The Grey Man Chapter 30

p class="pfirst">Ay, well might I say it. How was I to face Nell Kennedy—she that had with a long, kindly look committed her father into my keeping that very morning? Tenderly we lifted the body, which in life had been so noble and now was so pitifully mishandled. The villains had despoiled the dainty garmentry, torn the lace, and snatched the jewellery which Helen Kennedy had set in place as, daffing right merrily, she prepared her father (as she said) to 'gang worthily and bonnily before the King.' But the King he went before was One, as he himself would often say, that looked not on the outer appearance but on the heart. And concerning that last Thomas Kennedy need have had no fear that his would not be well looked upon—for it was upright, and kindly, and true, nor did it ever move to the hurt of any man in all this world. And as I took him up, I saw still more clearly the black-hearted rage of the persecutors. For it showed as manifestly as any other fact the hellish intent of the murderers, that they had taken time, even while I was in the act to come at them, to despoil my master of his purse with a thousand merks of gold therein. Nay, his very ring of fine diamonds they tore from his finger, and his golden buttons of wrought goldsmith work were riven from his frilled sark—one murderous loon snatching one thing and the other another, worse than brute beasts of the field.

We laid him gently upon the back of wise Dom Nicholas, that all the time stood like a statue, and then when everything was ready, moved graciously and soberly away, as though he had been well aware of the melancholy burden he bore. Even thus we brought my dear master to the sea terrace of Greenan which he had so lately left.

And when John Kennedy of Balterson heard the trampling of the horse on the flags of the court, he came out crying loudly and heartily as was the manner of the man.

'Wi' what's this, Culzean? Are ye back again?'

So running to the door he stood with his table-knife in his hand and a bit of his mid-day meal thereupon, astonished beyond the utterance of words.

'What's this? What's this?' he cried. 'Oh, sirs, what foul wark is here? Wha has done this?'

And I told him their names—at least so far as I knew them.

'Thomas of Drummurchie!' he cried. 'It shall not be the uplands of Barr parish that shall keep ye frae the stark sword of John Kennedy of Balterson. And thou, Walter Mure of Cloncaird, that has so often sat in this house of the Greenan, by the grace of God I shall lay thee as low as thou hast laid my friend this day.'

But I begged Balterson to think of something else than the taking of revenge—of which all in good time. So presently he got me a horse litter with two steady-going beasts, and I walked alongside it with Dom Nicholas arching his head and treading softly as if he also mourned. Thus we came to the town of Maybole, which was as our own place. And such dule and lament as there was that day saw I never anywhere.

For the town had loved him as its liege lord, far more than either John, Earl of Cassillis, or his father the King of Carrick. Such a congregation as met us at the town gate! The women all crying the cry of death, the men cursing and calling vengeance. The minister was there to pray, and all classes and conditions were moved to tears.

And ere we were well past the Foul Alley there were twenty men on horseback to chase the murderers, with John Kennedy of Balterson at their head. But they might as well have chased the wind, for by this time, with the relays of horse that had been ordered for them, they were safe among the wild Crauford country on the borders of Kyle.

Of the sad homecoming to Culzean itself I declare I cannot write at length. At the entering in of the woodland I left them, and upon Dom Nicholas I rode drearily forward to do the bitterest day's work of my life—to tell Helen Kennedy that I brought only her father's corpse home with me.

And, as the chance befell, it was at least half-a-mile before I reached the home gate of Culzean, just where one sees for the first time the grey turrets sitting against the dimpled blue of the incoming tide, that I was aware of Nell Kennedy coming light-foot towards me, singing a catch of a song and swaying a flourish of sweet may-blossom daintily in her hand. I have never rightly loved the white hawthorn since that day. But as soon as she saw me she stopped her song and clutched her fingers close upon her palm, for the flowery branch had fallen at her feet.

'What is wrong?' she cried, when I came near to her. But I could not answer till I had leaped from Dom Nicholas and taken her by the hand. She turned round, keeping me at the stretch of her arm so that she might read the news, good or bad, in my eyes.

'Is it my father? Tell me,' she said very calmly.

'Nell, it is your father,' I said as quietly. 'They set upon him and hurt him, even when he had sent me on a little way before him that he might be alone at his mid-day meditation—'

'Is he dead—tell me—is he dead?' she broke in. But I answered her not; for I could not. So she knew, and in an instant grew as pale and still as the man that was passed from us.

'Take me to him,' she said at length. And, seeing that I still hesitated, she said, 'Do not fear for me. I will do all that a daughter of Culzean should do.'

'They are bringing him hither now,' I said. 'I came hasting to tell you. The feet of the horses that carry him are even now upon the brae.'

Then, when I had told her all, I ended the tale with my tears and with crying out that which was in my heart, 'Oh, would to God I had died instead of him!'

'Launcelot,' Nell said, with a wonderful quiet, 'that is useless, and not well said. Be comforted. None would have done one-tenth so much as thou hast.'

'Bless you, Nell!' I said, for I had feared greatly she would have broken upon me with bitter railing.

It was by the great oak tree which sends its boughs over the road that we met the bier, and the horses stopped. Even thus Nell Kennedy met her father, and there was not a tear on her face, but only a great sweet calm. She silenced the noisy limmer wives that went behind crying and mourning aloud. So in this manner we went onward to Culzean, Nell walking on one side of the bier and I on the other, leading Dom Nicholas by the bridle.

And lo! as the body passed the drawbridge, a sudden gust out of the sea snatched his knightly pennon from the topmost turret tower of the battlements of Culzean, which was held a freit and a warning by all the folk of Carrick. But though the master had come home to his own, yet both Culzean and I were now masterless.

In due time we gave him stately funeral, carrying him forth upon a day so calm, so breathless, that the banners did not wave as they swept the dust. And thereafter all life seemed to stop, when we came home again to the darkened house. James and Sandy, the two young lads, played no more in the tennis-courts, but went about with linked arms speaking of revenge. But little David abode with Nell and went forth only with her, clinging winsomely to her hand; for we kept us close within bars and warded ramparts, with the drawbridge up, watching the fruit ripening on the walls of the orchard of Culzean all that splendid summer of the murder of our lord and master.

Slowly I thought over many things, till the resolve to bring the matter to a head came masterfully upon me. From the Earl as Bailzie of Carrick I got warrant, according to my dead master's word and direction, to be doer-in-ordinary for the young man James, who was now the heir of Cassilis. For Earl John knew that Launcelot Kennedy was no self-seeker; also they that stood about had told to him the Tutor's last words—that I was to be a good lad and to be kind to Nelly. It was Adam Boyd of Penkil, and David Somerville, hosier in Ayr, who told him this, and they were two of those that played golf by the sandhills on the day of that foul slaying under trust.