Kitabı oku: «The Grey Man», sayfa 17

CHAPTER XXXV
THE OGRE'S CASTLE

So being wearied with the chase we went to the nearest farm, which, as it happened, was that of Chapeldonnan. It stood quite close by the roadside. A tall, large-boned woman came to the gate with a pail of pigs' meat in her hand.

'What seek ye?' she said. 'We want nae travelling folk about Chapeldonnan.'

We told her that we were merchants going to Ireland, and that we had been attacked by a set of rascals upon the way, whom we had made flee.

'They are no that ill in this pairt o' the country. They wad only hae killed ye,' she said, as if that would have been a satisfaction to us. 'It is doon aboot the Benane that the real ill folk bide.'

I told her that killing was enough for me, and that I was puzzled to know what worse she could mean.

So with some seeming reluctance she bade us come in. The wide quadrangle of the farm buildings was defended like a fortress. The gate was spiked and barred with iron from post to post, as though it had been the gate of a fighting baron instead of the yett of a tenant, devised only to keep in the kye.

We asked civilly for the master of the house, and somewhat hastily the woman answered us, —

'The guidman's no at hame. He has been away ower by at the Craig trying to win the harvest of the solan geese and sea-parrots.'

'Your husband is tenant of the rock?' I said, for it is always worth while finding out what a man like James Bannatyne may be doing, or at least how much he thinks it advisable to tell.

'Ow ay,'she said, 'and a bonny holding it is. Gin it werena for the Ailsa cocks, the conies, and the doos, it wad be a mill-stone aboot our necks, for we have to pay sweetly for the rent o' it to my Lady of Bargany.'

'But,' said I, 'it belongs to the Earl, does it not?'

The mistress of Chapeldonnan looked pityingly at us.

'Ye are twa well-put-on men to be so ignorant. Ye maun hae been lang awa' frae this pairt o' the country no to ken that the neighbourhood is very unhealthy for the friends o' the Earl o' Cassillis to come here. Faith, the last that cam' speerin' for rent and mails in this quarter gat six inch o' cauld steel in the wame o' him!'

'And what,' said the Dominie, 'became o' him after that? Did he manage to recover?'

'Na, na. He was buried in Colmonel kirkyaird. The good man of Boghead gied him a resting-grave and a headstone. It was thought to be very kind o' him. It was Boghead himsel' that stickit him.'

'Ye see what it is to be a Christian, good wife!' said the Dominie.

'Ow ay, lad,' said the woman, placidly. 'That was generally remarked on at the time. Ye see, Boghead was aye a forgiein' man a' his days. But for a' that, it was the general opinion o' the pairish that the thing might be carried ower far, when it cam' to setting up my Lord of Cassillis's folks wi' graves and headstones!'

She continued, after a pause, —

'I hae been deevin' at our guidman to gie up the Craig, for it keeps him a deal from hame, and I aye tell him that he carries awa' mair than he brings back o' drink and victual. But he says that the rock is a maist extraordinary hungrysome place!'

'It has that name,' said I, unwarily.

She stopped and looked at me with sudden suspicion.

'What ken ye aboot the Ailsa?' she asked, looking directly at me.

'Nocht ava,' I replied, 'but a' seaside places hae the name o' making your ready for you meal of meat.'

'Hoot, no,' said Mistress Bannatyne. 'Now, there's mysel'. I canna do mair than tak' a pickin' o' meat, like a sparrow on the lip o' the swinepot. Yet Chapeldonnan is but a step frae the sea.'

She was at that moment lifting a heavy iron pot off the cleps, or iron hooks by which it hung over the fireplace in the midst of the kitchen floor.

'I hae aye been delicate a' my days, and it is an awesome thing for a woman like me to be tied to a big eater like James, that never kens when he has his fill – like a corbie howkin' at a braxy sheep till there was naething left but the horns and the tail.'

I thought we might get some information about the Benane, which might prove of some use to us when we adventured thither.

'Good wife,' said I, 'we are thinking of going by Ballantrae to the town of Stranrawer. The direct way, I hear, is by the Benane. What think ye – is the road a good one?'

'Ye are a sonsy lad,' she said, 'ye wad mak' braw pickin' for the teeth o' Sawny Bean's bairns. They wad roast your ribs fresh and fresh till they were done. Syne they would pickle your quarters for the winter. The like o' you wad be as guid as a Christmas mart to them.'

'Hoot, good wife,' said I, 'ye ken that a' this talk aboot Sawny Bean's folk is juist blethers – made to fright bairns frae gallivanting at night.'

'Ye'll maybe get news o' that gin Sawny puts his knife intil your throat. Ye hae heard o' my man. James Bannatyne is not a man easily feared, but not for the Earldom o' Cassillis wad he gang that shore road to Ballantrae his lane.'

And, indeed, there were in the countryside enough tales of wayfarers who had disappeared there, of pools of blood frozen in the morning, of traveller's footsteps that went so far and then were lost in a smother of tracks made by naked feet running every way. But I kept on with my questions. I wanted to hear the bruit of the country, and what were our chances.

While we were thus cheerfully talking, and the Dominie by whiles playing a spring upon his pipes to gain the lady's goodwill, there came in a man of a black and gruesome countenance. We knew him at once for the master of Chapeldonnan, James Bannatyne, for he came in as only a goodman comes into his own house. He was a man renowned for his great strength all over Carrick. He turned on us a lowering regard as he went clumsily by into an inner room, carrying an armful of nets. I noted that the twine had not been wet, so that his sea fishing had not come to much. But behind the door he flung down a back-load of birds – mostly solan geese and the fowl called 'the Foolish Cock of the Rock,' together with half-a-dozen 'Tammy Nories.' So I guessed that he had either been over the water to Ailsa, or desired to have it thought so.

His wife went ben the room to him. We could hear the sulky giant's growling questions as to who we were, and his wife's brisk replies. Presently she came out looking a little dashed.

'James has come in raither tired,' she said, 'and he will need to lie down and hae a sleep.'

'In that case, mistress,' I said, 'we will e'en thank you for your kindly hospitality and take our ways.'

She followed us to the door, and I think she was wonderfully glad to get us safe away without bloodshed.

'Be sure that ye gang na south by the Benane,' she said, 'the folk that bide there are no canny.'

So we thanked her again and took our way, breathing more freely also to have left the giant behind.

We had not gone far, however, when we spied her husband hastening after us across a field. He came up with us by a turn in the road.

'We harbour no spies at Chapeldonnan,' he said, bending sullenest brows at us, 'and that I would have you know.'

'We are no spies on you nor on any well-doing man,' I said. 'We are honest merchants on our way to Stranrawer, and but called in to ask the way.'

'Ye speered ower mony questions of my wife to be honest men,' he said threateningly.

'And why,' said the Dominie, birsing up as one that is ready to quarrel, 'in this realm of Scotland may not a man without offence ask his way, from the honest wife of an honest man, so long as he soliciteth no favour more intimate?'

At this the giant made a blow at the little Dominie. He had a large cudgel in his hand, and he struck without warning, like the ill-conditioned ruffian that he was. But he fell in with the wrong man when he tried to take Dominie Mure unawares, for the little man was as gleg as a hawk, having been accustomed to watch the eyes of boys all his life, ay, and often those of lads bigger than himself. So that, long before the hulking stroke of the fellow came near him, the Dominie had sprung to the side, and was ready, with his whinger in his hand, to spit Bannatyne upon the point. For myself I did not even think it worth my while even to draw – for I had only brought my plain sword, fearing that in some of the company which on our wanderings we might have to keep, the Earl's Damascus blade might overmuch excite cupidity.

But instead I ordered the fellow away as one that has authority. It was not for Launcelot Kennedy to mix himself with a common brawling dog like Chapeldonnan.

'It wants but the tickling of a straw,' cried the little man, 'that I should spit you through, like a paddock to bait a line for geds. And but for your wife's sake, who is a civil-spoken woman by ill-fortune tied to a ruffian, I should do it.'

Then seeing that together we were overstrong for him, James Bannatyne took himself away, growling curses and threatenings as to what should happen to us before we got clear of Carrick. However, we took little heed to the empty boaster, but went our ways down into the town of Girvan.

Here it came to my mind to hire a boat and provision her as it were to go to the island of Arran. And nothing would set me till I had it done. So on the south beach we found a man cleaning just such a boat as we needed, with a half-deck on her and a little mast which would go either up or down. For three merks in silver we got the use of the boat for a month, and with her both suitable oars and sails. He was going to the haying in the parish of Colmonel, the owner said, but lest we should lose her, we must deposit with the minister or the provost of the town other thirty merks as the value of the boat, which money should again be ours when we returned to claim it. So to the provost we went, whom we found a hearty, red-faced man, a dealer in provisions and all manner of victual. Of these we took a sufficient cargo on board, and having paid down our thirty merks, early one morning we laid our course for the Isle of Arran.

But when we had gone screeving well across with a following wind, we lay to under Pladda till it was dusk, and then with a breeze shifted to our quarter we bore down on Ailsa. I knew not very well what we should find there, but I judged that we would at least come on some traces of the murderous crew, which might help us to clear up some of their secrets. For I judged that James Bannatyne did not spend his nights out of bed in order to wile a few solan geese off the rocks of Ailsa.

CHAPTER XXXVI
THE DEFENCE OF CASTLE AILSA

Now the Isle of Ailsa is little more than a great lumping crag set askew in the sea. Nevertheless, it has both landing place and pasturage, house of refuge and place of defence. The island was not new to me, for I had once upon a time gone thither out of curiosity after the matter of Barclay, Laird of Ladyland – who, in his madness, thought to make it a place of arms for the Papists in the year of the Spanish Armada, but was prevented and slain at the instance of Andrew Knox, one of the good reforming name, minister of Paisley. This last was a wonderfully clever man and accounted a moving preacher; but on this occasion he showed himself a better fighter – which upon Craig Ailsa, at least, is more to the purpose.

It was the dusk of the morning when we ran into the spit of shingle which is upon the eastern side and, watching our chance, we drew the boat ashore. The sea was chill and calm, only a little ruffled by the night wind, and the sun was already brightening the sky to the east, so that the Byne Hill and Brown Carrick stood black against it.

With great stealth and quiet we climbed up the narrow path, seeing nothing, however, save a pasturing goat that sprang away as we came near. It was eerie enough work, for the seabirds clanged around us, yammering and chunnering querulously among themselves on the main cliffs at the farther side of the isle. It grew a little lighter when we came out upon the narrow path which leads to the castle.

Suddenly the dark door of the tower loomed before us, very black and grim. I declare it was like marching up to the cannon's mouth to walk up that little flight of stairs which led to the door in the wall. Nevertheless, I clambered first, with a curious pricking down my back and a slackness about the knees. So all unscathed we entered. There was only emptiness in all the chambers. The castle had been almost wholly ruined and spoiled, for since its taking by the Protestant party, it had not been touched nor put in defence. 'Now I will bring up the provender. Keep you the castle,' said I to the little Dominie, as soon as we were certified that we were first in possession.

So I went down and made first one backload and then another of those things which we had bought at Girvan and placed in the boat. I brought up also all the ammunition for the hackbutt and the pistols. Before I had finished the sky grew grey and clear, the day breaking nobly with only a rack of cloud racing up the far side of Kilbrannan Sound to hang upon the chill shark's teeth of the mountains of Arran. Upon my return I was glad to find the castle intact, and the little man seated calmly with a book in his hand.

'Did you never so much as shut the outer door?' I asked him.

'And shut you without,' said he. 'Is it likely? Ye might have had to come along that footpad with only your limber legs to keep your tail, and Tam o' Drummurchie or Sawny Bean jumping ahint ye!'

So before we went to examine the nooks and crannies of the Craig either for enemies or treasure boxes, we resolved to put the castle into as good a state of defence as we could.

First we drew in the rough wooden steps which led to the door in the wall by which we had entered, so that only the little projections whereon the wood had rested were left to afford foothold to any besieger. Then we closed and barricaded the door, for the huge iron bolt was yet in its place and ran securely into the stone of the wall itself for quite two feet.

When the day broke fully, I went up to the turret top to look about me.

'Save us!' I cried down to the little man. 'Come hither, Dominie. Is not that our boat out there with men in her?'

The Dominie ran up and looked long and earnestly.

'Ay, deed is it that,' he made answer. 'We are trapped, Launcelot, for all our cleverness. And if these chiels be our enemies, I doubt that we are as good as dead men in the jaws of the Wolf of Drummurchie.

The men in the boat kept leaning back and looking up at the cliffs as if to get sight of something. Sometimes they went completely out of view, as it had been close into the bulk of the isle, mayhap to examine more carefully some cave or lurking-place.

'We had better look well to our priming, and set a watch,' said I. 'We shall have visitors this day at Castle Ailsa, or my name is not Launcelot Kennedy.'

But the hours passed slowly on from nine till noon before we heard a sound, or saw a living creature beside the geese and the gulls. After the boat had gone westward out of sight, we waxed weary at our posts on the top of the turret. I went down to look at the cupboards of the chambers. There I was rooting and exploring, when I heard the Dominie whispering loudly to me to run up hastily into the tower.

He told me how that a stone had come pelting against the wall, on the side towards the hill. Now the castle sits on the verge of the precipice, and only a narrow path leads to it along the cliff. But behind there is a little courtyard to landward, now mostly ruined and broken down. It was from this side, so Dominie Mure whispered to me, that the stone had come.

'Tut, man,' said I, 'you are losing your nerve with this playing of hide-and-seek. It was but a billy-goat's foot that spurned it, and so naturally it came bumming down the hill side.'

'Then,' he replied grimly, 'it was a billy-goat as big as an elephant, and it will ding over this castle into the sea, for no ordinary goat could have stirred the stone I saw; I tell you it popped over the heuch like a cannon-ball.'

But we were soon to have other company besides that of the stone.

For presently there came in sight a man walking daintily and carefully along the path which led to the door of the tower. Now he would pull wantonly at a flower, and anon he would skip a stone over the cliff – for all the world as if it were a Sabbath afternoon, and he was waiting for his lass. But I knew better, for I heard his harness clattering under his loose coat of blue.

'Where gang ye so blythe, my bonny man?' cried the Dominie suddenly from my elbow. The man started back, and set his hand beneath his cloak, but the Dominie cried, —

'Keep awa' your hand frae your hip, young man – ye may need it to preserve your balance on the footpath – and give me your attention for a wee.'

The man did as he was bid, and cast his eye aloft, where the black mouth of a hackbutt looked discouragingly down upon him.

'Your name, friend?' said the Dominie.

'I am James Carrick from the parish of Barr,' said the man at last.

'Ay, ay, slee Jamie – Drummurchie's man,' said the Dominie, with meaning. 'When the man is pooin' gowans and skytin' slate stanes, the maister is no that far awa'. Noo, James, e'en turn you aboot and gang your ways, and tell your maister that his black murder is found out, and that there are those on their way to this isle that will put the irons on his heels.'

So the man who had called himself James Carrick turned obediently about, and marched away the road he had come. Probably he had been sent for nothing more than to know if we had stolen a march upon them, and taken possession of the strength of the castle. They had our boat – there was no question of that. We were, therefore, set here with only two backloads of powder and provisions to stand a siege in a small and ruinous tower upon a barren cliff.

Nor was it long before we had news of the enemy, for as we strolled up and down the battlement walk, which as is common in such little fortalices, went round three sides of the tower – that is, round every side except that which looks inward to the cliff-edge – a number of scattering shots came from all about, but chiefly from above.

We could hear them whistling over us as we ducked our heads. We got ready our guns to fire in return so soon as a man showed; but the many bowders and rocky humps about gave the enemy great shelter, so that it was no easy thing to take aim at them. However, I did get a steady shot at an incautious leg, and on the back of the crack of the hackbutt came a great torrent of swearing, and this I took for a good sign.

All we could do was to keep the little courtyard clear, and to shoot whenever we saw a bonnet rise up or a limb carelessly exposed. But we both yearned for something more lively to put an end to our suspense.

Nor had we long to wait.

From the east side of the tower which looks to the sea, there came the sound of a loud report, a tumble of stones, and then a loud, continual, and most pitiful crying, as of a man hurt unto death. I ran up into the battlements above and set my head through a loophole. Beneath me lay a fine-looking young man, with his red bonnet fallen aside, clad in a short white coat, with doublet and hose also of red. He was unarmed so far as I could see.

'Who are you, and what brought you there?' I cried to him from the turret loop.

A massy corner-stone fallen from the castle lay on his chest, and a pile of other rocks and stones was heaped about his legs. He turned his eyes upward at me and tried twice to speak.

At last he said, with many pants and piteous groans, 'I am Allan Crosby, from Auchneil. I brought you a letter from my Lord Cassillis. I landed below and came up by the path, but when I got near I heard firing and saw the door shut. So I tried to clamber up the castle wall to cry in at the window to you, because you were my friends. And even as I climbed, the stones of the castle fell upon me, and now they are crushing the life out of me.'

'Where is the letter from my Lord?' said I.

The man cast his eyes about him as if to look for it.

'I had it in my hand just now,' he said.

I saw a scrap of parchment a little way from him, and asked if that were the letter.

'Tie it to a cord for me,' said I, 'that I may see it.'

But, by reason of his wounds, he was not able to reach it, and the stones pressed so bitterly on his breast that he could do nothing but lie and groan most waesomely.

'Oh, help me, or else end my misery – for the love of God,' he cried earnestly, 'for I am at the point of death in this agony.'

I went all round the top of the tower and looked about every way. Our enemies had retired further up the cliff, and were contenting themselves with firing an occasional shot, which fell harmless against the walls, buzzed among the battlements, or else sang past us into the sea.

I called the Dominie.

'Come to the door,' said I. 'I cannot bide still and see that poor man suffer. He says that he has come with a letter from my Lord Cassillis. It may be so. I will at least go and see. Drummurchie's thieves have gone up the face of the rock, and the wounded man cannot hurt me much, even if he were willing.'

Then the Dominie pled with me to bide where I was 'because,' said he, 'you know not whether it be not an ambush.'

'I cannot let a fellow-creature be crushed to pieces before my eyes and abide to hear his death-cries,' I answered. 'Come down and hold you the door open.'

So with that I undid the bolts and put the Dominie behind it. I set my feet upon the jutting stones on which the wooden stair usually rested, and so scrambled perilously down, holding on to the wall with my right hand the while. When I came to him the lad was lying gasping on his back with the stones edgewise on his breast. I asked him how he did. He seemed past speech, but was able to motion me round to the further side. There I stooped gently in order to raise the great block that lay upon his bosom.

I stepped carefully about and turned my body to render him my aid as tenderly as I could. But I got a sudden and terrible surprise, and though I am not one much given to fear, I own that it shook my heart. Even as I stooped over him, the fellow flung oft the stones as if they had been featherweights, leaped upon his own feet with a bended pistol in his hand, and stood in front of me, striding across the path which led back again to the castle door.

At the same moment I heard a loud shout of warning from the Dominie, that the enemy were again coming down the brae. I had no time to draw my dagger, and for greater lightness I had left my sword behind. I saw the rascal make him ready to fire at me, aiming at my heart. So I remembered a French trick of high kicking which Robert Harburgh had once taught me, for he had been in France at the schools with his master the Earl, and had learned much there besides philosophy.

So I gave the fellow my foot, shod with toe-plates, full upon his wrist, which knocked the pistol up against his chin with a stunning crash. In the next moment I leaped at his throat and overbore him, spurning him with my heel as I passed. I can remember leaping upon him with all my weight from the top of one of the very stones the traitor had pulled down upon himself.

Then I ran fleet-foot for the entrance of the castle. Others of the enemy were just coming about the corner when I reached the projecting points of stone. With my heart in my mouth I sprang up the little juts of rock. I was almost within and in safety, but I had not counted upon the swiftness and resource of my gentleman of the fallen stone. He was hard upon my heels in spite of the thundering clout he had gotten on the jaw from the pistol. But luckily my brave little friend the Dominie stood ready behind the door, and as soon as my hindmost foot was over the threshold, he set his strength to the iron handle and sent the massy oak home to its fastenings with such force that it struck the pursuer fair on the face with a stunning crash. As a stone is driven from a sling, so he fell whirling over the stair head, and, unable to stop himself, he went, gripping vainly at the rock-weeds, headlong over the cliff.

This, however, being behind the door and fully employed in securing it, we did not know at the time. But when we hurried again to the top of the tower, we saw the enemy swarming down the cliff side to render him some assistance, or it might be to recover his body.

'Ask him, when you get him, if he has another letter from my lord the Earl,' cried the Dominie after them.

'And serve him right well, the treacherous hound,' muttered the little man to himself, 'if you find him in pound pieces!'

But I said nothing, for I thought the fellow would mind the kick that I gave him.

That night Thomas of Drummurchie and all his folk removed from the cave where till now they had dwelt. They went over in our boat and in that of James Bannatyne of Chapeldonnan to the mainland, being frightened (as I guess) by our declaration that there were those coming who would deliver them to justice. And also being dismayed, as I make no doubt, by our staunch and desperate defence.

Thus were we left alone on the muckle weary rock which men call Ailsa, and which thousands of free men and women look at every day without a thought of the poor prisoned folk upon it.