The Grey Man. Crockett Samuel Rutherford

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СКАЧАТЬ It was a dagger heavily hiked with silver. But what thrilled us all with fear was, that the blade of it was red nearly to the hilt, and distilled fresh-dripping blood upon the chart.

      Then was heard from without something that sounded like a man laughing – but as of a man that had been longtime in hell – and again there came the galloping of a single horse's feet. The first in all in the house to run to the door was no other than the young lass I had tried to kiss. She flung the door open and ran to a dark, huddled thing, which lay across the paving stones of the little causeway in front of the inn.

      'My father – oh, they have slain my father!' she cried.

      We that were within also rushed out by the front door, forgetting all else, and filled with dread of what we might see.

      The dawn was coming red from the east, and there, in the first flush of it, lay Black Peter, plain to be seen, a dark tide sluggishly welling from his side, and his young daughter trying pitifully to staunch it with the bit laced napkin wherewith she had bound her hair to make her pleasant in the men's eyes.

      When Peter of the Red Moss saw the Earl, he tried to raise himself upon his elbow from the ground. One feeble hand went waveringly to his head as if to remove his bonnet in the presence of his chief.

      Cassillis sank on his knees beside him and took the hand. There was a fragment of a leather rein still clasped in it, cut across with a clean, slicing cut.

      'Peter, Peter, poor man, who has done this to you?' he asked.

      The man that was about to die turned his eyes this way and that.

      'My lord, my lord,' he said, struggling with the choking blood that rose in his throat, 'it was – it was – the grey man – !'

      And the Earl listened for more with his ear down to Peter's mouth, but the spirit of the man who had died for his master ebbed dumbly away without another word. So there was nothing left for us to do but to carry him in, and this we did in the young sunshine of a pleasant morning. And the maid washed and streeked him, moaning and crooning over him piteously, as a dove does that wanteth company.

      I went, as it happed, into the trance to fetch her a basin of clear water. The top of the meal-ark stood empty!

      'My lord – the chest!' I cried, and all save the maid alone rushed in. The treasure of Kelwood was gone! Without the door, on the trampled clay and mud, there were the steads of naked feet many and small. But of the treasure-chest for which we had ventured so much that night, we saw neither hilt nor hair, clasp nor band.

      Only in the kitchen of the house on the Red Moss there was a dead man, and a maid mourning over him; on the table a dagger, red to the guard, and from it fell slowly the drip of a man's life blood, blotting out with a bitter scorn the plans of our wisest and the enmity of our proudest.

      CHAPTER VI

      THE CROWN OF THE CAUSEWAY

      I rode forth from Edinburgh town with infinite glee and assurance of spirit. No longer could I be slighted as a boy, for that day I, even I, Launcelot Kennedy, had been put to the horn – that is, I had been proclaimed rebel and outlaw at the Cross of Edinburgh with three blasts of the king's horn, 'Against John, Earl of Cassillis, Sir Thomas of Culzean, called the Tutor of Cassillis, and Launcelot Kennedy, his esquire!' So had run the proclamation. I wondered what that unkempt, ill-tongued lassie, Nell Kennedy, would say to this. But the honour itself even she could not gainsay.

      It is true that there were others forfaulted as well as I – the Earl himself that was a sitter in the King's council board, Sir Thomas, my master, and, indeed, all that had any hand in the great contest in the High Street of Edinburgh. How close had every leal burgess kept within doors that day and how briskly screamed for the watch! How the town guards sequestered themselves safe behind bars, and were very quiet, for there was hardly a man to be seen from the castle to Holyrood-House that was not a Kennedy, and trying to kill some other Kennedy – as indeed is ever the way with our name and clan.

      We of Cassillis had ridden hot foot to Edinburgh to denounce the Bargany faction to the king, in the matter of the treasure and the killing of Black Peter. Not that we knew for certain that it was Bargany who had any hand in the murder and reiving. But it was necessary to make a bold face for it, and, at all events, we knew that the thing had been done in Bargany's interests. So we went, all prepared to declare that the active criminal was Bargany's brother, Thomas of Drummurchie, a bold and desperate villain, who had been outlawed for years for many a crime besides murder in all its degrees. Also we hoped that if the king were in a good humour towards us of Cassillis, who were always the men of loyalty and peace, he might even attaint Bargany himself. So that our Earl, being the Bailzie or chief ruler of Carrick under the King, might get his will of his house foe, and thus put an end to the quarrel. For there was no other hope of peace, save that our enemies should be laid waste.

      But we found King James in aught but a yielding mood. The ministers of Edinburgh, and in especial one, Mr Robert Bruce, a man of very great note, and once a prime favourite with the king, had been setting themselves against his will. So at first we got little satisfaction, and it did not help matters that, on the second day of our visit, the Bargany Kennedies and Mures rode into the town in force – all sturdy men from the landward parts of Carrick, while we were mostly slighter and limberer lads, from the side of it that looks towards the sea.

      The next day, as I went down the Canongate with the gold lilies of Cassillis on my cocked bonnet, I declare that nearly every third man I met was a Bargany lout, swaggering with his silly favour of red and white in his cap. But, for all that, I ruffled it right bravely in despite of them all, letting no man cock his feather at me. For I had a way, which I found exceedingly irritating to them, of turning the skirt or my blue French cloak over my shoulder when I met one of the other faction, as if I feared defilement from the contact of their very garments. This I did with all of the underlings – aye, even with Mure of Cloncaird. Indeed, I had already had my long sword three times out of its sheath by the time I got to the guard-house at Holyrood.

      It was just there that I met young Bargany himself, coming direct, from the King's presence. But I practised my pleasantry not with him. For a more kingly-looking man did I never see – far beyond our Earl (shame be to me for saying such a thing!), and, indeed, before any man that ever I saw. But Gilbert Kennedy of Bargany was the bravest man that was to be gotten in any land, as all men that saw him in his flower do to this day admit. And hearts were like water before him.

      He was of his stature tall and well-made, with a complexion black but comely, noble on horseback, and a master both of arms and at all pastimes. And when I beheld him, it came upon me to salute him – which, though I had small intention thereof till I saw him, I did. It was with some surprise, perceiving, no doubt, the Earl's colours, that he returned my greeting, and that very graciously. The moment after I looked about me, and right glad I was to observe that none of our folk had been in the place before the palace to observe my salutation.

      After this we of Cassillis went in parties of three or four, and our swords were in our hands all the day, in spite of the watch – ay, in spite even of the King's Guard, which His Majesty had sent to keep the peace, when he himself had gone off to Linlithgow in the sulks, as at this time was oft his silly wont.

      For me, I went chiefly with Sir Thomas, my master, as was my duty; but being allowed to choose my companion, I chose Muckle Hugh from Kirriemore, which marches with mine own home of Kirrieoch on Minnochside. Hugh was the strongest man in all Carrick, and had joined the command chiefly for the love of me – because he had once herded sheep for us, and my mother had been kind to him and given him new milk instead of skim for his porridge.

      And I warrant you when the two of us took the crown of the causeway, we stepped aside for no man, not even СКАЧАТЬ