Kitabı oku: «The Grey Man», sayfa 25

CHAPTER LI
MARJORIE'S GOOD-NIGHT

Even as the axe was falling, Marjorie Kennedy sank down upon the platform of the scaffold, as though the stroke had fallen upon her. I sheathed my sword, and sprang upon the slippery stage to hold her up. When I took her in my arms she was soft and pliable in all her limbs like a little child. Till now she had been like a woman of steel, or rather like one carven in alabaster, as I have said. But now she lay in my arms like a new-born babe on the nurse's lap.

We carried her homeward, making strangely enough for some distance but one procession with the bodies which were going to be buried without the wall, while the heads were taken to be set on the pikes of the Nether Bow.

To the Earl John's own lodging we brought her, and in a room with a wide north-looking window we laid her down on a bed. Then we stood silently about her, Nell and I being nearest.

In a little while Marjorie turned her head to the window. The sun had risen on the sea. A north wind was blowing. All was very blue, and smacked of the morning freshness, for the window was open, and the sea air blew off the firth almost as salt it was wont to blow in at the windows of Culzean.

Thrice she moved her lips to speak, but till the fourth time no word came.

'I have done the work appointed,' she said, 'I ken not if I have done it right.'

She paused a little, and her eyes, as she looked at the sea, were very wide and wistful.

'It is a hard saying that "Vengeance is His." I thought it would be sweet – sweet,' she said, 'but now in the mouth it is bitter.'

'Hush thee, Marjorie,' whispered my Nell; 'it was the justice of God upon the murderers of our father.'

And I thought that she spoke well.

But Marjorie waved her aside.

'Like enough,' she answered, quietly, as one that has not strength to argue, but yet holds the contrary opinion. 'Done, at least, is Marjorie's task. I journey forth to take my wages. Fare you well.'

She turned her face a little outward so that she could look upon the sea and the Fife Lomonds.

'A dearer shore,' she said, softly, and then she started a little, quickly as if she had waked from sleep.

'Where am I?' she asked.

But ere we could answer – even Nell, who stood close beside her and stroked her brow with a soft hand, she went on, —

'Oh, what am I saying? I was thinking on our garden at Culzean, with its rose walks and the sweet dreaming scent of the sea?'

She looked up at me, as it had been almost archly, yet so as almost to break my heart.

'Launcelot, lad,' she said, 'hast thou thy gage that I gave thee there? Ye thought me once to be sweet. And I liked you, laddie, I liked you – with something just an inch on the hither side of loving. But now Nelly will love thee a mile on the further side. Come you, Nell,' she said, beckoning her, 'brave, sweet sister! Let not thy sharp tongue longer injure thy warm heart. Give me your hand, little sister Nelly. Where is it? I cannot see – for the bright shining light.'

And finding Nell's hand she put it into mine across the bed.

'Good-night, bairns,' she said, 'even so keep them till the world ends!'

Then for a short space she was silent, and when she spoke again it was very low, so that none save Nell and I could hear. But the words made us tingle as we caught them.

'Gilbert,' she was saying in a whisper, clear and distinct, 'is it not sweet to walk thus hand in hand on the green meadows? Are not the spring flowers sweet, lad of my love? Shall I sing thee a song about them? For, though thou know'st it not, I can sing both high and low.'

Then she spoke as it had been liltingly and gladsomely.

'Gilbert, let me set this spray of the bonny birk above thine heart. Methinks it hath a strange look. I kenned not that it grew in this countryside.'

She broke into a weird lilt of song that sent the tears hasting to our eyes. But Marjorie was smiling as she never smiled on me, and that made me weep the more.

 
'It neither grew in syke nor ditch
Nor yet in any sheuch,
But at the gates o' Paradise,
That birk grew fair eneuch.'
 

'Gilbert, Gilbert,' she said lovingly, crooning like one that is caressed, 'is not this right winsome? That we are walking here together on the living green – with all our fashes, all our troubles left quite behind us. There was surely something long ago that wearied us, something that parted us and twained us. I cannot mind what it was. I shall not try to remember. But, love of mine, it shall separate us no more for ever and ever!'

Her voice had almost gone. But once again it came louder.

'Keep my hand, Gilbert,' she said, trembling a little, 'there is a mist coming up over the green betwixt me and the sunshine – a cold, cold mist from the sea. But keep thou my hand, dear love, clasp it tighter, and it will pass over.'

I saw the death sweat break on her brow.

'Gilbert, Gilbert,' she whispered, searching above her with her hands and opening her arms, 'clasp me closer. I cannot see thee, love, for the mist. I cannot feel your hand.'

I bent my ear. I thought she was gone from us. But, as from an infinite distance I heard the words come to me. They were the last, spoken with great relief.

'The mist has gone by, dear love! The mist has quite gone by!'

And she lay still, smiling most sweetly.

CHAPTER LII
HOME-COMING

The snows of another winter had fallen, frozen, and lain long ere they were at last whisked away by the winds of a brisk and bitter March. It was now again the springtime upon the face of the earth – the time of the earliest singing of the mavis, of the sweet piping of the blackbird on the tree. The grasses were green, too, over the unforgotten grave of our Marjorie. But we who loved her had won to a memory that was not now wholly sorrow. Specially we remembered the sweet and profitable end she had made, when after many days of bitter winter in her heart, forgiveness and love at last unsealed her bosom.

It had been a long winter for us all, because it behoved that I should go to London, there to be made one of His Majesty's new knights. For I had told all my tale to the King, being so charged by the Earl John.

'Yet,' said he, 'keep ever your thumb upon the matter of the Treasure of Kelwood. And I will keep mine right effectually upon Currie, the ill-conditioned thief thereof.'

And so he did, and for the same Laird of Kelwood's sake chiefly, he set to mending and patching our old tower of defence on Craig Ailsa, in which he gave one Hamilton the charge of him as prisoner, together with John Dick the traitor and two or three more.

'It was a fine, quiet place,' said the Earl John, 'and would give such rascals time and opportunity for repentance – which,' added he, 'seems more than I am ever likely to get with all this throng of business on hand.'

For the Earl John was now waxen one of the greatest men in broad Scotland, and withal he had all the power worth considering in the shire of Ayr. So that even the Craufords, wanting now their ancient chief, and broken with bickerings among themselves, sent an embassy of peace and goodwill to him.

It chanced that it came when the Earl was in a good humour.

'Ah, John Crauford,' said Cassillis, ''tis a changed day since Bargany and you chased us off Skeldon Haughs. It looks as if the sow had not been flitted so far after all. But ye shall have the peace ye ask. For we live under a gracious King who loves quietness as much as when he dwelt here in our kindly North. And he is now the better able to enforce it. Therefore, look ye to it. I will maintain you Craufords in your heritages of Kerse – which by my power as Bailzie, I might legally declare forfeit.

'But I will tell you what ye must do in return. Ye shall render me place and precedence at kirk and market. Ye shall build up your private door in Dalrymple Kirk, and ye shall abide from taking your places there till ye have seen me seated.'

To this, dourly enough, the Craufords perforce agreed. For, indeed, they could make no better of it, so great a man was our Earl grown.

But to me he was ever kind, and proved none so ill-given when it liked him. For he said, 'Build you the house of Palgowan and I will plenish it for you, and that not meanly. And you and my cousin Nell shall rear me routh of lusty knaves to protect my south-western marches, and keep down the reivers of the Dungeon!' Which, indeed (so far as I was concerned), I was right willing to promise.

So it came about that the Earl would have it that our wedding must be held in the ancient strength of Cassillis, which sits by the waterside not so far from the town of Ayr. And a bonny, well-sheltered place it is – not like Culzean, which stands blusteringly on the seabrink, over-frowning all. And because the Earl of Cassillis said it, so it was bound to be.

For he was our Nell's guardian, and besides we that were to live under him, were none the worse of keeping in with him.

When I went to do my courting, as often as not I found Nell walking with him, and ofttimes flouting him. And when I would have cautioned her, 'Tut,' she said, 'he likes nothing better. If his own wife flouted him, he might stay better at home.'

'Cousin,' Nell would say to him sometimes, 'Cousin John, ye think ye are such a great man, yet a little musket-ball, or a woman's finger-long bodkin, might let all thy greatness out. Ye should think oftener on that.

'What, Nell,' said he, 'is it that the hour of thy marriage grows so near, that thou must test thy preaching on me. Keep the proof of the pudding for thine own goodman.'

'Ah,' said she, 'perchance my cousin, the noble Countess, has already given thee thy fill of it.'

'Thou art a forward chit,' said he, wringing her ear between his finger and thumb. 'I hope Launce will swinge thee tightly with a supple birch for thy often naughtiness.'

It was, indeed, a notable day when Nell and I were married. All the morning my heart was beating a fine tune, lest something should happen ere I got my lass carried off to our home. Alone I rode from the Cove of Culzean to the house of Cassillis. I started brave and early, and my good old horse, Dom Nicholas, rode for once the right road and the ready, the gate that I longed to go. I had a rare fine coat of blue silk upon me, belted about the waist with the King's belt, and with the King's order of knighthood all a-glitter upon my breast. Silver-buttoned was my coat, and of solid silver, too, were the accoutrements of Dom Nicholas – ay, to the very stirrups and the broidery on his blue saddle-cloth. I wore the Earl's Damascus sword, his first gift, swinging at my side. And as Dom Nicholas and I went through Maybole, wot ye, if we kept not our heads up. For the lasses ran out in clouds to watch us go past, and what was even better, the lads sulked and turned their backs, saying that they would be shamed to lay a leg across a horse's back thus appareled. For I knew well what they were thinking. Had I been trudging afoot in hodden, and they riding by all in silk with a gold-hiked sword, that is just what I should have said. So the black envy eating into their hearts and lowering on their brows cheered me like old French wine on a cold day.

I had not gone far across the bent when I spied a cavalcade before me. It was the men of Culzean, whom I had so often led in battle, come to give me a right gay sending off. And at their head rode James (now the heir), mirthful Sandy, and mine own little Davie, dressed like a page-boy in satin of blue and gold.

They gave me boisterous welcome, and they that dared would have broken many jests of the time-honoured sort upon my head. But on such a day a lover's head is helmeted alike against the hand of war and the strife of tongues.

The Earl himself met us at Cassillis Yett. Whereupon I dismounted and bent upon a knee. He raised me right courteously and led me within, conversing all the while as to an equal. Such a repair of folk I never saw before in Carrick or in Kyle. And sweetest of all to me was to see my father, for my mother had bidden at home to welcome us when we should ride southward.

And among the first that came to bid me good fortune were Robert Harburgh and his wife. Now so soon as the eyes of my ancient love crossed mine, I perceived well that there was yet wickedness lurking in them.

And whensoever her husband was called away on some business of the Earl's I had proof of it. For Kate Allison came near to me, and, setting her hand on the silver buttons of my coat, as though to pick a thread, she said, —

'So, Launcelot – or, I should say, Sir Launcelot – is it come to this? You see there is none so disdainful but in time their fall will come.'

'Nay, Kate,' I made answer, 'it was not I that was first disdainful, for do you mind who it was that told me certain truths in the Grieve's house at Culzean?'

'Ah Launce!' said Kate Allison, 'own it now. Was not I a kind leech, to bite one I loved so healthily all for his good and for the cooling of his blood?'

'Kate Allison,' said I, 'thou wast ever a minx, a teasing rogue of rogues. But thy disdain might have gone near to costing me my life!'

'Go to, Sir Want-wit,' said she. 'Did not I know all the time that thy love for me was no more than a boy's fondness for kissing comfits, and to be made of by a bonny lass? Why, even then thou wast fonder of Nell's little finger than of my whole body.'

I knew that Kate spoke true – for, indeed, it was many months since I had so much as thought upon her. But this I told her not. The Lord knows how seldom she had thought upon me. But when they meet together, old sweethearts take pleasure thus in dallying with the past, when all wounds have been healed and no hearts broken.

But she saw my eyes wandering, as I guess, every way about, and she must needs tease me concerning that also.

'Nay,' she said, 'you will not see your posy, till she comes in to the minister and you. So e'en content ye for a little with an old married wife and the mother of a family. Ye shall have time and to spare with your bonny bride or all be done.'

'Kate,' I said, 'ye will be my friend as of yore.'

'Ay, and hold my tongue,' answered she quickly.

'That you did not always, then,' said I, 'for there never was such an uncouth love-making in the world, as with your tell-tale tongue ye made mine. I dared not lay my lips to a tender word nor so much as seek a favour, as it might be innocently betwixt man and maid, but it was "That you said to Kate on such a night!" or "Think ye that I count so little on myself as to be content with Kate Allison's cast-off sweet speeches."'

And the pretty besom laughed. For though a married wife, she was not a whit sobered, as one might see by her eyes.

'It served you greatly right,' said she, 'but do me some justice. Did you ever hear of my telling of the night of the fair at Maybole, and of our home-coming by the woodland way?'

'No,' said I, curtly. For indeed I liked not that memory specially well, and wondered that she did.

'Then,' said Kate Allison, 'rail no more against woman's tongues. For they are moveable yard measures, and let out no more than likes them.'

At this moment they called to me from the great door, and Kate Allison waved me off with a gay 'Up and away, Sir Knight!' – which pleased me more from her than many a Benedicite from another.

The minister had come, they said, and was waiting for me. I went in, and lo! to my wonder, who should he be but Maister Robert Bruce, the sequestrated minister of Edinburgh, with whom the King had at last wholly fallen out concerning the matter of the Gowrie riot.

The Earl smiled at my wonderment.

'Art thou astonished,' he said, 'thus to see our ancient friend in Carrick? Thinkest thou that thy marriage will not stand? Truth it will, for even King James will think twice, or he bids his bishop unfrock a man that bides with me in my defenced house of Cassillis.'

'Sir Launcelot,' said Maister Robert Bruce, bending to me with his ancient grace and most reverend dignity, 'this is the happiest hour with me since I quitted my high town upon the Long Ridge. It is true that I wander like a restless ghost seeking abode; but as yet the King hath not bent me – yea, though thrice I have met him in dispute and conference.'

Then went the Earl out to bring in my Nell, and I listened to the minister of Edinburgh speaking. Yet, on my life I could not fix my mind on a word he said, for there was a jangling as of many bells in mine ears, and all the pulses of my life beat together. Then knew I of a surety that none had power to touch my heart like Nell Kennedy, the lass that would not need to change her name.

At last the door opened and she entered – leaning on the Earl's arm she came. There was a rim of gold about her hair like a coronet. And John of Cassillis bent over to me, as he gave her into my hand. 'Take her,' he said, 'I have set a coronet about her brows for to-day. She is in haste to be wed, or I might have put a real one there. And what had Sir Launcelot done then, poor thing?'

And I think the cold, tall Earl John was more than a little fond of our Nell, concerning which I often rally her now.

So Nell and I were married. And as though he had known her and her teasing temper, Maister Robert Bruce paused long on the promise to 'obey' when he came to put the questions to her, and also upon the words 'obedient wife.' Wherefore I have ever held him to be a man gifted above most with the second sight.

It was between the sweet hazel and the flowering May that we rode south – we two alone. For Robert Harburgh had led a company of men with flower-wreathed lances and of young maids on palfreys as far as the crossing of the roads which come from Culzean, where there met us a party with the loving cup.

But now at long and last we were won clear, and ever as we rode we caught hands and laughed and loosed them again – all for gladness to be alone. And we looked in one another's eyes, and nigh brought ourselves and our horses to destruction by thus looking and overlooking. Till I felt mine old Dom Nicholas, a horse that loves not philandering, grow restive and sulky under my thigh, tossing his head up as one slighted for the unworthy. And ever as we went she charged it upon me that then and then, and at such another time, I loved her not. And ever I swore that I did. Thereafter, being beaten on that point, she fell to declaring that she had loved me first and most – but I only reluctantly and, as it had been, at second-hand.

Thus we made the miles and the hours go by, redding up all our past life and planning our future, wondering the while if the stir and clangour of war had indeed passed away for ever. For already there had come a new look upon the land. Whether it was the union of the crowns and the new English wealth which made money more plenty, I know not, at any rate certain it is that there had arrived a security to which we in the lands of Carrick had been strangers for many generations.

Then it was that the farmer began to set his oxen to the plough in teams of a dozen or more, not fearing any longer that there might come a glint of steel-harnessed riders over the hill, who should drive his cattle before them and leave himself lying in the furrow a-welter in his blood.

The wind blew sweet about us. It seemed that never had there been a spring like this one since the world began, never such delicatest airs as those that stirred the crisps about Nell's white neck when she bent it sideways to hearken to my speeches. I declare that were I not an unlearned Scot, who takes to his pen only when work for the sword waxes slack, I could praise my love in similitudes of Arabian birds and ferny sprays, as well as Euphues' Delight or even as in the gentle Sydney his Arcadia.

But as it is I waste time, for already I have spoke too long, and must haste me to the end. Though this is a part of my life that I could love to linger on. For what is pleasanter than sunshine after storm and the bolts of ruin.

I declare it was five years since I had had time to look at a robin. But there seemed to be time for everything this fine May day.

And ever as we went, it seemed that we had been a long time alone, and that it would soon come time to be turning back again. Then to which soever of us the thought came, that we were now on the long lane that has no turning (save that which turns in at the kirkyaird loaning), there would also come the desire to touch and to look. And even thus did Nell Kennedy often, reaching her hand across to me from her gentle, equal-pacing steed.

Then would she fall back on the things that had been, and which now were passed away.

'Yesterday, at such a time,' she would say, 'I thought that to-day would never come. And now – '

Whereupon with her eyes she would look the rest.

Then I told her how that I had seen the Dominie but yestereven, when she was sewing at the pearling of her bridal dress and thinking of me. He had gone back with his pipes to the school by the kirk at Maybole.

'And what said he of our wedding?' asked my dear.

'Why I was instant with him to come and bide at Palgowan,' I made answer. 'Shall I tell thee what he said?'

'Ay, tell it me, indeed!' quoth she, blithely, stopping a moment on a high-lying moorish summit, with her hand above her eyes and looking to the Spear of the Merrick towards which we rode.

'Well, then, he said that those that were but newly wed had no use for carven negro-heads, wherein to put the ashes of their loves.'

'He is none so ugly as that!' said Nell – with, I think, a look at me which I took for a certain complaisance it pleased me to see.

Then I told her how the Dominie had added that it was not yet time for men of his profession to come about the house of a newly-wedded knight. But that if prosperity should come to Palgowan and the din of bairns' voices, we might ask him again in ten years or somewhat less.

'Oh,' said Nell, shortly, and rode a little further off. Yet I flattered myself that I had said the thing pretty well. For it was not at all in these terms that the Dominie had put his offer. Indeed, I was in a quandary how most discreetly to deliver his message.

So, in the long twilight of May, we came riding down Minnoch Water. For, with the sun-setting, we had fallen silent, and we looked no more so frankly at each other. But with one accord we turned our eyes across the water to watch for the light of my mother's candle in the little window.

She heard us as we came; and there, lo! before I knew it, she was at Nelly's saddle leather, helping her to dismount, and the tears were running steadily down her face. I think she minded the day when she, too, had come home a bride to the little house of Kirrieoch among the hills.

'Oh, my bairn – my bairn,' was what she said, 'come awa' ben!'

And it was to Nell that she said it. Me she minded no more than a cock-sparrow under the eaves. Then came Hugh of Kirriemore out to take the horses. But I went, as is my custom, to the stable with Dom Nicholas, for he never slept well otherwise. And when I came in again I found that my mother had Nell already seated by the fireside, for it is chill among the uplands in May. The peats were burning fine, and on the white board there was a supper set fit for a prince and princess.

But all the time my mother never minded me at all, save to rage on me for bringing the lass so far and so fast.

'But, mother,' said I, 'remember that if I had not made some haste, all your fine supper would have been wasted.'

And indeed it came not far from being that as it was, for we could eat but little. The finest of muirland fare seemed somehow or other to stick by the way, tasting strangely dry and sapless. And after we had done we drew apart and looked at the red ashes, while my mother rattled on about the simple concerns of the sheep and the calves, which mountain-bred folk vastly love both to speak of and to hear about.

Presently she leaned over me and took down the burnt Bible out of the wall aumry.

'Here, Launce,' she said, 'read you the chapter this night ere ye sleep. It becomes a man wedded and the head of a family. Besides, your father is from home.'

I declare I would sooner have charged upon the level spears. But I had no choice with my mother, speaking as she did when I was a boy, and my Nell sitting there crossing her pretty ankles by the fireside. So I manned to read a portion. It was about Jonathan clambering up a rock (and a good soldier he was). But the prayer fairly beat me. However, ere we rose from our knees we said the Lord's prayer all of us together. So to rest we went, without other word spoken. And through the little window of the room in which I was born, Nell and I could hear, ere we went to sleep, the brattle of the burn hurrying down through the peace of the hills, past our own new house of Palgowan and so on toward the silence of the outermost sea.

THE END