THE CURSING OF THE PRESBYTERY.
As gently as I could I withdrew from her grasp, and with a pocket Bible
in my hand (that little one in red leather of the King’s printers which
I always carried about with me), I climbed the stair.
The word I had come so far to speak should not remain unspoken through
my weakness, neither must I allow truth to be brought to shame because
of the fears of the messenger.
So I mounted the turret stairs slowly, the great voice sounding out more
and more clearly as I advanced. It came in soughs and bursts,
alternating with lown intervals filled with indistinct mutterings. Then
again a great volley of cursing would shake the house, and in the
afterclap of silence I could hear the waesome yammer of my lady’s
supplication beneath me outside the tower.
But within, save for the raging of the stormy voice, there was an
uncanny silence. The dust lay thick where it had been left untouched for
days by any hand of domestic. I glanced within the great oaken chamber
where formerly I had spoken to Mary Gordon. It was void and empty. A
broken glass of carven Venetian workmanship and various colours lay in
fragments by the window. A stone jar with the great bung of Spanish cork
stood on the floor. There was a crimson sop of spilled wine on the table
of white scoured wood. The table-cloth of rich Spanish stuff wrought
with arabesques had been tossed into the corner. A window was broken,
and there were stains on the jagged edges, as if some one had thrust his
hand through the glass to his own hurt.
Nothing moved in the room, but in the thwart sunbeams the motes danced,
and the unstable shadows of the trees without flecked the floor.
All the more because of this unwholesome quiet in the great house of
Earlstoun, it was very dismaying to listen to the roll and thunder of
the voice up there, speaking on and on to itself in the regions above.
But I had come at much cost to do my duty, and this I could not depart
from. So I began to mount the last stairs, which were of wood, and
exceedingly narrow and precipitous.
Then for the first time I could hear clearly the words of the possessed:
“Cast into deepest hell, Lord, if any power is left in Thee, the whole
Presbytery of Kirkcudbright! Set thy dogs upon them, O Satan, Prince of
Evil, for they have worked ill-will and mischief upon earth. Specially
and particularly gie Andrew Cameron his paiks! Rub the fiery brimstone
flame onto his bones, like salt into a new-killed swine. Scowder him
with irons heated white hot. Tear his inward parts with twice-barbed
fishing hooks. Gie William Boyd his bellyful of curses. Turn him as
often on thy roasting-spit as he has turned his coat on the earth.
Frighten wee Telfair wi’ the uncanniest o’ a’ thy deils’ imps. And as
for the rest of them may they burn back and front, ingate and outgate,
hide, hair, and harrigals, till there is nocht left o’ them but a wee
pluff o’ ash, that I could hold like snuff between my fingers and thumb
and blaw away like the white head o’ the dandelion.”
He came to an end for lack of breath, and I could hear him stir
restlessly, thinking, perhaps, that he had omitted some of the
Presbytery who were needful of a yet fuller and more decorated cursing.
I called up to him.
“Alexander Gordon, I have come to speak with you.”
“Who are you that dares _giff-gaff_ with Alexander Gordon this day?”
“I am Quintin MacClellan, minister of the Gospel in Balmaghie, a friend
to Alexander Gordon and all his house.”
“Get you gone, Quintin MacClellan, while ye may. I have no desire for
fellowship with you. You are also of the crew of hell--the black corbies
that cry ‘_Glonk! Glonk!_’ over the carcase of puir perishing Scotland.”
“Hearken, Alexander Gordon,” said I, from the ladder’s foot, “I have
been your friend. I have sat at your table. A word is given me to speak
to you, and speak it I will.”
“And I also have a gun here that has a message rammed down its thrapple.
I warn ye clear and fair, if ye trouble me at all with any of your
clavers, ye shall get that message frae the black jaws of Bell-mouthed
Mirren.”
And as I looked up the wooden ladder which led into the dim garret above
me, I saw peeping through the angle of the square trap-door above me
the wicked snout of the musket--while behind, narrowed to a slit,
glinted, through a red mist of beard and hair, the eye of Sandy Gordon.
“Ye may shoot me if ye will, Alexander,” said I; “I am a man unarmed,
defenceless, and so stand fully within your danger. But listen first to
that which I have to say.
“You are a great man, laird of Earlstoun. Ye have come through much and
seen many peoples and heard many tongues. Ye have been harried by the
Malignants, prisoned by the King’s men, and now the Presbytery have
taken a turn at you, even as they did at me, and for the same reason.
“You were ever my friend, Earlstoun, and William Boyd mine enemy.
Therefore he was glad to take up a lying report against you that are my
comrade; for such is his nature. Can the sow help her foulness, the crow
his colour? Forbye, ye have given some room to the enemy to speak
reproachfully. You, an elder of the Hill-folk, have collogued in the
place of drinking with the enemies of our cause. They laid a snare for
your feet, and like a simple fool ye fell therein. So much I know. But
the darker sin that they witness against you--what say ye to that?”
“It is false as the lies that are spewed up from the vent of Hell!”
cried the voice from the trap-door above, now hoarse and trembling. I
had touched him to the quick.
“Who are they that witness this thing against you?”
He was silent for a little, and then he burst out upon me afresh.
“Who are you that have entered into mine own house of Earlstoun to
threat and catechise me? Is Alexander Gordon a bairn to be harried by
bairns that were kicking in swaddling clouts and buttock-hippens when he
was at the head of the Seven Thousand? And who may you be? A deposed
minister, a college jackdaw whom the other daws have warned from off the
steeple. I will not kill you, Quintin MacClellan, but I bid you
instantly evade and depart, for the spirit has bidden me fire a shot at
the place where ye stand!”
“Ye may fire your piece and slay your friend on the threshold of your
house, an’ it please you, laird of Earlstoun,” cried I, “but ye shall
never say that he was a man unfaithful, a man afraid of the face of
men!”
“Stand from under, I say!”
Nevertheless I did not move, for there had grown up a stubbornness
within me as there had done when the Presbytery set themselves to vex
me.
Then there befell what seemed to be a mighty clap of thunder. A blast of
windy heat spat in my face; something tore at the roots of my hair; fire
singed my brow, and the reek of sulphur rose stifling in my nostrils.
The demon-possessed had fired upon me. For a moment I knew not whether I
was stricken or no, for there grew a pain hot as fire at my head. But I
stood where I was till in a little the smoke began to lazily clear
through the trap-door into the garret.
I put my hand to my head and felt that my brow was wet and gluey. Then I
thought that I was surely sped, for I knew that men stricken in the
brain by musket shot ofttimes for a moment scarce feel their wound. I
understood not till later the reason of my escape, which was that the
balls of Earlstoun’s fusil had no time to spread, but passed as one
through my thick hair, snatching at it and tearing the scalp as they
passed.