The Grey Man. Crockett Samuel Rutherford

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      'Is it well with you, John?'

      For in his minority he had been his tutor and governor, and in after years had agreed well with him, which is not so common.

      'Ay, well with me,' replied the Earl, 'but it is that dotard fool, Kelwood, who has gotten the chest of gold and jewels, which in my father's time was stolen from the house of Cassillis by Archibald Bannatyne, who was my father's man. He died in my father's hands, who was not a cat to draw a straw before. Nevertheless, even in the Black Vault of Dunure he could not be brought to reveal where he had hidden the chest. But now Kelwood, or another for him, has gotten it from Archie's widow, a poor woman that knew not its worth.'

      'But Kelwood will deliver it, John. Is he not your man? Trouble not any more about the matter,' counselled the Tutor, who was ever for the milder opinion, and very notably wise as well as slow in judgment.

      'Nay,' said the Earl, 'deliver it he will not, for Bargany and Auchendrayne have gotten his ear, and he has set his mansion house in defence against us. I have called you here, Tutor, for your good advice. Shall we levy our men and beset Kelwood, or how shall we proceed that I may recover that which is most justly mine own?'

      For it was ever the bitterest draught to the Earl to lose siller or gear. The Tutor stood for a moment by his beast's neck, holding his head a little to one side in a way he had when he was considering anything – a trick which his daughter Nell has also.

      'How many are ye here?' he said to the Earl.

      'We are fifteen,' the Earl replied.

      'All gentlemen?' again asked the Tutor.

      'All cadets of mine own house, and ready to fight to the death for the blue and gold!' replied the Earl, giving a cock to the bonnet, in the side of which he had the lilies of France upon a rosette of blue velvet, which (at that time) was the Cassillis badge of war.

      As the Earl spoke, I, who stood a little behind with my finger on the cock of my pistol, saw my lord raise a questioning eyebrow at me, as if to ask his uncle who the young squire might be whom he had brought with him.

      'He is the son of John Kennedy of Kirrieoch, and with us to the death,' said my master.

      For which most just speech I thanked him in my heart.

      'The name is a good one,' said the Earl, with a little quaintish smile. And well might he say so, for it was his own, and my father of as good blood as he, albeit of a younger branch.

      Presently we were riding forth again, seventeen men in our company, for the Earl had not counted the Tutor and myself in his numeration. We rode clattering and careless over the moors, by unfrequented tracks or no track at all. As we went I could hear them talking ever about the treasure of Kelwood, and, in especial, I heard a strange, daftlike old man, whom they called Sir Thomas Tode, tell of the Black Vault of Dunure, and how lands and gear were gathered by the tortures there. His tales and his manners were so strange and unseemly, that I vowed before long to take an opportunity to hear him more fully. But now there was much else to do.

      Betimes we came to the tower of Kelwood and saw only the black mass of it stand up against the sky, with not a peep of light anywhere. Now, as you may judge, we went cannily, and as far as might be we kept over the soft ground. The Tutor bade us cast a compass about the house, so that we might make ourselves masters of the fields, and thus be sure that no enemy was lying there in wait for us. But we encompassed the place and found nothing alive, save some lean swine that ran snorting forth from a shelter where they had thought to pass the night.

      Then I and the young Laird of Gremmat, being the best armed and most active there, were sent forward to spy out the securest way of taking the tower. I liked the job well enough, for I never was greatly feared of danger all my days; and at any rate there is small chance of distinction sitting one's horse in the midst of twenty others in an open field.

      So Gremmat and I went about the house and about, which was not a castle with towers and trenches, like Dunure or Culzean, but only a petty blockhouse. And I laughed within myself to think of such a bees' byke having the mighty assurance to dream of keeping a treasure against my Lord Cassillis, as well as against the Tutor of that ilk and me, his squire.

      There was no drawbridge nor yet so much as a ditch about Kelwood Tower, but only a little yett-house with an open pend or passage, that gave against the main wall of the building. Within this passage, could we gain it, I knew that we should be well protected, and have time to burst in the wall, even if the door withstood us. For once within the archway, I could not see how it was possible for those in the house to reach us, in any way to do us harm.

      Gremmat and I therefore went back to our company with the news, but the best of it – the part concerning the yett-house – I kept to myself. For the Laird of Gremmat, though a tough fighter, was not a man of penetration, so that I well deserved the credit of telling what I alone had seen.

      When I told the chiefs of my discovery, my Lord of Cassillis said nothing but turned abruptly to the Tutor, thinking nothing of my tidings or of the danger I had been in to bring them. Nevertheless Sir Thomas, my master, turned first to me, as was his kindly custom.

      'It is well done of you, Launcelot. The sheep herding on Kirrieoch has given you an eye for other things,' he said.

      And at that I think the Earl gave me a little more consideration, though all that he said was no more than, 'Well, Tutor, and what do you advise?'

      'I think,' said the Tutor, 'that you and the younger men had best take Launcelot's advice, and conceal yourselves in the pend of the yett-house, with picks and, perhaps, a mickle tree for a battering-ram, while I and a trumpeter lad summon Kelwood himself to surrender. In that clump of trees over there we shall be out of reach of their matchlocks.'

      So the Earl took the advice, and in a little we were in the black trough of the pend, with an iron-bolted door in front and the rough, unhewn stones of the wall on either side of us.

      Then the Tutor's trumpet blew one rousing blast and then another, till we could hear the stir of men roused out of their sleep in the tower above us. But we ourselves held our breaths and keeped very quiet.

      Once more the trumpet blew from the clump of oak trees over against the main gate.

      'Who may ye be that blaws horns in the Kelwood without asking leave of me?' cried a voice from the narrow window in the wall above us.

      And my master, Sir Thomas, answered him from the coppice, —

      'It is I, Kennedy of Culzean, that come from your liege lord to demand the treasure that is his, stolen from his house by his false servant and now reset by you, Laird Currie of Kelwood.'

      The Laird laughed contumeliously from his turret window.

      'An' the Earl wants his treasure, let him come and fetch it,' said he.

      At which answer it was all that we could do to keep the Earl quiet. He was for setting the squared tree to the door at once.

      'Kelwood,' again we heard the voice of Sir Thomas, 'I ken well who has deceived you in this matter. Listen to no glosing words. No man can strive with the Kennedy and prosper in all these lands 'twixt Clyde and Solway.'

      'Which Kennedy?' cried Kelwood, from his window, fleeringly. And this set the Earl more bitterly against him than ever, for it was as much as to say that the Bargany Kennedies were equal in power and place to his own house of Cassillis.

      'Lift the trees and to it!' he cried, СКАЧАТЬ