The Grey Man. Crockett Samuel Rutherford

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СКАЧАТЬ she looked out, she munched one of the well-raised comfits I had bought for my own eating. At Culzean we had but plain beef and double ale, but no lack of these. Also puddings, black and white.

      'See, it flakes tenderly, being well readied!' she cried up at me, flipping it with the forefinger of her right hand to show its delicate lightness. She held the cake, in order to eat it, in the palm of her left hand.

      At which, being angered past enduring, I took up an ornament of wood which had fallen from the back of an oak chair, and threw it at her. But she ducked quickly within, so that it went clattering on the rocks beneath.

      She looked out again.

      'Ah – um – blundershot!' she said, mocking me with her mouth. 'Remember you are not shooting at a rantipole cockshy at Maybole fair.'

      'Give me my property,' I replied with some dignity and firmness, 'else in the morning I will surely tell your father.'

      'Ay, ay,' cried she, 'even tell him about Maybole fair, and coming home through the wood with your arm round the waist of bonny Kate Allison, the Grieve's lass! He will be most happy to hear of that, and of the other things you have been doing all the night. Also to be thy father confessor and set thee penance for thy deed!'

      'It is a lie!' I said, angry that Nell Kennedy should guess so discomfortably near to the truth.

      'What is a lie, most sweet and pleasant-spoken youth?' she queried, with a voice like Mistress Pussie's velvet paws.

      'The matter you have spoken concerning the Grieve's lass. I care nothing for girls!'

      And I spoke the truth – at the moment – for, indeed, there were things bypast that I was now sorry for.

      She went in and explored further in my bundle, while I stood at the upper window above and miscalled her over the window sill as loudly as I dared. Every little while she ran to the window to examine something, for the light was now coming broad from the east and flooding the sea even to the far blue mountains of Arran and Cantyre.

      'Ribbons – and belts – and hatbands, all broidered with silk!' she cried. 'Was ever such grandeur known in this place of Culzean? They will do bravely for me, and besides they will save thy back from the hangman and the cart-tail whip. For thou, Spurheel, art not of the quality to wear such, but they will do excellently for the pearling and ribboning of a baron's daughter. Nevertheless, heartily do I applaud your taste in taffeta, Spurheel, and let that be a comfort to thee.'

      'Was there ever such a wench?' I said to myself, stamping my foot in anger.

      Last of all Nell brought to the window the three bottles of Canary wine, for which I had paid so dear.

      'What is this?' she cried, with her head at the side in her masterful cock-sparrow way. 'What is this? Wine, wine of Canary – rotten water rather, I warrant, to be sold in a booth at a fair? At any rate, wine is not good for boys,' she added, 'and such drabbled stuff is not for the drinking of a lady – wouldst thou like it, Spurheel?'

      She ducked in, thinking that I was about to throw something more at her – which, indeed, I scorned to do, besides having nothing convenient to my hand.

      'Look you, Squire Launce,' she said again, crying from the window without setting her head out, 'you are something of a marksman, they say. There never was a nonsuch like our Spurheel – in Spurheel's own estimation. But I can outmark him. Fix your eye on yon black rock with the tide just coming over it – one, two, and three – !'

      And in a moment one of my precious broad-bellied bottles of wine played clash on Samson's reef two hundred feet below the White Tower. I was fairly dancing now with anger, and threatened to come down my rope ladder to be even with her. Indeed, I made the cord ready to throw myself out of the window to clamber down. But even as I did so, the glaiked maiden sent the other two jars of Canary to keep company with the first.

      Then she leaned out and looked up sweetly, holding the sash of the window meantime in her hand.

      'You are going to visit my father in the morning, doubtless, and tell him all about the bundle and the Grieve's lass. Good speed and my blessing!' she cried, making ready to shut the window and draw the bolt. 'I am going to sleep in Marjorie's room. The gulls are beginning to sing. I love not to hear gabble – yours or theirs!'

      But I leave you to guess who it was that felt himself the greater gull.

      CHAPTER III

      THE SECOND TAUNTING OF SPURHEEL

      Now I shall ever affirm that there was not in all this realm of Scotland, since the young Queen Mary came out of France – of whom our grandfathers yet make boast, and rise from their chairs with their natural strength unabated as they tell – so lovely a maid as Marjorie Kennedy, the elder of the two remaining daughters of Sir Thomas, the Tutor of Cassillis. Ever since I came to the house of Culzean, I could have lain down gladly and let her walk over me – this even when I was but a boy, and much more when I grew nigh to eighteen, and had all the heart and some of the experience of a man in the things of love.

      And how the lairds and knights came a-wooing her! Ay, even belted earls like Glencairn and Eglintoun! But Marjorie gave them no more than the bend of a scornful head or the waft of a white hand, for she had a way with her that moved men's brains to a very fantasy of desire.

      For myself, I declare that when she came down and walked in the garden, I became like a little waggling puppy dog, so great was my desire to attract her attention. Yet she spoke to me but seldom, being of a nature as noble as it was reserved. Silent and grave Marjorie Kennedy mostly was, with the lustre of her eyes turned more often on the far sea edges, than on the desirable young men who rode their horses so gallantly over the greensward to the landward gate of Culzean.

      But it is not of Marjorie Kennedy, whom with all my heart I worshipped (and do worship, spite of all), that I have at this time most to tell. It happened on this day that, late in the afternoon, Sir Thomas, my master, came out of the chamber where ordinarily he did his business, and commanded me to prepare his arms, and also bid the grooms have the horses ready, for us two only, at seven of the clock.

      'That will be just at the darkening,' I said, for I thought it a strange time to be setting forth, when the country was so unsettled with the great feud between the Kennedies of Cassilis and the young Laird of Bargany and his party.

      'Just at the darkening,' he made answer, very shortly indeed, as though he would have minded me that the time of departure was no business of mine – which, indeed, it was not.

      So I oiled and snapped the pistolets, and saw that the swords moved easily from their sheaths. Thereafter I prepared my own hackbutt and set the match ready in my belt. I was ever particular about my arms and of those of my lord as well, for I prided myself on never having been faulted in the performing of my duty, however much I might slip in other matters that touched not mine honour as a soldier.

      Once or twice as I rubbed or caressed the locks with a feather and fine oil thereon, I was aware of a lightly-shod foot moving along the passage without. I knew well that it was the lassie Helen, anxious, as I judged, to make up the quarrel; or, perhaps, with yet more evil in her heart, wishful to try my temper worse than before.

      Presently she put her head within the door, but I stood with my back to her, busy with my work at the window. I would not so much as look up. Indeed, I cared nothing about the matter one way or the other, for why should a grown man and a soldier care about the glaiks and puppet-plays of a lassie of sixteen?

      She СКАЧАТЬ