CHAPTER XXXIVIN THE ENEMY'S COUNTRYNow, through being over-careful with my chronicle, I have spent too much time on our conferences. But we were, indeed, at the parting of the ways, and needed all advice. On our way to Culzean we met one who told us that the Earl had gone home that day to Cassillis. Nell besought me to ride thither, for she had a request to make to the head of her house ere she went her ways back to Culzean.So to Cassillis we rode, and at the gate encountered Robert Harburgh, dressed, as usual, in his dark, close-fitting doublet, and with his long, plain sword by his side. With him I abode while Helen went within to pay her duty and service to the Countess—who, as Nell told me afterwards, never stopped praising the ancient days when she was the Chancellor's wife, and had one of the ladies of the Court to attire her.'Now,' she said bitterly, 'John grudges it if I take a milkmaid half-an-hour from the butter-kirning to help to arrange my hair.'Presently the Earl came out. He showed himself well pleased and kind, as, indeed, he ever was with me—perhaps because I never asked aught of him in all my life.'Helen, our cousin,' said he, 'desires that she may go and bide among the heather with your good mother at Kirrieoch. What think ye of that?'I told him that I had not heard of it—that she had spoken no word to me.'See to the matter,' he said with significance. 'I have been advised concerning Sir Thomas and his last words. And if you prove worthy, I know no reason why ye should not have the lass. But first ye must find the treasure of Kelwood or bring down her father's murderers—one of the two. And then, when that is done, I pledge you my knightly word that ye shall have both the lass and a suitable providing. Besides which, if I am in favour with the King, ye may even get a clap on the shoulder from the flat of a royal sword. But that,' said he, 'I can nocht promise ye, for with King Jamie no man's favour is siccar.'I told him that I kenned not rightly if the lass would have me; that I never spoke a single word of love to her but what she lightlied me.'In good time,' said the Earl, smiling and nodding. 'The lass that wants in time of stress to gang and bide with the minnie, will draw not unkindly to the son in times of ease.'Then came Nell with a knitted shawl from the Countess to wear among the hills, for Earl John and she were kind folk enough in all that touched not the getting or spending of gear.I asked my lord also for the company of Robert Harburgh to help me in the escorting of Nell fitly to the little tower of Kirrieoch on the side of the Minnoch water.'Ay, ay; let him gang,' said the Earl. 'The honeymoon is by, and his wife will be the fonder of him for lying her lane till he comes hame to her again.'So Robert Harburgh and his long sword went southward from Cassillis along with us, riding mostly with the Dominie, while I rode behind with Nell.I told her all our plans as we went. How we must seek the treasure; and how we must, above all things, find the boy Dalrymple.'I will go with you upon your quest,' the staunch little Dominie had said to me, when he heard of our adventure. And so it fell out that we four rode steadily to the south, till we came in the evening to my own hill-land, where the whaups cry, where the burnies go chuckling to themselves and clattering over the pebbles, and where all the folk's hearts are kindly and warm. My mother took my lass in her arms when we told her our purpose and Nell's request.'And I will help you with the kye?' said Nell, blithely, to her.'Ay,' answered my mother. 'Ye will help with the drinking of the milk, and that will e'en bring some roses back into your cheeks, my puir bit shilpit lassie.'And though there passed not a look by the common between us when we parted, I think my mother shrewdly jaloosed what were my hopes.Thus we left them standing by the loan dyke, the two old folk and Nell with her yellow hair a-blowing in the midst. And I, that knew not whether I might ever see them again, waved a hand, and resolved to return with a name and a barony at the least; or, if my lot were perverse, to leave my bones in some stricken field.It is hard for a man to part from a lass—and in especial from one to whom he dares not make love as he has done to others, all because those others have told upon him, till he fears the ridicule of his real love more than rapier thrusts. Right bitterly did I regret that I had done my by-courtings so near home; because, on my very life I dared not venture a sweet word to Nell Kennedy for fear of her saying, 'That is even what you said to Kate Allison, the Grieve's lass.' Or as it might, 'Keep to your customs. It is not your usual time yet by a quarter-of-an-hour to put your arm about our waists.'Now this is monstrously unfair to any man, who, after all, is compelled to conduct his affairs with some sort of rule and plan of attack. I was a fool—well do I know it. I ought to have gone further afield than the Grieve's house. I am sure there are plenty of lasses in Carrick fairer to look upon than Kate Allison, though I am free to admit that I thought not so at the time.So as we went back it was arranged that Robert Harburgh should ride to the woodland country about Auchendrayne, and there, from his headquarters at Cassillis, keep his eye upon the doings of the Mures, because his person was unknown to them of Auchendrayne's household.The Dominie and I undertook the more uncertain work, but we had made our plans and were not to be put off. The neighbourhood of the Benane was well known to all that trafficked about the town of Girvan. It was a dangerous and an ill-famed place, and many innocent people had very mysteriously lost their lives there, or at least disappeared to return no more. In order, therefore, that we might be more free to pursue our wanderings, we left our horses behind us. Indeed, Dom Nicholas was even now cropping the sweet grasses on the side of the Minnoch water, with my father to show him where they grew thickest and my mother to give him oats between times, till the brave beast was in some danger of being overfed.As we neared Girvan, we came into a country of the bitterest partizans of the Bargany folk. Here dwelt James Bannatyne of Chapeldonnan, one of the great intimates of John Mure, and much beholden to him. Here also was Girvan Mains, over the possession of which much of the black blood had arisen. So, for our safety, we gave ourselves out to be plain merchants travelling to Stranrawer in order to get a passage over to Ireland.When we came to the farmhouses where we were to stay for the night, we always asked of the good man, in the hearing of his wife, concerning the state of the country. Was it peaceful? Were the bloody feuds staunched, and could honest men now live in peace? We heard, as was natural, a great deal of abuse of the Earl and of our faction, as the greediest and worst-intentioned rascals in the world. That from the goodman; but when the wife got her tongue started, she would tell us much that was no credit to Drummurchie and others on the side of the murderers. Soon we were fully certified that we were already in the country where Drummurchie and Cloncaird and the rest of their party were being secretly sustained by their friends. Yet we could not come at them, which perhaps was as well, seeing that my person was well known to them.I found the little Dominie a right brave companion. When we sojourned at houses, he had a way with the bairns that kept them on the trot to do his will, and pleasured to do it—a manner also of cross-questioning the parents about their children which showed them his interest and his knowledge. Then he would most wisely and soberly advise them to see and give this lad Alec a good education, to make that one a merchant because of his cleverness with figures, and this a dominie or a clerk, because he did not give promise of being fit for anything else. It was as good as a play to hear him, and made us much thought of whereever we went.Yet he was ready with his fighting tools also. Once when we went by Kildonan and a pack of dirty vagabonds bade us stand, what was my surprise to find that Dominie Mure having laid down his pipes and out with his blade, was already driving among them before I had got so much as my hand on the sword blade. And I am no laggard, either, with the iron, as all may know by this time. But with his great bristling fierce head and his rapier that thrust up unexpectedly from below (yet which with the length of his arm reached as far as a tall man's), the Dominie gave the rascals a fright and a wound or two also, which started them at the run. Even then he followed, thrusting at them behind till they shouted amain, and took across the fields to escape the pricking of his merciless weapon. And ever as they ran he cried, '"Halt and deliver!" did ye say? I will give you a bellyful of "Halt and deliver!"'CHAPTER XXXVTHE OGRE'S CASTLESo 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 XXXVITHE DEFENCE OF CASTLE AILSANow 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.CHAPTER XXXVIITHE VOICE OUT OF THE NIGHTNow, so long as provisions last, Ailsa is none such a bad sanctuary, and we might have passed the time there very well, had we possessed minds sufficiently at ease for enjoying such a hermitage. The spring was but a few yards above the castle, and it ran crystal clear into a little basin which I cut in the rock. We had enough victual to serve us for a month with the provision we had bought in Girvan, and with what I shot of the puffins or Tammy Nories, which ran in and out of their holes all day like conies in a warren.Sometimes we would climb to the top of the crag and look long at the sea, which from there seemed like a great sheet hung upon Cantyre and Arran on the one side and upon the hills of Galloway and Carrick on the other—with Ailsa itself, on which we were sitting, in the deepest trough of it.A few boats crept timidly about the shore, and a little ship sometimes passed by. But otherwise we had for companions only the silly guillemots that couped their tails uppermost and dived under, the fishing-gulls that dropped splash into the water, and the solan or solemne geese which, when they fell, made a bigger plunge than any, even as on the cliffs of the island their keckling and crying are the loudest.One day the Dominie and I were sitting on the roof of all things (as the summit of Ailsa seemed to be), picking at the grasses and knuckling little stones for the idlesse which comes with summer weather, when it came in my head to rally Robert Mure, because he had a cold hearthstone and a half empty bed.'You, a burgess and a learned man, with an official rent and a yearly charge on the burgh, yet cannot get so much as a cotter's sonsy bit lass to keep you company, and to sit, canty like Jenny and Jock, on the far side of the chimbley lug. Think shame of yourself, Dominie. Any questing lout that can persuade a tow-headed Mall of the byre to set up house with him, deserves better of his country than you. Were all of your mind, Maybole school might have none to attend it but dotards and grandmothers! And where were your craft then, Socrates?' I asked him, for just before he had been speaking to me of a certain wise man, a Greek of that name.And at first he made a jest of the matter, as indeed I meant it.'Never fear,' he said, 'there will always be enough fools in Ayrshire to get more. Maybole shall have its share of these.'And indeed that hath been the repute of our town and countryside ever since Ayr water first ran over its pebbles!Yet when I pressed the Dominie further upon the matter, he waxed thoughtful. His face, which was not naturally merry, took on a still sterner expression. Presently he put his hand within his blouse and pulled out a little string of beads, such as Catholics wear to mind them of their prayers. It was suspended about his neck. This, I own, was a great marvel to me, for the Dominie was a strong Reformer, and showed little mercy in arguing with men still inclined to the ancient opinion.He gave the brown rosary into my hand, and I turned it curiously about. It was made of the stones of some foreign fruit, most quaintly and fantastically carven and joined together with little links of gold. Between two of the beads there was a longer portion of the chain, and upon it two rings of gold were strung.'Once,' said the Dominie, 'there was a maid who had promised to share my hearth. One ring of these two was mine, to wear upon my finger, and one was hers. Upon the night before our marriage day we met at our place of tryst. I tried the ring upon her finger ard wished her to wear it that night. 'To-morrow will serve—it is not so far away!' she said, and slipped from my arms. Under a new-risen moon she went homeward, singing by the heads of Benane. And that was the last that these eyes ever beheld of bonny Mary Torrance—save only this necklace of beads which she wore, and the stain of her blood upon the short grass of the seashore.'The Dominie looked long to seaward at the flashing birds that circled and clanged about our rocky isle, each tribe of them following its own orbit and keeping to its own airy sphere.'And what happened to her?' I began, but got no further.'Murder, most foul,' he cried, rising to his feet in his agitation, 'horrible, unheard of in any kingdom! For all about the spot where these things were found, was the trampling of many naked feet. And some of these were small and some were great. But all were naked, and the print of every foot was plain upon the sand of the shore. Each footprint had the toes of the bare feet wide and distinct. Every toe was pointed with a claw, as though the steads were those of birds. And the fearsome beast-prints went down to the sea edge, and the blood marks followed them. And that was all.' Then the Dominie fell silent, and I also, for though Ayrshire was full of blood feuds and the quest of human life, this was a new kind of murder to me—though by all accounts it seemed not rare in the neighbourhood of Benane, for I minded the warning words of the Mistress of Chapeldonnan.'And had she no enemies, this Mary Torrance?' I asked.'She was but young, and of birth too lowly for feuds and fightings. Besides, who in Carrick would harm a maid going homeward from her love-tryst?'The Dominie rose and walked away to the other side of the Rock of Ailsa, where for long he sat by himself and fingered the necklace of beads. His face was fixed, as if he were making of the rosary a very catena of hate, a receptacle of dark imaginings and vengeful vows. Scarcely could I recognise my quaint and friendly Dominie.It was that night, as the blackness grew grey towards the morn, that I yielded my watch upon the roof of the little Castle of Ailsa to the Dominie. Too long I had paced the battlements, listening to the confused and belated yawping and crying of the sea-birds upon the ledges, and to the mysterious night sounds of the isle. For I began to hear and to see all manner of uncouth things, that have no existence except on the borderlands of sleep.The Dominie said no word, good or bad, but drew his cloak about him and sat down on the rampart. I bade him good morning, but he never answered me a word; and so I left him, for I judged that his thought was bitter, and that the tale he had told me of Mary Torrance lay blackly upon him.Yet, when I went below, it was not with me as on other mornings. I lay down upon the plaids and composed me to sleep. Yet I remained broad awake, which was an unaccountable thing for me, who have been all my life a great sleeper. I lay and thought of my friend, sitting gloomy and silent above in the greyness of morn, till my own meditations grew eerie and comfortless. Often and often I started upon my elbow with the intention of going to him. As often I lay down again, because I had no excuse, and also (as it seemed to me) he had not desired my company.But once, as I lifted me up on my elbow, I seemed to hear a shrill crying as it had been out of the sea, 'Launcelot—Launcelot Kennedy!' it said. And the crying was most like a woman's voice. My very blood chilled within me, for the tale of the lass murdered upon the morn of her marriage day was yet in my mind. And I thought of naught less than that her uneasy spirit was now come to visit the man, aged and withered, who sat up there waiting and watching for her coming. Yet why it should cry my name passed my comprehension.It was, therefore, small wonder that I listened long, lying there among the plaids upon the floor. But the night wind soughed and sobbed through the narrow wicket window, and there was no further noise. Thinking that I had dreamed, I laid my head upon the hard pillow and composed me to sleep, but even then I caught as it had been the regular beat of a boat's oars upon the rullocks. And anon I heard my name cried twice and thrice, 'Launcelot Kennedy! Launcelot Kennedy! Launcelot Kennedy!' Whereat, with a thrill of horror, I rose, cast the wrappings from me, and, with my naked sword in my hand, I went up to the roof of the castle.The Dominie was sitting with his face turned seaward. He heard me come behind him. Without turning he put out his hand.'Did you hear it too?' he said. 'Go below. That which shall come is not for your eyes to see!''But I heard a woman call my name!' I said. 'I heard it twice and thrice, plain as I hear you speak!''Nay,' he said, 'not your name—mine!'And once more we listened together. As for me, I strained my eyes into the darkness so that they ached and were ready to behold anything. I gazed out directly towards the sea, from which the sounds had come; but the Dominie looked along the path which led precariously between the wall of the isle above and the precipice below.Thus we watched as it seemed for hours and hours.Suddenly I heard him draw in his breath with a gasping sound, like that which a man gives when he finds himself unexpectedly in ice-cold water. The twilight of the morning had come a little, and as I looked over his shoulder, lo! there seemed to me as it had been a maid in white coming along the path. I felt my heart stop beating, and I, too, gazed rigidly, for it seemed to me to be Nell Kennedy, coming towards us, robed like an angel.'She is dead!' I thought. 'Mayhap the clawed things out of the sea have devoured her, even as they took Mary Torrance!'But I heard the Dominie say under his breath, 'It is she! It is she!'For in the moment of terror, when the soul is unmanned, everyone hears with his own ears and sees with his own eyes, according to his own heart's fantasy.But the figure came ever closer to us, stepping daintily and surely in the dim light. Again I heard the voice which had spoken to me from the sea, and at the sound my very bones quaked within me.'Launcelot—Launcelot Kennedy!' it said.And for a long moment the figure stood still as if waiting for an answer. But my voice was shut dumbly within me. The Dominie stood up.'Art thou the spirit of Mary Torrance, or a deceiving fiend of hell that has taken her shape? Answer me, or I fire!'And the Dominie held out his pistol to the white-sheeted ghost, which even then appeared to me a mightily vain thing, for how can a spirit fear these things which are only deadly to flesh and bone?'I have come to see Launcelot Kennedy,' answered the voice, and it appeared awful and terrible to me beyond the power of words. I could not so much as fix my mind on a prayer, though I knew several well enough. 'I have come to seek Launce Kennedy. Is he within?' said the voice.'What would you with him? He is no concern of yours,' said the Dominie.'I ken that,' said the voice. 'Nevertheless, I have come to seek him. I greet you well, Dominie Mure. Will you open and let Helen Kennedy within?'And with that the light came clearer. The veil of the fantasies of that fearful night fell like a loosened bandage from my eyes. And lo! there at the tower's foot was my dear quipsome lass, Nell Kennedy, in her own proper body, and I knew her for good, sound flesh and blood. Nor could I now tell how I had so deceived myself. But one thing I resolved—that I should not reveal my terror to her, for very certainly she would laugh at me!But the Dominie was too firmly fixed in his thought. I saw him grip his pistol and lean over the parapet. It seemed that he could not even believe the seeing of his eyes.'Come not nearer,' he cried in a wild voice, 'for well do I know that you are a fiend of the breed of the sea demons, whatsoever you may pretend. I will try a bullet of holy silver upon you.'But I threw myself upon him and held his arm.'It is but our own Nell Kennedy,' I said. 'What frights you, Dominie?'For I resolved to make a virtue of my courage. And, indeed, as I came to myself first, and had done no open foolishness, I thought I might as well take all the credit which was due to me. 'See you not that it is only Helen Kennedy of Culzean?' I repeated, reasoning with him.'And what seeks she with you?' said he, still struggling in my grasp. 'I tell you it is a prodigy, and bodes us no good,' he persisted.'That I cannot tell,' said I. 'I had thought her safe upon the moors with my mother. But I will go down and open the door to her.'So when I had run down the stairs of the small keep and set the bolt wide, lo, there upon the step was Nell Kennedy, her face dimpled with smiles, albeit somewhat pale also with the morning light and the strangeness of her adventure.I held out my hand to her. Never had I been so moved with any meeting.'Nell!' I said, and could say no more.'Ay, Launce—just Nell!' she said. And she came in without taking my hand. But for all that she was not abashed nor shame-faced. But she remained as direct and simple in her demeanour as she had been about Culzean, in the old days before sorrow fell upon the house, and, indeed, upon us all.'Take me up the stairs to the Dominie,' she said. And I took her hand and kept it tightly as we went upwards. But I tried after no greater favours at that time, for I knew that her mood leaned not towards the desires of a lover.'Ah, Dominie,' said Nell, when she reached the top, 'this Ailsa is a strange place to keep school in. Yet I warrant you that geese are not more numerous here than they were in Maybole!'But the Dominie could only gaze at her, thus daffing with him, so fixed had he been in his fantasy. Then when he was somewhat come to himself, we waited expectantly for Nell to reveal her errand and to relate her adventure, and she did not keep us long waiting.'You must instantly leave Ailsa and come back with me,' she said. 'My sister Marjorie is lost from Auchendrayne, and we three must find her. I fear that the Mures have done her a mischief, being afraid of the things that she might reveal.''How knew you of that, Nelly?' I asked, for, indeed, it was a thing I could make no guess at myself.'It was one morning at Kirrieoch,' said Nell, 'as we were bringing in the kye out of the green pastures by the waterside, that a messenger rode up with a letter from Marjorie. She asked me to meet her at Culzean and to bring you and any other faithful men whom I could trust along with me. And thus the letter ended: '"For gin I once win clear out of Auchendrayne, we have them all in the hollow of our hand, I have found him that carried the letter."''She means the letter to John Mure that took your father to the tryst of death,' I said.The Dominie seemed to awake at the words.'That will be young William Dalrymple she has fallen on with,' he cried, in much excitement.I rose, and hastened down to put our belongings together, which were scattered about the castle. As soon as I returned Nell went on with her tale.'Then because I knew not where you were,' she said, 'I was in much distress. But your father donned his war graith and rode with me to the house of Culzean, where he yet abides. As for me, I could noways rest, so I set myself to trace you. And here I have found you. Pray God we may find our Marjorie as safely!''But how did you manage to trace us?' I asked, for the Dominie and I thought that we had well hidden our tracks.'Oh, I got the kindly side of the goodwife of Chapeldonnan,' said Nell, lightly. And when I heard that, I did not wonder any more, for she could get the kindly side of anyone, if so she chose. Because Nell Kennedy, in spite of her taunting and teasing, had ever a coaxing, winsome way with her which was vastly taking.Then we fell to making our plans. It would not do for us to be seen leaving the Craig by day, for our position was plainly in view of keen eyes along all the Girvan shore and at Chapeldonnan or Girvanmains as well. And worse enemies than these might put out a dozen boats to intercept us, or simply lie in wait to take us as we landed. Besides, all this day and part of the night there befel a storm which lashed the waves to white foam about our abode.With more than a woman's ordinary forethought in adventure, Nell had left her boat in a cove to the right of the landing-place. And indeed I, that somewhat prided myself upon my wisdom, had not taken as great precautions myself—which, among other things, was the cause of our present position on the Craig. So we three spent all the day in cheerful talk, thinking that so soon as we could find Marjorie, we should come to the end of our perplexities, and have the guilty in our power. But in this we spoke without knowledge of the manifold shifts and stratagems of our arch enemy.
CHAPTER XXXIV
IN THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY
Now, through being over-careful with my chronicle, I have spent too much time on our conferences. But we were, indeed, at the parting of the ways, and needed all advice. On our way to Culzean we met one who told us that the Earl had gone home that day to Cassillis. Nell besought me to ride thither, for she had a request to make to the head of her house ere she went her ways back to Culzean.
So to Cassillis we rode, and at the gate encountered Robert Harburgh, dressed, as usual, in his dark, close-fitting doublet, and with his long, plain sword by his side. With him I abode while Helen went within to pay her duty and service to the Countess—who, as Nell told me afterwards, never stopped praising the ancient days when she was the Chancellor's wife, and had one of the ladies of the Court to attire her.
'Now,' she said bitterly, 'John grudges it if I take a milkmaid half-an-hour from the butter-kirning to help to arrange my hair.'
Presently the Earl came out. He showed himself well pleased and kind, as, indeed, he ever was with me—perhaps because I never asked aught of him in all my life.
'Helen, our cousin,' said he, 'desires that she may go and bide among the heather with your good mother at Kirrieoch. What think ye of that?'
I told him that I had not heard of it—that she had spoken no word to me.
'See to the matter,' he said with significance. 'I have been advised concerning Sir Thomas and his last words. And if you prove worthy, I know no reason why ye should not have the lass. But first ye must find the treasure of Kelwood or bring down her father's murderers—one of the two. And then, when that is done, I pledge you my knightly word that ye shall have both the lass and a suitable providing. Besides which, if I am in favour with the King, ye may even get a clap on the shoulder from the flat of a royal sword. But that,' said he, 'I can nocht promise ye, for with King Jamie no man's favour is siccar.'
I told him that I kenned not rightly if the lass would have me; that I never spoke a single word of love to her but what she lightlied me.
'In good time,' said the Earl, smiling and nodding. 'The lass that wants in time of stress to gang and bide with the minnie, will draw not unkindly to the son in times of ease.'
Then came Nell with a knitted shawl from the Countess to wear among the hills, for Earl John and she were kind folk enough in all that touched not the getting or spending of gear.
I asked my lord also for the company of Robert Harburgh to help me in the escorting of Nell fitly to the little tower of Kirrieoch on the side of the Minnoch water.
'Ay, ay; let him gang,' said the Earl. 'The honeymoon is by, and his wife will be the fonder of him for lying her lane till he comes hame to her again.'
So Robert Harburgh and his long sword went southward from Cassillis along with us, riding mostly with the Dominie, while I rode behind with Nell.
I told her all our plans as we went. How we must seek the treasure; and how we must, above all things, find the boy Dalrymple.
'I will go with you upon your quest,' the staunch little Dominie had said to me, when he heard of our adventure. And so it fell out that we four rode steadily to the south, till we came in the evening to my own hill-land, where the whaups cry, where the burnies go chuckling to themselves and clattering over the pebbles, and where all the folk's hearts are kindly and warm. My mother took my lass in her arms when we told her our purpose and Nell's request.
'And I will help you with the kye?' said Nell, blithely, to her.
'Ay,' answered my mother. 'Ye will help with the drinking of the milk, and that will e'en bring some roses back into your cheeks, my puir bit shilpit lassie.'
And though there passed not a look by the common between us when we parted, I think my mother shrewdly jaloosed what were my hopes.
Thus we left them standing by the loan dyke, the two old folk and Nell with her yellow hair a-blowing in the midst. And I, that knew not whether I might ever see them again, waved a hand, and resolved to return with a name and a barony at the least; or, if my lot were perverse, to leave my bones in some stricken field.
It is hard for a man to part from a lass—and in especial from one to whom he dares not make love as he has done to others, all because those others have told upon him, till he fears the ridicule of his real love more than rapier thrusts. Right bitterly did I regret that I had done my by-courtings so near home; because, on my very life I dared not venture a sweet word to Nell Kennedy for fear of her saying, 'That is even what you said to Kate Allison, the Grieve's lass.' Or as it might, 'Keep to your customs. It is not your usual time yet by a quarter-of-an-hour to put your arm about our waists.'
Now this is monstrously unfair to any man, who, after all, is compelled to conduct his affairs with some sort of rule and plan of attack. I was a fool—well do I know it. I ought to have gone further afield than the Grieve's house. I am sure there are plenty of lasses in Carrick fairer to look upon than Kate Allison, though I am free to admit that I thought not so at the time.
So as we went back it was arranged that Robert Harburgh should ride to the woodland country about Auchendrayne, and there, from his headquarters at Cassillis, keep his eye upon the doings of the Mures, because his person was unknown to them of Auchendrayne's household.
The Dominie and I undertook the more uncertain work, but we had made our plans and were not to be put off. The neighbourhood of the Benane was well known to all that trafficked about the town of Girvan. It was a dangerous and an ill-famed place, and many innocent people had very mysteriously lost their lives there, or at least disappeared to return no more. In order, therefore, that we might be more free to pursue our wanderings, we left our horses behind us. Indeed, Dom Nicholas was even now cropping the sweet grasses on the side of the Minnoch water, with my father to show him where they grew thickest and my mother to give him oats between times, till the brave beast was in some danger of being overfed.
As we neared Girvan, we came into a country of the bitterest partizans of the Bargany folk. Here dwelt James Bannatyne of Chapeldonnan, one of the great intimates of John Mure, and much beholden to him. Here also was Girvan Mains, over the possession of which much of the black blood had arisen. So, for our safety, we gave ourselves out to be plain merchants travelling to Stranrawer in order to get a passage over to Ireland.
When we came to the farmhouses where we were to stay for the night, we always asked of the good man, in the hearing of his wife, concerning the state of the country. Was it peaceful? Were the bloody feuds staunched, and could honest men now live in peace? We heard, as was natural, a great deal of abuse of the Earl and of our faction, as the greediest and worst-intentioned rascals in the world. That from the goodman; but when the wife got her tongue started, she would tell us much that was no credit to Drummurchie and others on the side of the murderers. Soon we were fully certified that we were already in the country where Drummurchie and Cloncaird and the rest of their party were being secretly sustained by their friends. Yet we could not come at them, which perhaps was as well, seeing that my person was well known to them.
I found the little Dominie a right brave companion. When we sojourned at houses, he had a way with the bairns that kept them on the trot to do his will, and pleasured to do it—a manner also of cross-questioning the parents about their children which showed them his interest and his knowledge. Then he would most wisely and soberly advise them to see and give this lad Alec a good education, to make that one a merchant because of his cleverness with figures, and this a dominie or a clerk, because he did not give promise of being fit for anything else. It was as good as a play to hear him, and made us much thought of whereever we went.
Yet he was ready with his fighting tools also. Once when we went by Kildonan and a pack of dirty vagabonds bade us stand, what was my surprise to find that Dominie Mure having laid down his pipes and out with his blade, was already driving among them before I had got so much as my hand on the sword blade. And I am no laggard, either, with the iron, as all may know by this time. But with his great bristling fierce head and his rapier that thrust up unexpectedly from below (yet which with the length of his arm reached as far as a tall man's), the Dominie gave the rascals a fright and a wound or two also, which started them at the run. Even then he followed, thrusting at them behind till they shouted amain, and took across the fields to escape the pricking of his merciless weapon. And ever as they ran he cried, '"Halt and deliver!" did ye say? I will give you a bellyful of "Halt and deliver!"'
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.
CHAPTER XXXVII
THE VOICE OUT OF THE NIGHT
Now, so long as provisions last, Ailsa is none such a bad sanctuary, and we might have passed the time there very well, had we possessed minds sufficiently at ease for enjoying such a hermitage. The spring was but a few yards above the castle, and it ran crystal clear into a little basin which I cut in the rock. We had enough victual to serve us for a month with the provision we had bought in Girvan, and with what I shot of the puffins or Tammy Nories, which ran in and out of their holes all day like conies in a warren.
Sometimes we would climb to the top of the crag and look long at the sea, which from there seemed like a great sheet hung upon Cantyre and Arran on the one side and upon the hills of Galloway and Carrick on the other—with Ailsa itself, on which we were sitting, in the deepest trough of it.
A few boats crept timidly about the shore, and a little ship sometimes passed by. But otherwise we had for companions only the silly guillemots that couped their tails uppermost and dived under, the fishing-gulls that dropped splash into the water, and the solan or solemne geese which, when they fell, made a bigger plunge than any, even as on the cliffs of the island their keckling and crying are the loudest.
One day the Dominie and I were sitting on the roof of all things (as the summit of Ailsa seemed to be), picking at the grasses and knuckling little stones for the idlesse which comes with summer weather, when it came in my head to rally Robert Mure, because he had a cold hearthstone and a half empty bed.
'You, a burgess and a learned man, with an official rent and a yearly charge on the burgh, yet cannot get so much as a cotter's sonsy bit lass to keep you company, and to sit, canty like Jenny and Jock, on the far side of the chimbley lug. Think shame of yourself, Dominie. Any questing lout that can persuade a tow-headed Mall of the byre to set up house with him, deserves better of his country than you. Were all of your mind, Maybole school might have none to attend it but dotards and grandmothers! And where were your craft then, Socrates?' I asked him, for just before he had been speaking to me of a certain wise man, a Greek of that name.
And at first he made a jest of the matter, as indeed I meant it.
'Never fear,' he said, 'there will always be enough fools in Ayrshire to get more. Maybole shall have its share of these.'
And indeed that hath been the repute of our town and countryside ever since Ayr water first ran over its pebbles!
Yet when I pressed the Dominie further upon the matter, he waxed thoughtful. His face, which was not naturally merry, took on a still sterner expression. Presently he put his hand within his blouse and pulled out a little string of beads, such as Catholics wear to mind them of their prayers. It was suspended about his neck. This, I own, was a great marvel to me, for the Dominie was a strong Reformer, and showed little mercy in arguing with men still inclined to the ancient opinion.
He gave the brown rosary into my hand, and I turned it curiously about. It was made of the stones of some foreign fruit, most quaintly and fantastically carven and joined together with little links of gold. Between two of the beads there was a longer portion of the chain, and upon it two rings of gold were strung.
'Once,' said the Dominie, 'there was a maid who had promised to share my hearth. One ring of these two was mine, to wear upon my finger, and one was hers. Upon the night before our marriage day we met at our place of tryst. I tried the ring upon her finger ard wished her to wear it that night. 'To-morrow will serve—it is not so far away!' she said, and slipped from my arms. Under a new-risen moon she went homeward, singing by the heads of Benane. And that was the last that these eyes ever beheld of bonny Mary Torrance—save only this necklace of beads which she wore, and the stain of her blood upon the short grass of the seashore.'
The Dominie looked long to seaward at the flashing birds that circled and clanged about our rocky isle, each tribe of them following its own orbit and keeping to its own airy sphere.
'And what happened to her?' I began, but got no further.
'Murder, most foul,' he cried, rising to his feet in his agitation, 'horrible, unheard of in any kingdom! For all about the spot where these things were found, was the trampling of many naked feet. And some of these were small and some were great. But all were naked, and the print of every foot was plain upon the sand of the shore. Each footprint had the toes of the bare feet wide and distinct. Every toe was pointed with a claw, as though the steads were those of birds. And the fearsome beast-prints went down to the sea edge, and the blood marks followed them. And that was all.' Then the Dominie fell silent, and I also, for though Ayrshire was full of blood feuds and the quest of human life, this was a new kind of murder to me—though by all accounts it seemed not rare in the neighbourhood of Benane, for I minded the warning words of the Mistress of Chapeldonnan.
'And had she no enemies, this Mary Torrance?' I asked.
'She was but young, and of birth too lowly for feuds and fightings. Besides, who in Carrick would harm a maid going homeward from her love-tryst?'
The Dominie rose and walked away to the other side of the Rock of Ailsa, where for long he sat by himself and fingered the necklace of beads. His face was fixed, as if he were making of the rosary a very catena of hate, a receptacle of dark imaginings and vengeful vows. Scarcely could I recognise my quaint and friendly Dominie.
It was that night, as the blackness grew grey towards the morn, that I yielded my watch upon the roof of the little Castle of Ailsa to the Dominie. Too long I had paced the battlements, listening to the confused and belated yawping and crying of the sea-birds upon the ledges, and to the mysterious night sounds of the isle. For I began to hear and to see all manner of uncouth things, that have no existence except on the borderlands of sleep.
The Dominie said no word, good or bad, but drew his cloak about him and sat down on the rampart. I bade him good morning, but he never answered me a word; and so I left him, for I judged that his thought was bitter, and that the tale he had told me of Mary Torrance lay blackly upon him.
Yet, when I went below, it was not with me as on other mornings. I lay down upon the plaids and composed me to sleep. Yet I remained broad awake, which was an unaccountable thing for me, who have been all my life a great sleeper. I lay and thought of my friend, sitting gloomy and silent above in the greyness of morn, till my own meditations grew eerie and comfortless. Often and often I started upon my elbow with the intention of going to him. As often I lay down again, because I had no excuse, and also (as it seemed to me) he had not desired my company.
But once, as I lifted me up on my elbow, I seemed to hear a shrill crying as it had been out of the sea, 'Launcelot—Launcelot Kennedy!' it said. And the crying was most like a woman's voice. My very blood chilled within me, for the tale of the lass murdered upon the morn of her marriage day was yet in my mind. And I thought of naught less than that her uneasy spirit was now come to visit the man, aged and withered, who sat up there waiting and watching for her coming. Yet why it should cry my name passed my comprehension.
It was, therefore, small wonder that I listened long, lying there among the plaids upon the floor. But the night wind soughed and sobbed through the narrow wicket window, and there was no further noise. Thinking that I had dreamed, I laid my head upon the hard pillow and composed me to sleep, but even then I caught as it had been the regular beat of a boat's oars upon the rullocks. And anon I heard my name cried twice and thrice, 'Launcelot Kennedy! Launcelot Kennedy! Launcelot Kennedy!' Whereat, with a thrill of horror, I rose, cast the wrappings from me, and, with my naked sword in my hand, I went up to the roof of the castle.
The Dominie was sitting with his face turned seaward. He heard me come behind him. Without turning he put out his hand.
'Did you hear it too?' he said. 'Go below. That which shall come is not for your eyes to see!'
'But I heard a woman call my name!' I said. 'I heard it twice and thrice, plain as I hear you speak!'
'Nay,' he said, 'not your name—mine!'
And once more we listened together. As for me, I strained my eyes into the darkness so that they ached and were ready to behold anything. I gazed out directly towards the sea, from which the sounds had come; but the Dominie looked along the path which led precariously between the wall of the isle above and the precipice below.
Thus we watched as it seemed for hours and hours.
Suddenly I heard him draw in his breath with a gasping sound, like that which a man gives when he finds himself unexpectedly in ice-cold water. The twilight of the morning had come a little, and as I looked over his shoulder, lo! there seemed to me as it had been a maid in white coming along the path. I felt my heart stop beating, and I, too, gazed rigidly, for it seemed to me to be Nell Kennedy, coming towards us, robed like an angel.
'She is dead!' I thought. 'Mayhap the clawed things out of the sea have devoured her, even as they took Mary Torrance!'
But I heard the Dominie say under his breath, 'It is she! It is she!'
For in the moment of terror, when the soul is unmanned, everyone hears with his own ears and sees with his own eyes, according to his own heart's fantasy.
But the figure came ever closer to us, stepping daintily and surely in the dim light. Again I heard the voice which had spoken to me from the sea, and at the sound my very bones quaked within me.
'Launcelot—Launcelot Kennedy!' it said.
And for a long moment the figure stood still as if waiting for an answer. But my voice was shut dumbly within me. The Dominie stood up.
'Art thou the spirit of Mary Torrance, or a deceiving fiend of hell that has taken her shape? Answer me, or I fire!'
And the Dominie held out his pistol to the white-sheeted ghost, which even then appeared to me a mightily vain thing, for how can a spirit fear these things which are only deadly to flesh and bone?
'I have come to see Launcelot Kennedy,' answered the voice, and it appeared awful and terrible to me beyond the power of words. I could not so much as fix my mind on a prayer, though I knew several well enough. 'I have come to seek Launce Kennedy. Is he within?' said the voice.
'What would you with him? He is no concern of yours,' said the Dominie.
'I ken that,' said the voice. 'Nevertheless, I have come to seek him. I greet you well, Dominie Mure. Will you open and let Helen Kennedy within?'
And with that the light came clearer. The veil of the fantasies of that fearful night fell like a loosened bandage from my eyes. And lo! there at the tower's foot was my dear quipsome lass, Nell Kennedy, in her own proper body, and I knew her for good, sound flesh and blood. Nor could I now tell how I had so deceived myself. But one thing I resolved—that I should not reveal my terror to her, for very certainly she would laugh at me!
But the Dominie was too firmly fixed in his thought. I saw him grip his pistol and lean over the parapet. It seemed that he could not even believe the seeing of his eyes.
'Come not nearer,' he cried in a wild voice, 'for well do I know that you are a fiend of the breed of the sea demons, whatsoever you may pretend. I will try a bullet of holy silver upon you.'
But I threw myself upon him and held his arm.
'It is but our own Nell Kennedy,' I said. 'What frights you, Dominie?'
For I resolved to make a virtue of my courage. And, indeed, as I came to myself first, and had done no open foolishness, I thought I might as well take all the credit which was due to me. 'See you not that it is only Helen Kennedy of Culzean?' I repeated, reasoning with him.
'And what seeks she with you?' said he, still struggling in my grasp. 'I tell you it is a prodigy, and bodes us no good,' he persisted.
'That I cannot tell,' said I. 'I had thought her safe upon the moors with my mother. But I will go down and open the door to her.'
So when I had run down the stairs of the small keep and set the bolt wide, lo, there upon the step was Nell Kennedy, her face dimpled with smiles, albeit somewhat pale also with the morning light and the strangeness of her adventure.
I held out my hand to her. Never had I been so moved with any meeting.
'Nell!' I said, and could say no more.
'Ay, Launce—just Nell!' she said. And she came in without taking my hand. But for all that she was not abashed nor shame-faced. But she remained as direct and simple in her demeanour as she had been about Culzean, in the old days before sorrow fell upon the house, and, indeed, upon us all.
'Take me up the stairs to the Dominie,' she said. And I took her hand and kept it tightly as we went upwards. But I tried after no greater favours at that time, for I knew that her mood leaned not towards the desires of a lover.
'Ah, Dominie,' said Nell, when she reached the top, 'this Ailsa is a strange place to keep school in. Yet I warrant you that geese are not more numerous here than they were in Maybole!'
But the Dominie could only gaze at her, thus daffing with him, so fixed had he been in his fantasy. Then when he was somewhat come to himself, we waited expectantly for Nell to reveal her errand and to relate her adventure, and she did not keep us long waiting.
'You must instantly leave Ailsa and come back with me,' she said. 'My sister Marjorie is lost from Auchendrayne, and we three must find her. I fear that the Mures have done her a mischief, being afraid of the things that she might reveal.'
'How knew you of that, Nelly?' I asked, for, indeed, it was a thing I could make no guess at myself.
'It was one morning at Kirrieoch,' said Nell, 'as we were bringing in the kye out of the green pastures by the waterside, that a messenger rode up with a letter from Marjorie. She asked me to meet her at Culzean and to bring you and any other faithful men whom I could trust along with me. And thus the letter ended: '"For gin I once win clear out of Auchendrayne, we have them all in the hollow of our hand, I have found him that carried the letter."'
'She means the letter to John Mure that took your father to the tryst of death,' I said.
The Dominie seemed to awake at the words.
'That will be young William Dalrymple she has fallen on with,' he cried, in much excitement.
I rose, and hastened down to put our belongings together, which were scattered about the castle. As soon as I returned Nell went on with her tale.
'Then because I knew not where you were,' she said, 'I was in much distress. But your father donned his war graith and rode with me to the house of Culzean, where he yet abides. As for me, I could noways rest, so I set myself to trace you. And here I have found you. Pray God we may find our Marjorie as safely!'
'But how did you manage to trace us?' I asked, for the Dominie and I thought that we had well hidden our tracks.
'Oh, I got the kindly side of the goodwife of Chapeldonnan,' said Nell, lightly. And when I heard that, I did not wonder any more, for she could get the kindly side of anyone, if so she chose. Because Nell Kennedy, in spite of her taunting and teasing, had ever a coaxing, winsome way with her which was vastly taking.
Then we fell to making our plans. It would not do for us to be seen leaving the Craig by day, for our position was plainly in view of keen eyes along all the Girvan shore and at Chapeldonnan or Girvanmains as well. And worse enemies than these might put out a dozen boats to intercept us, or simply lie in wait to take us as we landed. Besides, all this day and part of the night there befel a storm which lashed the waves to white foam about our abode.
With more than a woman's ordinary forethought in adventure, Nell had left her boat in a cove to the right of the landing-place. And indeed I, that somewhat prided myself upon my wisdom, had not taken as great precautions myself—which, among other things, was the cause of our present position on the Craig. So we three spent all the day in cheerful talk, thinking that so soon as we could find Marjorie, we should come to the end of our perplexities, and have the guilty in our power. But in this we spoke without knowledge of the manifold shifts and stratagems of our arch enemy.