the top of the crag and look long at the
sea, which from there seemed like a great sheet hung upon Cantyre and
Arran on the one side and upon the hills of Galloway and Carrick on the
other--with Ailsa itself, on which we were sitting, in the deepest
trough of it.
A few boats crept timidly about the shore, and a little ship sometimes
passed by. But otherwise we had for companions only the silly
guillemots that couped their tails uppermost and dived under, the
fishing-gulls that dropped splash into the water, and the solan or
solemne geese which, when they fell, made a bigger plunge than any, even
as on the cliffs of the island their keckling and crying are the
loudest.
One day the Dominie and I were sitting on the roof of all things (as the
summit of Ailsa seemed to be), picking at the grasses and knuckling
little stones for the idlesse which comes with summer weather, when it
came in my head to rally Robert Mure, because he had a cold hearthstone
and a half empty bed.
'You, a burgess and a learned man, with an official rent and a yearly
charge on the burgh, yet cannot get so much as a cotter's sonsy bit lass
to keep you company, and to sit, canty like Jenny and Jock, on the far
side of the chimbley lug. Think shame of yourself, Dominie. Any
questing lout that can persuade a tow-headed Mall of the byre to set up
house with him, deserves better of his country than you. Were all of
your mind, Maybole school might have none to attend it but dotards and
grandmothers! And where were your craft then, Socrates?' I asked him,
for just before he had been speaking to me of a certain wise man, a
Greek of that name.
And at first he made a jest of the matter, as indeed I meant it.
'Never fear,' he said, 'there will always be enough fools in Ayrshire to
get more. Maybole shall have its share of these.'
And indeed that hath been the repute of our town and countryside ever
since Ayr water first ran over its pebbles!
Yet when I pressed the Dominie further upon the matter, he waxed
thoughtful. His face, which was not naturally merry, took on a still
sterner expression. Presently he put his hand within his blouse and
pulled out a little string of beads, such as Catholics wear to mind them
of their prayers. It was suspended about his neck. This, I own, was a
great marvel to me, for the Dominie was a strong Reformer, and showed
little mercy in arguing with men still inclined to the ancient opinion.
He gave the brown rosary into my hand, and I turned it curiously about.
It was made of the stones of some foreign fruit, most quaintly and
fantastically carven and joined together with little links of gold.
Between two of the beads there was a longer portion of the chain, and
upon it two rings of gold were strung.
'Once,' said the Dominie, 'there was a maid who had promised to share my
hearth. One ring of these two was mine, to wear upon my finger, and one
was hers. Upon the night before our marriage day we met at our place of
tryst. I tried the ring upon her finger ard wished her to wear it that
night. 'To-morrow will serve--it is not so far away!' she said, and
slipped from my arms. Under a new-risen moon she went homeward, singing
by the heads of Benane. And that was the last that these eyes ever
beheld of bonny Mary Torrance--save only this necklace of beads which
she wore, and the stain of her blood upon the short grass of the
seashore.'
The Dominie looked long to seaward at the flashing birds that circled
and clanged about our rocky isle, each tribe of them following its own
orbit and keeping to its own airy sphere.
'And what happened to her?' I began, but got no further.
'Murder, most foul,' he cried, rising to his feet in his agitation,
'horrible, unheard of in any kingdom! For all about the spot where
these things were found, was the trampling of many naked feet. And some
of these were small and some were great. But all were naked, and the
print of every foot was plain upon the sand of the shore. Each footprint
had the toes of the bare feet wide and distinct. Every toe was pointed
with a claw, as though the steads were those of birds. And the fearsome
beast-prints went down to the sea edge, and the blood marks followed
them. And that was all.' Then the Dominie fell silent, and I also, for
though Ayrshire was full of blood feuds and the quest of human life,
this was a new kind of murder to me--though by all accounts it seemed
not rare in the neighbourhood of Benane, for I minded the warning words
of the Mistress of Chapeldonnan.
'And had she no enemies, this Mary Torrance?' I asked.
'She was but young, and of birth too lowly for feuds and fightings.
Besides, who in Carrick would harm a maid going homeward from her
love-tryst?'
The Dominie rose and walked away to the other side of the Rock of Ailsa,
where for long he sat by himself and fingered the necklace of beads.
His face was fixed, as if he were making of the rosary a very catena of
hate, a receptacle of dark imaginings and vengeful vows. Scarcely could
I recognise my quaint and friendly Dominie.
It was that night, as the blackness grew grey towards the morn, that I
yielded my watch upon the roof of the little Castle of Ailsa to the
Dominie. Too long I had paced the battlements, listening to the
confused and belated yawping and crying of the sea-birds upon the
ledges, and to the mysterious night sounds of the isle. For I began to
hear and to see all manner of uncouth things, that have no existence
except on the borderlands of sleep.
The Dominie said no word, good or bad, but drew his cloak about him and
sat down on the rampart. I bade him good morning, but he never answered
me a word; and so I left him, for I judged that his thought was bitter,
and that the tale he had told me of Mary Torrance lay blackly upon him.
Yet, when I went below, it was not with me as on other mornings. I lay
down upon the plaids and composed me to sleep. Yet I remained broad
awake, which was an unaccountable thing for me, who have been all my
life a great sleeper. I lay and thought of my friend, sitting gloomy
and silent above in the greyness of morn, till my own meditations grew
eerie and comfortless. Often and often I started upon my elbow with the
intention of going to him. As often I lay down again, because I had no
excuse, and also (as it seemed to me) he had not desired my company.
But once, as I lifted me up on my elbow, I seemed to hear a shrill
crying as it had been out of the sea, 'Launcelot--Launcelot Kennedy!' it
said. And the crying was most like a woman's voice. My very blood
chilled within me, for the tale of the lass murdered upon the morn of
her marriage day was yet in my mind. And I thought of naught less than
that her uneasy spirit was now come to visit the man, aged and withered,
who sat up there waiting and watching for her coming. Yet why it should
cry my name passed my comprehension.
It was, therefore, small wonder that I listened long, lying there among
the plaids upon the floor. But the night wind soughed and sobbed
through the narrow wicket window, and there was no further noise.
Thinking that I had dreamed, I laid my head upon the hard pillow and
composed me to sleep, but even then I caught as it had been the regular
beat of a boat's oars upon the rullocks. And anon I heard my name cried
twice and thrice, 'Launcelot Kennedy! Launcelot Kennedy! Launcelot
Kennedy!' Whereat, with a thrill of horror, I rose, cast the wrappings
from me, and, with my naked sword in my hand, I went up to the roof of
the castle.
The Dominie was sitting with his face turned seaward. He heard me come
behind him. Without turning he put out his hand.
'Did you hear it too?' he said. 'Go below. That which shall come is
not for your eyes to see!'
'But I heard a woman call my name!' I said. 'I heard it twice and
thrice, plain as I hear you speak!'
'Nay,' he said, 'not your name--mine!'
And once more we listened together. As for me, I strained my eyes into
the darkness so that they ached and were ready to behold anything. I
gazed out directly towards the sea, from which the sounds had come; but
the Dominie looked along the path which led precariously between the
wall of the isle above and the precipice below.
Thus we watched as it seemed for hours and hours.
Suddenly I heard him draw in his breath with a gasping sound, like that
which a man gives when he finds himself unexpectedly in ice-cold water.
The twilight of the morning had come a little, and as I looked over his
shoulder, lo! there seemed to me as it had been a maid in white coming
along the path. I felt my heart stop beating, and I, too, gazed
rigidly, for it seemed to me to be Nell Kennedy, coming towards us,
robed like an angel.
'She is dead!' I thought. 'Mayhap the clawed things out of the sea have
devoured her, even as they took Mary Torrance!'