Kitabı oku: «The Grey Man», sayfa 10

CHAPTER XVIII
BAIRNS' PLAY

There remains yet one other of their pranks to be told, and that only because it is knit into the story, and so must be unravelled along with it.

The pair of elders, after this defeat at the hands of Nell and little David, took counsel together, and might sooner have hit upon something to their mind, but that James, as was usual with him, stood in an attitude of cogitation, having his mouth very wide open. Whereat Sandy, whose wits were brighter, could not, even for the sake of the alliance between them, refrain from dropping therein a snowball which he had ready in his hand for any purpose that might arise. This he did with the same neatness and adroitness with which he would have dropped a ball of worset yarn, when the caps were on the green for the game royal of Bonnet-Ba'.

It took some time and a mighty deal of struggling on the ground before this treachery between friends could be arranged. Also much thrusting of snow down the backs of doublets and holding it there till it melted – together with other still more unseemly and uncomfortable proceedings.

Then the reconciled allies entered the castle together, promising peace, and fell into talk with young Davie, who stood within the great door in the inviolate safety of the hall.

'Do you want a merk?' said Sandy, tempting him with the sight of one, which at that day was great wealth. 'It will buy store of peaches, and pears, and baked apples at Baillie Underwood's in the High Street, preserved cherries also, and marmalit of plums.'

Then said Davie, 'A merk I want, indeed, as does everyone, but you are not the fellow to give it me. Therefore quit your pother, for I know that you would only make friends to get me apart, and so work mischief upon me.'

A wise boy David.

'As I live I lie not,' said Sandy, taking a great oath. 'I will give you the merk, if ye go down after dark to the barn, and passing through the great door to the lesser door at the back, shut and bolt it with its bar of oak, and so return the way ye went. If ye do this, sure as death, I lie not, I will give you the merk.'

Little David, who had ofttimes been deceived of his brothers, considered upon the offer a while, and at last he said to Sandy, —

'As sure as death ye might lie, though twice ye have said it; but give the merk into the keeping of Launce Kennedy, that will not tell lies, at least not for such freits, and then I will take your dare, and go shut the further door of the barn.'

They came up therefore to me to the armoury, James, Sandy and David all together; and as soon as I heard them coming I went from the window and sat by the fire, that they might not suspect I had observed aught of their matters. Then, when they revealed the plot to me, I bade Sandy be careful what he did, for it was growing dark, and I misdoubted that they meant to fright the child. So I feared them with the threat of their father, and as little David lingered while his brothers went lumbering and shouting down the armoury stair, I put into his hand a short blackthorn cudgel which the young Sheriff of Galloway had brought with him over from Ireland.

'If ye see anything more than common, hit it as hard as ye can with that,' I bade him.

And so little David passed out. I could not see him far across the yard because of the fall of the gloaming, but on his return, all a-drip of sweat and in a quivering tremble of agony, he told me what had befallen him.

'It was bitter cold,' he said, 'and I will not say that I was not feared, for I was. Yet, so long as the door stood ajar, there came a ray of light through it, and my heart was cheered. But presently it was shut to, and I had all the way to go alone.

'But I heard the cows in the byre rattling at their hemps through the rings, and as I kenned, pulling at the meadow hay in their stalls. And that at least was some company. So I went on and the frosty snow squeaked under my feet. I came to the great door of the barn. It stood open, vast and terrible as the mouth of a giant's cave. But I thought of the marmalit of plums, and in I went with my heart gulp – gulping high in my throat.'

I nodded at the little fellow, for many a time had I felt the same, and said nothing about it – when I was much younger, of course.

'So,' said he, 'I went through the barn in which was such hay and straw, till I came to the midst of it. Here I stopped to listen, for I could hear a noise, indeed many noises. However, it was only the black rattons firsling among the straw. I felt a thousand miles away from home, an orphan, and very lonely – nor did thinking on marmalit of plums now bring comfort – at least, none to speak of.

'But, nevertheless, because I thought of the taunting and japing of James and Sandy, I took my way to the further door that looketh upon the old orchard. The black corn-stacks shut out many of the stars, but those that were left tingled and shone cold. I thought I had no friend nearer than one of these. I was much afraid.

'Yet nevertheless I shut the back door and barred it – barred it good and strong with both bolts, and set a corn-measure at the back for luck. This being done, I turned and took but one step towards the great door, through which I could see the snow shining like a mist. Then my heart stopped, and I tried to cry out very loud, but, alas! I could not cry out at all.

'For there was Something in the doorway. I could see it against the snow. Something that crawled on the ground with dull, horrid eyes, set wide apart, and that turned a shapeless, horned head slowly from side to side, moaning and yammering the while.

'I thought I should die. Then I feared that I should not die before the thing took me, for it slowly invaded the barn till it filled all the doorway. By this I knew that I should indeed be devoured. Nevertheless, I minded what it was you said before I went. So I thought that, having a stout stick in my hand, I might as well die after having smitten a good stroke as not – '

'Bravo, young David!' cried I; 'that is the right spirit of battle.'

'So I took the blackthorn in both hands,' he went on, 'and swung it about my head as you showed me in the hagging down of trees. With that I struck the horrible thing fairly between the eyes. Then leaping over it I ran, how I know not, for the house door – where I laughed and wept time about till Nell brought me here that you might bid me stop. Now I want the merk.'

So I gave him the merk, took down the dog-whip from the nail where it hung, and went out to look for Jamie and Sandy – for well I knew that this had been one of their tricks to frighten the boy, and I was resolved that they should take a thrashing, either from me or, what they would less desire, from their father – who, though a kind enough man till he began to lay on, was apt to be carried away with the exercise, and to forget bowels of mercy.

But when I got upon the snow by the door, Sandy came running to me, fairly crying out with terror. He had the hide of a muckle bullock, which had been killed that day, trailing from his waist. His face, in the light that fell from the lamp in the hall, was a sight to be seen. There was a lump on his brow, between the eyes, as large (to a nearness) as a hen's egg. All his face was a-lapper with blood, so that for the moment I thought that the lad had really been killed. But when I pulled him up to the armoury, and got him washed, I found that the blood was only that of the bullock, whose hide he had wrapped about him in order that he might crawl on the ground and fright his brother David.

And I had there and then taken him to task with the dog-whip (for indeed he might have bereft the child of reason), but the sight of his own wordless terror smote upon me, so that I desisted – for that time at least.

For a while Sandy could not speak by reason of the fear which blanched his face, and caused him to hold by my coat even when I went across the room. At last however he found tongue.

'There is a man,' he stammered, 'a man with a drawn sword, standing at the barn end in a grey cloak, and a wild beast crouching beside him.'

'Barley-break, flim-flam,' said I, for I believed not a word of it, 'your head is muzzy with your carrying the bullock's head and horns, and serve you right had David given you a warble on it twice as big.'

'No,' gasped Sandy, 'it is not fantasy. I saw the man clearly. He stood against the sky in a grey cloak, and the beast crouched and held a lanthorn by him. Oh, Launce, I fear I have seen the Black Man, and that I shall die.'

'Seen your granny's hippen-clouts!' said I, roughly, for I was angry at his senselessness. 'Lay raw beef to your beauty-spot, my man, sleep here with me, and I will forgive you the licking with the dog-whip.'

So by little and little I got Sandy soothed down till he went to sleep on my bed, moaning and tossing the while. Then I set me down to think, alone, on the window-sill above the courtyard, for I had long since handed David over to the care of Nell. Sometimes for convenience, I slept in the armoury, for Sir Thomas had trusted me with everything since I had proved myself in the wars.

I saw well that evil was somehow intended against the house of Culzean, and that something terrible walked in darkness. I resolved that I should find out what it was or die. Yet I liked not stealthy adventure so much as plain cut and thrust, and wished that I had had Robert Harburgh with me. But I knew that, though brave as a lion, he somewhat lacked discretion, and so might spoil all. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to go out alone.

CHAPTER XIX
FIGHTING THE BEASTS

Having shut and locked the armoury door behind me, I stood a great while very still on the steps in the black shadow; for nothing could I see, though I looked till my eyes ached. So I set out with my sword bare in my hand, and my left hand hafting an easily-drawn dagger. I declare if I had only known for certain that the thing which troubled the house was naught but flesh and blood, I had not cared the tickling of a Flemish poulet. For I was growing to rejoice in adventure, believing that my own luck was to win through in safety whatever might befall to others. Indeed I never loved a leg-lagging, grease-collecting life, like that of a burgher or a cellarer. But rather to strip and lay on till the arm dirls with striking – that is, in a just cause, of course. Although sometimes, if your chief so command, one must strike without inquiring with too queasy a conscience, like a mere yea-forsoothing knave, what may be the cause for which ye are set to drive the steel. For it is soldierly to strike first and inquire the cause after – that is, if the man live.

But I ride the wild mare whenever I lay the reins on the neck of my goose-quill. And since I love to keep the pages even and the lines straight, anything that will serve to fill up the tale of my day's doing goes down. But pleasant writing maketh not always good or full-mattered reading.

I stood therefore awhile outside the armoury door and saw only the drifted snow and the line of white roofs against a dark sky. So, having little hope of discovery by waiting like a dancer outside a ring, I stepped lightly down, being shod in soft double hosen without leathern shoon, so that my feet made no noise on the frosty snow. About the house I stole, gliding from shelter to shelter, till I came to the edge of the cliff, where I could hear, but not see, the breaker waves crisping and clapping upon the shore. At such a time the sea is black. But so much blacker was the night that I saw it not even when I looked straight down upon it.

Turning, I made the circuit of the castle, but still found nothing. Then I minded me how it was by the barn that Sandy had seen the vision which had affrighted him. So I set teeth and gripped blade tighter, and took my way to the barn door. It stood wide and vacant, gaping at me like an open sepulchre.

I will admit that it required all my courage boldly to go in, for it is hard to enter that which is the blackness of darkness to you, with the knowledge that all the while you stand the fairest of targets in the doorway. But because, as my father had told me, it is ever better to pursue than to flee, I stepped within with elbow crooked for the thrust, and dagger arm cleared of the cloak.

But it was as silent in the barn as elsewhere. I did not even hear the rats of which my little David had spoken. I began to think that I had been as needlessly and as childlessly alarmed as he. Then all at once and quite clearly I heard voices speaking together at the outer corner of the granary.

So I went near to a convenient wicket that I might listen, and my very heart and life chilled and thickened, because that the voices were those of our Marjorie and someone else who spoke low and sober – not quick and high like Gilbert Kennedy.

Then was my heart full of disgust that I should find her whom I had loved and worshipped engaging in another midnight tryst, and one that might be no better than a paltry intrigue.

So angered was I that I stole to the door, meaning to break out upon them in violent speech, caring little in mine anger what should happen. But as I came to the edge of the hard-beaten threshing-floor, Marjorie Kennedy came to the door swiftly. Turning in front of the barn, and standing with the shawl thrown back from her head, she spoke to the man she had left, whom as yet I saw not.

'Remember,' she said, 'I promise no more than the bare fact. I tell you I choose the grave before a bride-bed, the worm before such a husband!'

But the man to whom she spoke uttered no word, though he had come nearer to where in the dusk of the doorway I stood with my sword bare in my hand. I could see him plainly now – all but his face, for the tide of darkness was on the ebb. He was the tall, cloaked man whom we knew as the Grey Man.

Behind him, at the angle of the wall, crouched a black mass which yet was human – because, even as I looked, it took something from under a coat, and rose erect beside the Grey Man. As Marjorie vanished these two figures moved towards my hiding-place in the barn. I had no time to do more than glide within, pull a sheaf or two from the mow, and thrust myself, like a sword into its scabbard, within the hole I had made amid the piled grain.

Even as I looked, their dark figures filled up the square of greyness which the open barn door made against the snow. I saw them enter, feeling with their hands, as though to grasp something, yet not making any light to guide them in finding it.

Then indeed I was disquieted, and my very bones became as water within me. For if there is anything trying to the flesh of mortal man, it is to lie still and be groped for in the dark by unknown and horrible enemies. I had a nightmare sense of powerlessness to move, of impotence in the face of peril. I knew that when the blind groping inhuman horror took me by the throat, I should not be able even to cry out. It was like a dream of fever made real.

A moment after I heard a man's voice speak in a fierce whisper.

'Ah, here it is! Give me your hand and put strength to it.'

Then in a moment, like the breaking of a dam, the fear quite went from me. They were but common-place robbers after all, and I a craven and a coward to lie still while my master's goods were being stolen before my eyes.

I leaped out upon them without waiting to think, for I was not feared of a dozen such.

'Hold!' I cried. 'Stand for your lives, gutter-thieves, or I will run you through!'

I stood in the doorway with my sword and dagger in hand, and as soon as I felt one come against the point of my blade, I let him have it with all my might, for it was not a time for half-measures. Then, though I heard the answering cry of wounding, there was no time for further action, for something came at me with a rush like a wild beast of the wood, and the snarl of the springing heather cat. Now there are many things that a lad of eighteen or nineteen may do – things of worth and daring – but he cannot stand against the weight of a strong and well-grown man when he leaps upon him. Therefore I cannot count it to my shame that now I was overcome and overborne. Once and again was I smitten, till I felt the iron, as it had been fire, strike me here and there. And though I felt no pain, there was something warm, which I divined to be my own blood, running down. Then I knew no more.

When I awoke I was in the Grieve's house, lying on a bed. Sir Thomas Kennedy, my master, and the Earl himself were bending over me. They had unclasped my hand, and now stood back in wonderment at what they found gripped in it.

'It is the key of the treasure chest of Kelwood – the key with my father, the King of Carrick's seal graven upon it! Where could the lad have gotten it?'

Yet of a certainty they had taken it out of my tightly-clenched hand, which had been fixed upon something ever since they found me on the barn threshing-floor, where I lay senseless in a pool of my own blood.

CHAPTER XX
THE SECRET OF THE CAIRD

It was, I can avouch, a strange experience for me to lie on my back in the Grieve's house all through the long days of spring and summer. Kate Allison and her mother were tirelessly kind. The Grieve himself generally set his head past the door as he went and came from his meals, crying mayhap something of the day – that 'it was warm,' or that it was 'a wat yin,' and thinking it the height of a jest to say to me, 'An' what kind o' weather hae ye below the blankets?' For with kindly-natured country folk a little jest goes a great way, and serveth as long without washing as a pair of English blankets.

Then in the forenoon Sir Thomas would come in from the castle, opening the hallan door and walking across the Grieve's kitchen as unceremoniously as he would have done in his own house.

'My lad, they have made a hand of you, but we will dowse them yet for that!' was one of his stated encouragements to me. 'Let me see the clours – hoot, man, they will never mar you on your marriage day!'

And so, kindly and smiling, he would pass out again, walking with his hands behind his back as far as I could see him along the arches of the woodland.

Then would Marjorie come to the door, and inquire for me of good Mistress Allison. But she never accepted of her hearty invite to remain – or, at least, to enter and see the invalid. Gently would she ask after my well-being, and being assured of it, as gently would she go her way – her fair face looking so white and sorrowful the while, that I was wae for her, and for the unkenned secrets of her heart into which God forbid that I should pry.

But that which cheered me most, I think, was the kindness and warm-heartedness showed me without stint, both by Nell Kennedy and Kate Allison. They were no longer flighty and sharp of tongue in speaking to me, but rather spoke freely and sat much in the kitchen, with the door of my room open so that I could see them, nipping and scarting at one another like kittens in their wantonness, which was a great diversion and encouragement to me on my weary bed. And there we had no little merriment, for Nell Kennedy would be saucy and miscall me for my laziness and sloth – also for my lack of appetite, which she called 'dainty and dorty,' meaning thereby that I wanted finer meats than they had to give me.

Also, though she was no maid for gossip, Nell would bring me all the clash of the castle-town and farm-town, all the talk that was gone over in the mill, while the thirlage men waited for their grist. Where she got it to tell me I cannot imagine, but it was all like sweet wine to me that could hear naught most of the day and night, but the birds singing without and Mistress Allison clattering wooden platters within.

Also (and that was the kindliest thing she could have done, and touched my heart most of all), she brought to me all my war-harness and accoutrements. My sword, which she had cleaned herself after the scuffle in the barn; the dagger I had dropped when I caught and clutched the key of the Kelwood treasure, wherever that had been gotten – the pistols; the fine new hackbutt which had just come from the town of Ayr, and which Sir Thomas had given me for mine own, as he would have given a child a toy.

'Give the bairn its plaiks, then,' said Nell, as she laid them on the bed. 'Would it love to play with them? Then it shall!'

She spoke in an enticing and babyish way that diverted me, and warmed me too, when I thought she had so much kindliness for me.

So I said, 'It is monstrously well done of you thus to divert me.'

'Hoots,' she said, 'see what else I have brought you.'

And with that she took from her pocket all the apparatus of cleaning my pieces and sword, besides the links and buckles of Dom Nicholas's harness and equipment, the sight of which put me in a fever to see him again. Never was anything kindlier done. Also, she brought me from her father's scanty library such books as she thought I might care to read; though, indeed, I read but little, never having been greatly given to lear – save, as it might be, books of songs, troll-catches, wits' recreations and such like.

But amongst others she brought me a French manual of fence, which gave me infinite pleasure. For with her help I could spell out the instructions, and the plates of positions I was fain to imitate with my two rapiers, till I had hacked and scarred all the four posts of the bed most grievously. And Mistress Allison declared that it was not safe for anyone to come within the outer door.

But one day my bed-fast practice-at-arms stood mine hostess in good stead, for which afterwards she gave me full thankfulness. It chanced on a certain noontide of heat that all were at the hayfield. Even Kate and Nell had gone to toss the hay, which is a pleasant thing to do in good company, but, i' faith, ill enough to think on as I lay tossing my weary body, and cursing the luck that tied me here in a dull room – vexed with heat, the weight of bedclothing, and the broad buzzing flies which would light on the corner of one's nose, each time that sleep was on the verge of flapping down silently with his black wings to bring a welcome shortening of the weary hours. Mistress Allison stole about the kitchen on bare, broad feet, flapping and slapping the flags with them as she carried her cakes to the girdle plate, or swung it from the cleek above the clear baking fire of brown peats. She thought me asleep, for I had cleaned all my arms till I could see myself sitting up in bed, with my pale face and towsed haystack of a head, in every square inch of them.

Kate had brought me that day a book called The Whole Duty of Pilgrims, but finding it full of religious reflections and not tales of the Crusaders as I had hoped, I laid it aside for the Sabbath day, as being more reverent and fitting.

All at once the outer door of the Grieve's house was thrown back on its hinges, and a great sturdy caird entered – mayhap an Egyptian sorner, or bold robber, such as were vexing the realm at the time, or perhaps only a common muddy rascal of the road.

'Mistress, I bid you good-day,' he said. 'I am hungry and would have meat!'

Plain and quite short he said it – even as I have written it down.

'In this Grieve's house of Culzean even gentry folk say "An it please you," and "By your leave!"' replied, with some indignation, the mistress of the dwelling.

'But then I will e'en help myself, without please or leave either,' cried the villain. And with that he opened a leathern wallet that he had slung over his shoulder, and began to thrust therein, not only the scones, but anything about the dresser and tables that his thievish fancy lit upon.

'Now, mistress,' said he; 'let me have any siller you have in the house, and a well-pleased kiss of your weel-faured moo' therewith, or else I must do my needs with you!'

And with that he opened a great gully knife, as though he would run at her. Mistress Allison cried out with a strange cry of woman's fear, which I who had been in battle never heard the like of before. Just at this moment I pushed the bedroom door open with the point of my toe, and sat there looking straight at the man, with a pistol bended in each hand, and both of them trained point blank on the rascal's heart.

I make bold to say that in all this realm of Scotland there was not any man so exceedingly astonished as this particular sturdy thief at that moment.

'Drop the knife, sirrah!' I commanded, as one that cries his orders in a battle.

And the knife rang obediently on the stone floor.

'Kick it into the corner with your foot – No, not with your hand.'

And reluctantly he kicked the knife away from him.

'Now, my excellent good man,' said I, 'sit you down and put your hands behind you. There and thus, be still where you are, quite in the middle of the floor and not elsewhere.'

So he sat him down, and, keeping my pistols dead upon him, I bade Mistress Allison tie his hands firmly with cord, and give him a settle to lean against. Thereafter I comforted him with stern philosophy.

I told him of his wandering and uncertain life. I showed him conclusively how that he went ever in danger of the hangman's whip, and that at the end there could only be awaiting for him a shameful death. I told him also that our overlord of Culzean had the power of pit and gallows, and that, on the return of the haymakers, he should be brought out – when in an hour there would be an end of all his misery upon the dule-tree, or tree of execution, which stands by the great gate and bears medlars at any season, but only for an hour at a time.

''Tis the most cruel and unjust treatment of poor, beset, far wandering men!' said the man on the floor. They were the first words he had spoken since he threw down his knife. I wondered he could speak so well.

'We have heard no complaints, so far,' I made answer, drily, for the man's former insolence stuck in my throat. And in especial the thought of what might have happened to mine hostess or the maids, had I not been there upon the bed with my weapons beside me. So I kept him in torment of mind for a space.

At last, as the afternoon ebbed away, and the hour of sundown and homecoming wore on, his anxiety waxed pitiful. He turned and twisted to free his hands, so that the only way I could quiet him was to lift a pistol and point it at him. But even that did not appear to soothe him for any length of time.

At last he raised his head.

'Master,' said he, sullenly, but speaking not that ill, 'ye have me, I grant, in the cleaving of a stick. Now I will tell you a thing you greatly desire to know. Will ye promise to let me go, and I will never meddle you more?'

'I do not mean that you should,' said I, 'nevertheless, what is the thing that you can tell me? And when I know, I shall judge its worth – on the honour of a gentleman.'

'I can tell you,' said he, 'where you will find the treasure of Kelwood!'

'What bald-crowned blethers!' I cried scornfully. 'Pray, how am I to know that you speak the truth? Ye may tell me that it is with the gold cup, at the end of the rainbow!'

'It is true,' said the man, 'I might lie to you; but I will not, for I need my life. It is sweet to me as yours to you.'

'How can such a life be sweet?' I asked, daffing with the man in my power – which was 'bad form,' as John Mure himself sayeth in his history of the troubles.

'It is not a time to argue,' said he, 'but my life is as pleasant as the trees that toss their branches, and as the free life of the forest.'

'Too free altogether,' said I, 'thus to come in and threaten the life and honour of a decent woman. We must have such freedom trussed and stretched on a tow rope.'

'I did but fright her,' said he, sullenly.

'That is as may be,' replied I, keeping my pistol trained for his left eye-hole, 'and in any case it will be all the same in two hours.'

'But,' said he, 'hear me concerning the treasure of Kelwood. Ye have conquest the key. I can tell you where the box itself is. For if I win clear this time, I must escape over seas from the vengeance of the Grey Man.'

'But you may lie even as you have stolen, and I fear me murdered also, for by your talk you are one of a murderous set.'

'Of the lying you must e'en take your chance – even as, after telling you, I must take my chance of your cutting my bonds and letting me go.'

'You have a gentleman's word,' I answered him.

'And how much is that worth in Carrick this day,' he said harshly and bitterly, 'even with a bond to back it?'

'Mine,' said I, with what dignity I could muster, 'is worth as much as truth itself' – which, I grant, was but a windy saying.

'I believe it, and I will trust it,' said he. 'The treasure of Kelwood is in the cave of Sawny Bean, on the seashore of Bennanbrack, over against the hill of Benerard.'

And not another word would he say.

So when Mistress Allison had locked herself in the milk-house, and advised me that the haymakers were in full sight, I caused my man to roll himself to the door of the bedroom. There with my sword I cut the bonds.

'Now,' said I, 'take the door sharply, without so much as going to the other side for your bundle or your knife, and then the woods are open to you and the world wide.'

'I thank you, master,' he said civilly. 'When you go for the treasure, I counsel you do not call on Sandy by your leasome lane.'

And with that caution he betook himself into the glades of the wood.