The Grey Man

'I am David Crauford the younger of Kerse, but what said you of safe-conducts?'

So I showed him the rings, and told him that my business lay by word of mouth with his father. Thereafter I laid before him the matter of the scoundrels running at me nigh to Dalrymple bridge. Indeed, we could even then see them retiring in a group.

'Let us ride to the bridge head now, and see if they will molest us?'

And this we did, but none stirred nor showed themselves.

'So,' he said, 'let us ride on to Kerse.'

As we went our way we had much excellent discourse of the news of the countryside, and also of Edinburgh and its customs. I found David Crauford a fine and brave fellow, and regretted heartily that he was not on our side of the blanket – a thing which, indeed, I was too apt to do. I considered it an unfair thing that all the shavelings should be ours, and all the paladins theirs. Yet I was comforted by the thought that it was easier to be distinguished among the men of Cassillis than with Bargany – for in the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king, as the saw hath it.

Thus we came at last to the place of Kerse. It was a handsome tower, with additions that made it almost a castle, standing upon a rising ground by a loch, and overlooked at a safe distance by some high rocks and scaurs, which David Crauford told me were called the Craigs of Kyle.

It was the slowest time of the afternoon when we arrived at the ancient strength, and David, saying that his father might not be wakeful, slipped on ahead, in order to assure me a proper reception – so, at least, he said.

And at the doorway I was met by many men-at-arms, with pikes in their hands and feathers in their bonnets. And there came forth to meet me eight of the twelve brothers of Kerse, all bareheaded and with swords at their sides. In the background I could see the cause of my adventuring Currie, the Laird of Kelwood – bowing and smirking like a French dancing-master. But I never so much as looked his way.

'From whom come you, and in peace or war?' said David Crauford, just as though I had not told him – which was quite right and proper, for these commissions of diplomacy should be carried out with decorum and observance.

'I come,' said I, 'from the Earl and also from the Tutor of Cassillis, and am commissioned to speak with the Laird of Kerse in their name and on their behalf.'

With that I was conducted through a lesser into a greater hall, at the upper end of which was a raised platform, two feet or so above the floor. The hall and dais were alike strewed with yellow bent grass, such as grows upon the sides of the hills and on the seashore. On the dais stood a great oaken chair with a hood about it, and in it there sat the noblest old man that ever I saw. He seemed by his beard and hair to be ninety years of age at the least, yet his natural colour was in his cheek, and he was gleg both to hear and to speak.

So they introduced me, and I went up to the old man of Kerse to show my credentials, bending my knee, but not near to the ground, in token of courtesy.

'Come hither, David, and tell me what are the posies on the rings.'

So David came near, and, looking at my hand, he read that motto of the Earl of Cassillis – 'Avise a fin!' it read.

'Ay, ay, that will do. Let the lad speak his message,' said the old man.

Then in the midst of three-score Craufords I set myself, with my shoulders squared and my hand on my hip, to speak the message of my lord. I do not deny that I liked the job well enough, for it was the sort which enables a man to make a figure – thus to stand alone among a host of enemies, and speak a challenge of defiance.

'Master David Crauford, Laird of Kerse and Skeldon,' said I, giving out his titles like a herald, 'I bear you greeting and worship from John, Earl of Cassillis, and Sir Thomas Kennedy of Culzean, Tutor of that ilk.'

The old man bowed in token of respect for the formal courtesy. 'My principals bid me say that they request and demand as their right, that you shall deliver up to them the Laird of Kelwood, their liege vassal, presently rebel and fugitive; and also that you render back the box of treasure and the stones of price which they have good reason to believe their vassal aforesaid hath concealed with you. These things being done, they assure you of their friendship and support in all your undertakings.'

So I gave it out clearly, formally, dispassionately, and without heat, as one that is accustomed to high commissions.

As I spoke I saw the old man grip his staff as though it had been a sword, and ere I had done, he had half risen from his seat as though he would have struck me to the ground.

'And you dare, you beardless birkie, to bring such a message to Crauford of Kerse, in his own hall and among his own folk?'

But I stood still with my hand on my side as before, looking at him with a level brow, knowing that without a weapon in my hand, and with a double safe-conduct on my finger, I had by far the best of it, ay, though there had been a thousand Craufords in the hall.

'Father, father,' said David from behind, as one accustomed to soothe the old man's anger.

'I ken – I ken bravely. The laddie has to bring his message, but Scraping Johnny of Cassillis shall rue this day. Tell him,' he cried, his voice rising to a wild scream, 'that I have seen no doit of the dirty money which he howks out of every dub with his swine's snout. The Laird of Kelwood indeed, I have with me, and here he shall bide while it likes him – not for his own sake, for he is small credit either to Kennedy or Crauford (to his face I say it), but because Kerse is an eagle sitting on high, and it has not yet come to it that he must, forsooth, throw down so much as a well-pyked bone at the bidding of Cassillis.'

I bowed to the ground as having gotten my answer. But I had another part of the piece still to play, and the doing of it liked me even better, for I saw that this time I should anger not only the old man but the young.

'Then,' said I, 'in the name of John, Earl of Cassillis, whom ye call swine's snout, I am charged to tell you that if ye will not deliver the man and the thing that are his just right, then will my master come and gar ye be fain to deliver them – '

Then there went a murmur of scorn and anger all about the hall, and the white locks of the old man fairly bristled on his head. But I spoke on, level as a clerk that reads his lessons.

'Hearken ye to the word of Cassillis – the last word – gin ye refuse he will come on Lammas day proximate, and in token of ignominy and despite, he will tether a brood sow upon the lands of Kerse, and not a Crauford shall steer her for the length of a summer's day.'

What a shout of anger went up from about the hall! The blades of the young men fairly blazed from their sheaths. The old man rose in his chair and lifted his staff by the middle. Two tall servitors that stood at the back of the hall, lighting the dusk with torches, sprang forward ready to catch him should his strength fail. There were at least thirty swords pointed at my breast, and one great lout threatened me with a Lochaber axe.

But with my heart swelling I stood still and calm amid the graceless tumult, like one of the carven stones which look out from the niches of Crossraguel. Motionless I stood as I had done from the first, for I was a herald with an Earl's message.

'An insult! an insult! an insult in the hall of Kerse. Kill the black Kennedy!' they cried, gnashing on me with their teeth like wild beasts.

I declare I never was happier in my life, knowing that I had made that day a figure which would not be forgotten, and that my bearing among them would be spoken of over all Carrick and Kyle. How I wished that Marjorie Kennedy could have seen me. And I smiled as I thought how little it mattered after this, whether or no Nell Kennedy turned tale-pyet.

'I will take the smile off his black Kennedy's face with a paik of this Lochaber axe!' cried my great lout. But indeed I smiled not at him nor any of his sept, but at the thought of Nell Kennedy.

Then when they had roared themselves out in anger, they became, as I take it, some deal ashamed of the hideous uproar, and of a sudden were silent – as with a stave thrust in the joint and a twist of the wrist one may shut off a noisy mill-lade.

So I got in my last word.

'Thereafter, John, Earl of Cassillis, bids me say that he will leave not one standing stone in the house of Kerse upon another, for the despite and contempt done to him as its overlord.'

Then the loud anger gave place to silent, deadly hate, and it was some time before any could speak. David the younger would have spoken, but his father waved him down, fighting for utterance.

'Hear ye, sir, and bear this message and defiance to your master. He has put a shame on us in this our own house. Tell him that he may bring his swine to Kerse every Lammas day, and fetch with him every swineherd Kennedy from every midden-head betwixt Cassillis and the Inch. There are plenty stout Craufords here in Kyle that can flit them. Ay, though this hand, that was once as the axe-hand of the Bruce, be shrunken now, and though I lean on these bearers of torches because of mine age, tell him that there are twelve stout sons behind me who can render taunt for taunt, blow for blow, to King or Kennedy. And tell him that Crauford of Kerse knows no overlord in earth or heaven – least of all John Kennedy, fifth Earl of Cassillis!'

Then I bowed as one might before some of the glorious pagan gods of whom Dominie Mure has tales to tell. For, indeed, that was an answer worth taking back, and, being a man, I know a man when it is given me to see him. So, with my face to him still, and my bonnet in my hand, I made my way off the dais. There I turned me about, and, as an Earl's spokesman should, set my steel bonnet on my head to go out alone through the crowded hall.

But the old man stayed me.

'Launcelot Kennedy of Kirrieoch,' he said, courteously, 'to you and not to your master, I say this. Ye have well delivered an ill message. May ye never get your fill of fighting, and at the last may you die in harness. I would to God ye were my thirteenth son!'

So I bowed again, and for respect I walked backwards to the door of the great hall with my head again bare. Then I helmed myself and passed without to Dom Nicholas.

There was now a full muster of Craufords in the courtyard – a hundred of them, I should say, at least. But no murmur arose among them as, helped by a groom, I mounted and moved slowly through the throng, having saluted David the younger and his brothers with my hand.

Then, as I rode through the gateway, the feet of Dom Nicholas clattering on the stones, I was aware of a troop of twelve that followed me, all well-accoutred men riding in order. And I knew the author of that guard. It was David, who had resolved to see me safe across Dalrymple bridge, and so gave me the attendance of a prince.

Then knew I how excellent a thing it is to have to do in peace or war with gentlemen. For to do them justice, the Craufords of Kerse were neither landloupers nor ambuscaders.

CHAPTER X

SIR THOMAS OF THE TOP-KNOT

My guard of honour did not leave me till I was within sight of the towers of Cassillis, when David Crauford and his men parted from me with silent salute. Nor had the dyke-back hiding gentry so much as ventured to show their faces. So I rode down to Cassillis yett, a well-kenned place and famous in story. Down a smooth, green mead I rode to it. At the gate the porter, a surly rogue, bade me stand.

'Stand thou, hang thee, pock-faced varlet!' I cried; 'haste thee and up with the gates, or thine ass's ears shall answer for it, nailed incontinent to a post!'