CHAPTER XLIIANE LOCHABER AIX GIED HIM HIS PAIKSSo once more the world was before us, and strangely peaceful it seemed, as if somehow or other we had died in stress and riot and been born again into an uncanny quiet. There remained for us now only the bringing to pass of righteous judgments upon the wicked ones who had compassed and plotted all this terrible tale of evils—these murders without end, these hellish cruelties and death-breeding deceits. For the vengeance must not fall alone on the crazed outlaw and his brood, since the chief criminals were those that were greater and wiser than Sawny Bean and his merciless crew.It was, as I say, the breaking of a stormy morrow when we faced up the brae, sword in hand, finding none to withstand us, for all had fled before the music of the wild Highland drones. Then in the sustaining quiet I asked the Dominie by what inspiration he had thought of such a mad thing as thus blasting upon the war-pipes.'Oh it just came to me!' said he, lightly. And with that he wiped his chanter and set the drones under his arm, letting them hang down as though they had been the legs of a lamb which a herd has found on the hill.But our troubles were not yet over, for we had to pass through many miles of Bargany country ere we could reach our own folk. I proposed to turn landwards, for that, as the crow flies, is the shortest road. But the Dominie denied me, saying that since those cruel monsters of the were-wolfs band had fled that way, the closer we kept to the coast, the safer we should be.We made, therefore, only such a detour as would enable us to escape the town of Girvan, which was a strength of our foes, and passing by Killochan, a pleasant and friendly tower, well set in a wooded valley with a view of our old strength of Ailsa, we hastened as fast as we could march with the women in our company to Culzean.Now near by Killochan there was a school and a schoolmaster, the name of him John Guid. He had been for a long season a friend and crony of our Dominie Mure. To him we resorted, or rather the Dominie went alone to seek him, while I abode with Marjorie and Nell. It was over in the afternoon when he came back, and what was our joy to hear behind him the trampling of a pair of hardy ponies, for with the weariness of her terrible quest and the stress of the night in the Cave of Death, Marjorie looked dismally near to her end. And, indeed, I am not sure that Nell was greatly better.Marjorie had passed some part of the long march in telling us in bits and snatches the tale of her sufferings, her flight and capture, and how by evil and hateful hands she had been flung into the water from off the Heuch of Benerard.It was a tale of most tyrannous wrong, and shall be kept for its own place, when Marjorie came to tell it to a greater and more powerful than either Launcelot Kennedy or Dominie Mure of Maybole.I shall, therefore, let the reader wait yet a brief space for the explanation of many things which are dark to him now, and which had been equally dark to me till that gusty, rain-plashing morning.So we four fared northward over the moors of Carrick, with Marjorie and Nell riding upon the garrons, and the Dominie and myself hasting along by their side with a hand apiece in their stirrup-leathers. We were just by the edge of the Red Moss, and going straight and snell for my Lord Earl's house of Cassillis, when Nell, who was ever our most keen-eyed watcher, cried out that we were pursued. And when I had turned me about and looked, I saw that of a surety it was so.Then I thought that if it should happen that we were attacked, it might be as well to have the advantage of position. So I posted our party on a little heathery mound, having an open lairy moss in front with dangerous quags, trembling bogs, and square black islands of moss and peat standing in the midst, all gashed and riven. Here we waited, the two men of us under arms in front, and the maids standing close behind the horses, with the bridles loose in their hands.I had cast my cloak over the shoulder of Nell's sheltie to clear my arms for the fray, if indeed it should come to the clash of blows; and it pleased me well to see her catch it without a word, and fold it like a wife who watches her husband and is pleased to anticipate his need. This indeed (I say it twice) pleased me well, for I knew that she had done with daffing with me any more, and that she had at last forgotten all the matters concerning that pretty tell-tale Kate Allison.The three men who rode toward us were at first to our sight like ships low down on the sea-line. But they mounted steadily, spears and pennons first, after that the shine of armour, and then the heads of their horses, becking and bowing with the travail of the moss.Then verily we that stood had anxious hearts, for we knew not whether they might chance to be friend or foe, and, indeed, it was well that we looked for the worst. As they came nearer we saw that the two who rode ahead were armed in a knightly way, and gripped lances in their hands. But the third, who came behind and held a little aloof, was plainly clad in a grey cloak and hat.'It is Auchendrayne and a younger man, with the Wolf of Drummurchie in their company; it could not well be worse,' said the Dominie. 'We are like to be hard bested.'And I knew that Marjorie Kennedy looked once more upon the man who, in cold blood, had slain her father, and also upon the man who according to the law, was her husband.I had looked for them to call a parley, and had set myself in front to acquit me well in the barter of words before the damsels; but I was not prepared for the event as it happened.For without a word of preamble, warning or speech-making, John Mure of Auchendrayne (he in the cloak of grey) cried out, 'Have at them! Slay them every one! 'Tis now too late for whimsies. It is our lives for theirs if we do not.'So with that the two younger men-at-arms came on, couching their long lances and riding directly at us. I stuck my sword downward by the point, naked in the soft moss at my side, so that I should not have it to draw out of the sheath when it came to the pinch. And for the last time I looked at my pistol priming, and longed horribly for one of my lord's new hackbutts of the French pattern out of the armoury of Cassillis.But wishing would not bring them or I had had a dozen, each with a good Culzean man behind it, with his finger on the touch. But yet you may depend that my imagination bodied them forth, standing there useless in the press, oiled and burnished, as I had seen them. And all the while the two villains came on.Now, in a plain place we had had but little chance to stand against them, cumbered with the women as we were; but the peat hag I had chosen for our defence on the edge of the Red Moss favoured us. When, however, I had fired my pistol and made nothing of it, save only the clink of the bullet whizzing off the plate metal, they got time to ride round the main obstruction. Then it had gone hard with us indeed, but that the Dominie Mure, as the horses came forward, blew so sudden a snorting blast upon his pipes, that one of the steeds swerved and stumbled, almost throwing his rider to the ground. Then, ere he had time to recover, the Dominie was upon him with his sword, springing upward and striking like an angry etter-cap ever at the face, so that it took the horseman all his time to defend himself.The other drave at me full tilt with his long spear, and though I leapt aside from the lance-thrust, I, with only my pistol and sword, had been no better than a dead man at the next turn. But Marjorie Kennedy, giving the bridle reins of both horses to her sister, seized the Dominie's Lochaber axe. She sprang behind the visored man, and, hooking the bent prong in his gorget collar behind, she pulled him down from his horse with a clash of armour. Then, after that, there remained nothing for me to do, but to set my sword to his throat and bid him yield himself.By this time the frightened horse which had stumbled first became perfectly mad, and turning in spite of all that Thomas of Drummurchie could do, it galloped away with him, belly-to-earth, across the Red Moss.Then the man in the grey cloak also put his horse to its speed, so soon as he saw how the matter was like to go. For he had kept at a distance and taken no part in the fighting. We were therefore left alone, victorious, without a wound, and with the man in the visor, our prisoner.He seemed to be stunned with his fall, so Marjorie stooped and undid his laced steel-cap, shelling his head as one shells the husk of a nut from the kernel.The man whom she revealed was James Mure the younger of Auchendrayne, her wedded husband.We stood thus some time in wonderment what should be the upshot. Marjorie Kennedy (I cannot while I live call her by any other name) stood looking down at the man to whom in foulest treachery she had been given. Then after a while Nell touched my arm, and lo! on the Moss, there was yet another man on horseback coming towards us. I knew the beast. It was the same on which the Wolf of Drummurchie had ridden. But the man was other than the Wolf.The thing was a mystery to us.But at last Nell, whose eyes were like an eagle's for keenness—though, as I have before observed, of heavenly beauty, cried out, 'It is Robert Harburgh—we are saved!' Which was no great things of a saying, for I myself had saved her ten times during that last night and day, if it came to any talk of saving. Yet I think from that moment she began to draw away a little from me. Whether as remembering some of my old ploys with that tricksy lass who was now Robert Harburgh's wife, or partly lest she should have seemed to be over-ready in owning her love for me.At any rate, after I had thought over her unkindness and sudden chill a little while, I was not sure that it might not be after all the best sign in the world. For as the reader of this chronicle must have gathered, I am a man of some penetration in these matters, and it is not given to any woman to twine Launcelot Kennedy in a knot about her little finger.Also I have had very considerable experience.'Faith,' cried Robert Harburgh, when he had ridden up, 'whom have we here?'I answered him with another question.'Where gat ye that horse, Robert?''I got it,' he replied, readily and also calmly, 'from a man that is little likely to need it again, at least for a tale of months.''From Thomas of Drummurchie?' I asked.'Who else?' said Harburgh, simply, as though the fact had been sufficient explanation; as, indeed, it was—in the way he said it.But all the while Marjorie stood looking calmly down at James Mure. He recovered little by little from the stunning knock, and presently made as if he would sit up.'Tie his hands,' said Marjorie Kennedy. And then seeing that we hesitated—'nay, give me the halter,' she said, 'I will do it myself.' And there on the open moor, with the bridle of his own beast, I declare she did the binding featly and well.'Now, listen, James Mure,' she said, raising her voice, 'ye have steeped your hands in my father's blood. Ye have shed yet more blood to cover that crime, even the blood of an innocent young child. With these hands that are tied, you did these things. I am your wife. I will never leave you nor forsake you till you die. I will see that you have fair and honourable trial; but be assured that I shall testify against you truly as to that which I know and have seen.She turned to us with her old easy way of command, imperiously gracious, but sharper a little than her ordinary. 'Mount him on that horse,' she said, like a queen who issues commands to her court.And this was she who had walked gladsomely with me in the garden at Culzean, and who in smiling maidenly condescension had given a love-sick boy her favour to wear. What agony of hell had passed over her spirit thus to turn the sweet maiden to a woman of stone?'Whither shall we take him?' said I, for it seemed to me not at all expedient to delay longer than we could help in that disturbed and fatal part of the country.'To the Earl, on his way to the King!' replied Marjorie Kennedy.'If ye bide still half-an-hour where ye are, ye will see the Earl come hither,' said Robert Harburgh. 'He rides to the south to hold his yearly Court of Bailiary on the borders of Carrick.'For since the great defeat of the Bargany faction, and the death of the young chief at the gate of Maybole upon that memorable day of snow, my Lord Cassillis had gained more and more in power, so that none now was able to make any head openly against him. The death of Sir Thomas, my good master, had also thrown all that additional weight of authority upon his shoulders. Indeed Earl John bode fair to be what his father had been before him—the King of Carrick.His titular jurisdiction had always included the southern parts of the district. But it was only of late that he had made himself so strong as to be able to enforce his authority there.Now, however, Earl John was riding to hold his Court near Girvan, in a country which not a great while ago had been purely a stronghold of his enemies, and which still swarmed with the disaffected and rebellious.So even while we stood and waited there, Nell cried out that a cavalcade rode southward toward us by the edge of the Red Moss. It was not long before we could discern the fluttering pennons of blue and gold, which denoted the presence of the Earl. He had with him a noble retinue of well-nigh four hundred—all handsomely armed—many of them knights and gentlemen of his own name.We waited for them to come up with us, I meanwhile keeping close by Nell's side, and Marjorie Kennedy standing steadfastly at her husband's head and looking at him, while Robert Harburgh marched up and down with his hands under his points and whistled the 'Broom o' the Cowdenknowes.'When the Earl John, riding first as was his custom, perceived who we were, he lighted down with much courtesy to salute his cousins.'How do you, ladies? And what, by the grace of God, brings you hither with so small a company in such a dangerous place?'Then said Marjorie, 'Earl of Cassillis, you are my cousin; but you are also Bailzie of Carrick and hold the power of life and death. I take you and all your company to witness that I deliver over to you this man, called James Mure of Auchendrayne. He is twice a convict murderer—right cruelly he slew my father and your uncle, and I charge him also with the fact of the murder of William Dalrymple, a poor boy of tender years, whom he killed with his own hands to cover the first deed—both which accusations I shall in due time make good.'The Earl was manifestly mightily astonished, as well he might be, at the Lady Marjorie's declaration; but he was glad also, because it was no light thing for him to lay the enemy of his house by the heels, and, seeing good prospect of getting the Mures attainted and denounced, to be able to make himself omnipotent in all the lands of the south.'Bring the man along with us!' he commanded. 'Let him have all tendance and care; but let a double guard be placed over him.''I will be his guard!' said Marjorie, firmly. 'I, and no other!'Nevertheless, Earl John named a retinue to ride with Marjorie and her husband, in the name of a guard of honour; but really because he felt his fingers already on the throat of his house's enemy.And as we rode back the way we had come—now no longer in fear and trembling, but in manifest state and pomp—Marjorie sate humbly upon a sheltie by the side of the man who was lawfully her husband, and yet whom she had most sacredly vowed to bring to the gallows.And for the present the Dominie and I resolved to keep the secret of the Cave of Death, and of the fearsome inner place where was bestowed the Treasure of Kelwood.But immediately after the Court of Justiceaire I resolved to make it known to the Earl, for so Nell and I had made our compact. And as for the Dominie he might be relied upon to speak or to be silent even as I bade him.CHAPTER XLIIITHE MOOT HILL OF GIRVANAs may well be imagined, two hundred gentlemen with their retinue of as many more of the commonalty made a gallant stir, and required almost the providing of an army. So that as we went southward the people were well warned to repair to the Court of my Lord Bailzie of Carrick, for the office of Earl John was the greatest of the Lowland hereditary jurisdictions. Though the house of Cassillis has never been so beloved of the people nor yet so careful of their rights as that of the Agnews of Lochnaw, who from very ancient times have been Sheriffs of Galloway.Nevertheless, it was a right solemn gathering which assembled on the little hill outside the town of Girvan, where such feudal courts had always been held. Within the enclosure, formed by the fluttering blue and gold pennons of the Earl, there was set a high seat for Cassillis himself. In front of him, at a draped table, sat his adviser and assessor, Lawyer Boyd of Penkill, while all round the gentlemen of his house and name sat or stood according to their degree, just outside the line of pennons, within which none might come save the accused and they who gave their evidence.Then the trumpeter from the summit of the Moot Hill of Girvan made proclamation with three blasts of his horn that the session was open, and that all men's causes were to be brought to the probation.First there came sundry usual complaints of stouthreif and oppression, for the country was yet very unsettled. A woman cried for vengeance on Thomas of Drummurchie, called the Wolf, for the carrying off of her daughter. But as Drummurchie was already ten times attainted, it seemed as though little would come of it.But Robert Harburgh strode forward and cried out, 'By your leave, Earl of Cassillis, the Wolf of Drummurchie will carry off no more tender lambs, neither mell with other men's wives any more. The dainty ladies of Ayr need no more draw their purses to rescue him, neither to provide him with costly gear. For he has gone to a country where he shall be keeped bien and warm, beiking forever foment the hottest fires of Satan, so lately his master here on earth!'And with that he threw the arms and accoutrement of the Wolf on the green with prodigious clatterment.'But this,' said the Earl John, 'though greatly creditable to our squire and of excellent omen for the peace of Carrick from this day forth, gives not this poor woman again her daughter.'For he did not wish to assign any reward to Robert Harburgh besides the lands which had already been given him, perhaps desiring to retain so valiant a sworder near to his own person and estate.'I had been to the house of Drummurchie ere I settled accounts with the Wolf himself,' replied Robert Harburgh, in the same manner of exceeding quiet, 'and there have I set all things in order, sending every man's daughter to her father's house and every man's wife back to his keeping.''Retaining none for yourself!' cried Earl John, for daffing's sake. For that was his idea of a jest.'Whatever my desires, I have married a wife that sees to that—even as hath also my Lord Earl!' quoth Robert Harburgh.And so the laugh was turned against the Earl John, because all knew how carefully the ancient Countess kept the valleys about Cassillis and the Inch clear of buxom dames and over-complacent maids. For, in his youth, Earl John had the name of being both generally and most subtly amorous.Yet, strange to say, the jest thus broken at his expense, put the Earl into a good key, for it was only the outlay of money that he grudged. So he cried out, 'Robert Harburgh, your tongue can be as sharp as your rapier. You have rid us of a great curse here in the south, and there is muckle need in these parts of such a sword and such a tongue as yours to keep the landward oafs in civility. You shall have the lands of Drummurchie, with ten men's fighting charges to hold them against all evil folk till such time as the land be quiet.'And Robert Harburgh bowed low to his lord and retired. As he went I clapped him on the back, and said, 'Robert, I would that my long sword had done as muckle for me.''Steady on the hilt! Keep your point low, your tongue silent, and it shall do more!' he answered over his shoulder as he went by.Then was brought forward James Mure of Auchendrayne, clad only in the suit of russet leather which he had worn under the mail wherein he had been taken. He was ever a hang-dog, ill-favoured oaf, and now looked sullenly and silently upon the ground.His names and titles were first declared.'Who accuses this man, and of what?' cried Earl John in loud tones.And every man in the assembly moved a little, as though he itched to be the accuser himself. But since there was none that directly knew of our adventure, no one stood forth save our Marjorie and Nell, till I myself stepped forth with them, with Robert Harburgh and the Dominie a little behind us.'Now speak out,' whispered Harburgh of the Long Sword to me, 'and let your nimble wit win you a wife.'And I looked at Nell, and resolved that if she slipped through my fingers, it should not be the fault of my lack of address.'Who accuses this man?' cried the herald, taking the word from his master, for the Lords of Carrick and Cassillis were beyond the paltry fashion of pursuivants.'I do!' said Marjorie Kennedy, and all men set their eyes on her. Neither, so long as the case lasted, did they withdraw their eyes from her face. Then she opened her mouth and spoke firmly and sternly her accusation.'I, Marjorie, daughter of the Tutor of Cassillis, in law wife to this man, charge James Mure the younger of Auchendrayne with the murder of my father, committed, as all men know, upon the sandhills of Ayr. I also accuse him of the murder of William Dalrymple, the lad who carried the message to Auchendrayne concerning my father's journey.''Cousin,' said Earl John, 'you have doubtless abundant proof to support these strange charges?'Marjorie Kennedy stood up among us, tall like a lily flower, and she held her head erect.'Hear you, John of Cassillis, and all men,' she said. 'I will tell my tale. Of my own griefs I will say naught, for in no realm do a woman's heart-breakings count for a docken's value. It is enough that my father in the simplicity of his heart gave me to this man, as an innocent sacrifice is cast to a monster to appease his ravening. These many months I dwelt in this man's castle. I have been prisoned, starved, tortured—yet all the Mures in Auchendrayne could neither prevail to break my resolve, nor yet could they close my mouth concerning the things which I saw.'And now I, that am no more bound to this man than I was when he took me out of my father's house of Culzean—I, who have never looked upon him that is my wedded husband save with eyes of hatred, never lain by his side, stand here to denounce James Mure and his father for black, cruel, repeated, defenceless MURDER!'CHAPTER XLIVTHE MURDER UPON THE BEACHMarjorie Kennedy rang out the last words like a trumpet. Not even the Earl's herald could have been heard further.'All men hear my tale before they judge,' she went on. 'It was the morn before my father's death-day. From my window in the house of Auchendrayne I had seen this man and his father, with Thomas of Drummurchie and Walter of Cloncaird, come and go all day with trappings and harness, because they knew that the time was nigh at hand for my father's riding to Edinburgh. It chanced that I was looking down through the bars of my prison-house, for there was little else to do in the house of Auchendrayne. It was about eleven of the clock when I saw a young lad, dusty from head to foot, venture a little way within the castle yett and stand as one that looks about him, not knowing where to turn. The court was void and silent, and the lad seemed distressed. But while he thus stood James Mure and his father came down the turnpike stair and stepped, talking whisperingly together, out into the flagged court.'It was John Mure the elder who first saw the lad and called him. I saw the boy put a letter into his hand, the which he opened carefully and read, passing it to his son, who read also. Then James Mure stepped back and called Thomas of Drummurchie and Cloncaird. They came both of them, and the four bent their heads together over the writing.'Then in a little John Mure closed the letter again as it had been and gave it with certain charges to the boy.''Saw you that letter or knew you aught of its contents?' asked the Earl John.'Nay,' said Marjorie Kennedy, 'my window was too far from, them, and they spoke low and with privity among themselves.'Then was my time.'My Lord Bailzie of Carrick,' said I, 'may it please you it was I, Launcelot Kennedy of Kirrieoch, some time squire to Sir Thomas of Culzean, who sent that letter. I sent it from Maybole by the hands of William Dalrymple, the lad whom the Lady Marjorie saw come within the castle yett of Auchendrayne.'The Dominie stood forward.'And it was I, Robert Mure, schoolmaster in the town of Maybole, who wrote that letter. I wrote it as Launcelot Kennedy set me the words, for he is a man readier with the sword than the pen, though he hath some small skill even of that. But that day he was hot upon his game of golf (which I hold to be but a foolish sport which rapidly obscures the senses), so I, having, as is mine office, pen in hand, wrote the letter for him. Also I sent one William Dalrymple, called for a nickname Willie of the Gleg-foot, with it to John Mure at his house of Auchendrayne. I bear witness that after a space this boy came back, with the story that he had found John Mure from home. But when we charged it upon him that the letter had been thumbed and opened, he grew confused and confessed that he had been compelled to bring back that message by Mure himself, who had broken the seal and given it again to him, even as the Lady Marjorie has said.''And what further proof do you offer of all this?' asked the Earl, bending forward with eagerness to catch the Dominie's words.The Dominie put his hand into the inner pocket of his coat and pulled out, among various pipe reeds and scraps of writing, a letter which he kept carefully folded in a leathern case by itself.'There is the thing itself; may it please your lordship to look upon it,' said he, calmly. And as soon as he had said that, the Earl rose eagerly to see the famous missive which had drought about all this turmoil. There was also a stir among the folk that were gathered about, for all strained their eyes as if they could see that which was going on, and read the writing at that distance.'It is a most notable proof,' said the Earl, 'and so we receive it. But can you not produce the lad William Dalrymple?''That can we not,' said the Lady Marjorie; 'but I, and I alone, can tell you all the story of his death—blacker even than the other, because done to a young lad against whom even these cruel murderers could allege no quarrel.'And again there could be heard the sound of men settling down to deep attention throughout all the crowd at the diet of Justiceaire. And they even crowded in a little past the pennons, so that the heralds had to beat upon the ground with the butts of their halbards, as though to bruise their feet, before they could force them to give back. But James Mure abode stupidlike and sullen before his judge, while his accuser stood not three feet from him and told her story.'It was just when the bruit of my father's death began to go abroad against the Auchendraynes,' so Marjorie Kennedy again took up her tale, 'and when John Mure the elder began to fear that the matter of the letter would be made manifest, that I again saw the little lad William Dalrymple. One night I observed James Mure leading him rudely by the neck into one of the barred cells which underlie the stables. And to that place with his own hands he carried food and water once every day thereafter.'Then came to visit John Mure one Sir Robert Montgomery, the Laird of Skelmorlie. And with him they sent the lad, on pretext to be a page at his house of Loch Ranza, which he keeps for the King's hunting lodge on the Isle of Arran. What befell there I cannot tell, but it was not many weeks before William Dalrymple was back again. And this time they sent him (as he told me afterwards) to the Lowlands of Holland, there to serve in the Lord Buccleuch's regiment, which, first as a trumpeter and after as a soldier, he did. Nevertheless, being but young, he wearied easily of the stress and chance of foreign war, and so returned as before.'Then when, in spite of all, the boy came back, and it was told to John Mure that William Dalrymple was again in his native town, he was neither to hold nor to bind. He neither rested nor slept till he had again brought the lad to his house, where he abode for some weeks, but not so closely shut up as before, so that it was often my chance to see him as he came and went about the court, and even to converse with him. But in a little while he vanished, and from that time I saw him no more.'Now, the bitterness of my life and my desire to bring to justice the murderers of my father caused me at last to quit the house of Auchendrayne. For now I held, as I thought, the strings which would draw mine enemies to their doom. So upon a night I had it set to escape, she that was my maid helping me, with one other that was a body servant of Auchendrayne's and my tire-woman's lover.'When I came out I found a pony waiting for me, and it was my purpose to ride to the house of my kinsman, the Earl of Cassillis. But, as I journeyed, what was my great affrightment to come upon a company of two, who rode some little way before me. I could easily have turned bridle-rein and ridden another way, but for something which came into my heart to make me follow on. For in a trice I recognised the riders to be John Mure and his son, the father being wrapped in his great cloak of grey, as is his custom. And by this I knew him.'So I followed them, but not very near. And because my beast was a stable companion of their horses, he went after of his own accord—till, by the first breaking touch or morn we came to a waste place upon the edge of the sea, where in a secret dell I dismounted and tied my pony to a broom-bush which shot out over a sandy hollow.'Then, yet more secretly, I followed them across the sandhills, and on the very edge on the links, where the turf ceases underfoot and there is only sand, John Mure and his son, this man before you, waited. For a while they stood listening and talking low together, so that, though I lay hidden behind a whin which overgrew a little turfy dell, I could neither hear what was said, nor yet by reason of the bareness of the sand, dared I to adventure nearer them. 'But they waited not long before one came down to meet them over the turf, bringing a lad with him. Then, immediately James Mure whistled a call, and the reply came back in like manner.'"You are late, James Bannatyne," I heard John Mure the elder say; "what has taigled you?"'"My sea cloth is not so well accustomed to night ploys as your cloak of grey!" the man growled as he came along sullenly enough.'Then the three men of them walked a little apart, and came in their circuit very near to the hollow where I lay. While down on the shore the young lad stood and yawned, with his hands in his pockets, like one that shivers and wishes he were back in bed. Nor had he, I am confident, even then any thought of evil.'But the talk of the three, as I heard it in snatches, was black and bitter.'The darkest counsel was that of the man who stands here, for James Mure said only, "The dead are no tale-pyets." And again, "We have had enough of this silly, endless, hiding-and-seeking work. Let the earth hide him, or the sea keep him—and be done with it!"'Now John Mure the elder, and the man whom they called James Bannatyne, seemed at the least inclined to discuss milder councils. Bannatyne was all for sending the lad over to Ireland. And John Mure listened as though he might be persuaded. Yet I knew his guile, for even when he stood with his back to his son, I saw him lift up his hand for a signal. And with that and no more, James Mure rushed at the poor lad and overbore him to the ground. And there upon the sands of the seashore, this James Mure set his knee on the bairnie's breast, and with bloody hands choked and worried him till there was no life left in the lad. And his father also went and held the lad when he fought, his white, reverend beard waggling in the wind, till at last the bairn lay still. But James Bannatyne stood by and clasped his hands, as the boy tossed and struggled for his dear young life, for I think he was now mainly sorry that he had brought the lad to his death.'Then I could stand the vileness no longer without protest. So I, Marjorie Kennedy, even though I well knew that they would certainly do the like to me, rose from my hiding-place in the sand-hollow, and cried, "Murderers, cease from your cruel work. God will come and judge you!"'Whereat John Mure came hastily to where I stood and gripped me. "You have seen all," he said, "then you must die. Let us see if God will come and help you!"'So I defied them to do their worst with me, for madness had come upon me at the sight of the monstrous cruelty to an innocent bairn. And for the time I cared not what should become of myself.'Then I called to James Bannatyne requiring of him to declare if he too were a murderer like the other fiends, and to call upon him to protect the innocent.'"We will settle all that in the one payment, mistress," said John Mure to me.'So by force I was compelled to abide with them, John Mure the elder taking me cruelly by the arm, while he sent the others to cast into the sea the dead body of the lad. But even so oft as they threw him in, so often the waves cast him out again upon the shore; and that though there was a strong wind off the land, which blew the tops from the waves and drave the sand in hissing streams into the sea.'So when for the third time the boy had been tumbled upon the beach, John Mure bade Bannatyne bring his boat, saying that they would cast the loon afloat out in the deeps of the bay, so that the outerly wind might drive him to the coast of Ireland. After that they would return betimes to attend to other matters—by which I took him to mean that they would do that for me, which I had so lately seen them do for the young boy. And, indeed, I looked for no other mercy at their brutal hands. So in a little space James Bannatyne brought his boat, and with hard endeavour they launched her, and compelled me to accompany them. There was a strong wind from the east, and we were soon blown far out into the wild sea. There they cast the body of the lad overboard, and turned to make again for the shore. But though they all took oars and laboured in rowing, sames Bannatyne taking twain, they could make nothing of it; but were rather worse than they had been before they started.'So they began to be afraid, and I was right glad thereat, for I looked that the doom of the twice guilty murderers should speedily come. And so the pain of this trial and my witnessing might have been spared.'Now the Mures were the most fearful of the quick-risen storm, being as it were inland bred. It was all that James Bannatyne could get them to do to sit still.'"Ye will wreck us all and send us red-hand before our Maker, with the lad's body not cold in the water, and his spirit there to meet us at the Judgment seat!" said he.'And with that John Mure rose in his place, and in despite of the swaying and plunging of the ship, into which the water came lashing, he cried out, "The Wraith, the Wraith! It is following us—we are doomed!"''And lo! when I looked, I saw that which chilled me more than the whistling tempest. And if it feared me to the soul, judge ye what it must have been to the guilty men whose hands were yet red with the blood of the innocent.'For there, not thirty yards behind the boat, and following strongly in our wake, as a stark swimmer might do, now tumbling and leaping in the wash of the seas and now lunging forward like a boat that is towed, was the murdered boy himself. And thus he followed with a smile on his face, or what looked like it in the uncertain light of the morning.'So with that the men who rowed fell on their faces and could not look any more, though the prodigy followed us a good while. Only John Mure sat wrapped in his grey cloak steering the boat, and I sat beside him. Little by little we came to the land, but as it had been sideways, having been driven by the wind to the other side of the wide bay.'There we disembarked and the Mures kept me close all that day in a place of strength on the seashore, till it was night. They plied me to promise silence, for they believed that I would keep my word if once I pledged it. They offered me all that they had of honour or place in the country. There was nothing, they said, that was not within the power of their compassing. For since the death of Gilbert of Bargany the King needed someone in Carrick strong enough to count spears with the Earl of Cassillis.'But very steadfastly I withstood them, declaring that I should certainly reveal all their murder and treachery, both in the matter of the death of my lather, and in that which I had seen done upon the sands to the young lad William Dalrymple.'So finally seeing that they could prevail nothing, they went out and kept silent watch by the door till the even. Then as soon as it was dark they opened the lock and bade me come forth. And this I did, knowing for a certainty that my last hour was come. Yet my life had not been so pleasant to me as to be very greatly precious. So I followed them with no very ill will, nor yet greatly concerned. Then on the craggy top they gave me, for the sake of their house and good name (as they said), one more chance to swear silence. This I would not accept, and they, being startled with the approach of a boat upon the water which steered towards our light, pinioned my arms, and thrusting something into my mouth, forthwith threw me over the cliff into the sea. And as to the mode of my rescuing and standing here before the Earl my cousin, young Launcelot Kennedy, my father's squire, can tell. And also my sister and Robert Mure of Maybole.'CHAPTER XLVTHE MAN IN THE WIDE BREECHESShe ceased suddenly after this long account of her adventuring, and the folk stood still in amazement, having held their breath while she told of the killing of young William Dalrymple and of the Wraith. And then there arose a great cry from all the people,—'Tear the murderer in pieces—kill him, kill him!' So that Cassillis had to summon men-at-arms to keep back that throng of furious folk, for the death of my master seemed to them but a little thing and venial, compared to the killing of a lad like William Dalrymple. And this was because the people of Carrick had been used all their days to family feuds and the expiation of blood by blood.The Earl was about to call me up to give an account of my part in the affair, and I was preparing myself to make a good and creditable appearance—a thing which I have all my life studied to do—when there was heard a mighty crying in the rear of the Bailzie Court. Men cried 'He comes! He comes!' as though it had been some great one. And everybody turned their heads, to the no small annoyance of Earl John, who when on his Hill of Justice loved not that men should look in any other direction than his own.The ranks of the men-at-arms opened, and there strode into the square of trial, which was guarded by the pennons of blue and gold at the four corners—who but John Mure of Auchendrayne himself, wearing the same cloak of grey and broad plumed hat which had been his wont when he went abroad upon dangerous quests! With him was another shorter man, whose face was for the time being almost hidden, for he had pulled the cloak he was wearing close about his mouth. He walked with an odd jolt or roll in his gait, and his breeches were exceedingly broad in the basement.It was small wonder that we stood aghast at this sudden compearing of the arch criminal, whose misdeeds throughout all the countryside had filled the cup of his wickedness to the brim.'Seize him!' cried the Earl, pointing directly at John Mure.And his Bailzie's men took him roughly by the shoulders and set him beside his son. Then it was to be noticed, as the two stood together, that there was a great likeness between father and son. The elder man possessed the same features without any evident differences in outline. But so informed was his face with intelligence and power, that what was simply dull cruelty and loutishness in the one became the guile of statecraft in the other.'Wherefore, my Lord Earl,' cried John Mure of Auchendrayne, 'is this violence done to me and to the heir of my house? I demand to know concerning what we are called in question and by whom?'Then the Earl of Cassillis answered him,—'John Mure of Auchendrayne, know then that you are charged, along with this your son, with the bloody murder of Sir Thomas Kennedy of Culzean, Tutor of Cassillis; and also with the cruel death of William Dalrymple, the young lad who brought you the message to your own house of Auchendrayne, telling at what hour the Tutor should pass the trysting place, where he was by you and yours foully assaulted and slain.''And who declares these things?' cried Mure, boldly, with a bearing more like that of an innocent man than that of any criminal that ever I saw.The Earl bade us who had accused them so justly to stand forth. Then John Mure eyed us with a grave and amused contempt.'My son's false wife, whom sorrow has caused to dote concerning her father's death—her night-raking rantipole sister, and her paramour, a loutish, land-louping squire—the Dominie of Maybole, a crippledick and piping merry-Andrew that travelled with them—these are the accusers of John Mure of Auchendrayne. They have seen, heard, noted what others have been ignorant of! Nay, rather, is it not clear that they have collogued together, conspiring to bear false witness against me and mine—for the sake of the frantic splenetic madness of her who is my son's fugitive wife, whose wrongs exist only in her own imaginings.''You have forgotten me!' said Robert Harburgh, quietly, stepping forward.'I know you well,' said John Mure, 'and I would have remembered you had you been worth remembering. You are my Lord of Cassillis's squire and erstwhile a gay cock-sparrow ruffler, now married to the Grieve's daughter at Culzean.''Well,' said Harburgh, 'and what of that? Can a man not be all that and yet tell the truth?''That I leave to one who is greater, to judge,' said John Mure.'And I do judge, John Mure,' cried the Earl, rising in his chair of state. 'I judge you to be a man rebel and mansworn, a traitor and a man-slayer. For a score of years ye have keeped all this realm of Carrick in a turmoil, you and they that have partaken with you in your evil deeds.''Loud, swelling words are but wind, my lord Earl of Cassillis,' answered Mure of Auchendrayne, a dry smile of contempt coming over his features.'Now I will show thee, bold ill-doer,' said the Earl, fiercely, 'whether I speak the words of a dotard or no. Forward, men, take him up and bind him. Methinks we have yet engines within the castle of Dunure that can make him declare the rights of this murderous treason!'Then I rejoiced, not for the torture of our enemy, but because at last the Earl saw fully with our eyes, and would right us against the cruel oppressor of Marjorie Kennedy, and for the murder of my gentle and courteous master.But ere the men could carry out the orders of the Earl, the broad-breeched man who had accompanied Auchendrayne, and who had all the while stood still and watchful, dropped his plaid, which like a mask he had held beneath his eyes. He was a middle-sized, fleshy man, with no great dignity of face, and with a weak mouth that dribbled perpetually at the side as if the tongue were too large for it. He wore a slashed doublet very full at the sleeves, baggy trunks, and a sword in a plain scabbard hanging at his side. I saw nothing further very particular about the man save the shambling inward bend of his knees. But it was with dumb amaze that the Earl looked at him, standing there arrested in the act of pointing with his hand at John Mure. He stood with his jaw fallen, and his eyes starting from his head.'The King! the King!' he muttered in astonishment, looking about him like one distracted.'Ay, Baron Bailzie of Carrick, even your King,' said the man in the wide trunk hosen, 'come to see how his sometime High Treasurer of Scotland executes just judgment in his own regality!'The Earl came quickly to himself, and he and all the people took off their hats. He stepped down and made his obeisance to the King, bending humbly upon his knee. Then he ushered the King to the throne whereon he himself had been sitting, and took a lower seat beside Adam Boyd of Penkill, his assessor in ordinary.The King rose to speak.'My Lord Earl and gentlemen of Carrick,' he said, with dignity enough, but with a thick and rolling accent as if his tongue had been indeed too big, 'I know this case to the bottom. I am fully persuaded of the innocence of our trusty councillor, John Mure of Auchendrayne—who is besides of the fraternity of learned men, and one that hath a history of this realm in script ready for the printers, wherein he does full justice both to myself and to my noble predecessors. He hath, as I should nominate it, an exactness of expression and a perspicuity of argument that have never been matched in the land. I propose shortly to make him my historiographer royal. Also I, the King, do know him to be a man well affected to the right ecclesiastical ruling of this kingdom, and minded to help me with the due ordering of it.'The King puffed and blew after his speech, and we and all that were there stood silent, for to most of us he might as well have spoken in the Hebrew of which he boasted himself so great a master. Then he went on:—'I have left my Lord Mar and my retinue some way in the rear. For we go to hunt the deer in whatever forest the goodwill of our loyal subjects may put at our disposal.''You are right welcome, my liege,' said the Earl John, starting up and standing bareheaded, 'to my hunting lodges and retinue, both in the Forest of Buchan and also at my house of Cassillis.'The King bent towards him royally, for James the Sixth had manners when he liked to show them—which, in truth, was not always.'I thank you, trusty councillor,' said he; 'it is nobly and generously done—qualities which also marked your all-too-brief tenure of the office of High Treasurer of Scotland. But for the judging of this our worthy subject, I propose to take that upon myself, being wholly persuaded of his innocence. And as for those that have falsely accused him, let the men underlie my will in the prison most convenient, and the women be warded meantime in their own house and castle, till I cause to be known my whole pleasure in the matter.'We stood aghast, and knew not what to say, so completely had Auchendrayne turned our flank with the King. Not a word had we found to allege when the officers of the court, to whom the charge was given, came to put the iron rings on our wrists and march us off, even as we had hoped and expected to see Auchendrayne and his son taken.And as the Dominie and I were haled away we could see Auchendrayne bending suavely over the King's high seat, and His Majesty inclining to him and talking privately back and forth, with many becks and uncouth graces such as he had used in his address to the Earl and his people.'He is the very devil himself,' said the Dominie, meaning Auchendrayne and not the King; 'he hath not halted to cozen the greatest man in this realm with his lying tongue!'But I said nothing, for what had I to say? I had seen lands, honours, love, and consideration vanish at a stroke.
CHAPTER XLII
ANE LOCHABER AIX GIED HIM HIS PAIKS
So once more the world was before us, and strangely peaceful it seemed, as if somehow or other we had died in stress and riot and been born again into an uncanny quiet. There remained for us now only the bringing to pass of righteous judgments upon the wicked ones who had compassed and plotted all this terrible tale of evils—these murders without end, these hellish cruelties and death-breeding deceits. For the vengeance must not fall alone on the crazed outlaw and his brood, since the chief criminals were those that were greater and wiser than Sawny Bean and his merciless crew.
It was, as I say, the breaking of a stormy morrow when we faced up the brae, sword in hand, finding none to withstand us, for all had fled before the music of the wild Highland drones. Then in the sustaining quiet I asked the Dominie by what inspiration he had thought of such a mad thing as thus blasting upon the war-pipes.
'Oh it just came to me!' said he, lightly. And with that he wiped his chanter and set the drones under his arm, letting them hang down as though they had been the legs of a lamb which a herd has found on the hill.
But our troubles were not yet over, for we had to pass through many miles of Bargany country ere we could reach our own folk. I proposed to turn landwards, for that, as the crow flies, is the shortest road. But the Dominie denied me, saying that since those cruel monsters of the were-wolfs band had fled that way, the closer we kept to the coast, the safer we should be.
We made, therefore, only such a detour as would enable us to escape the town of Girvan, which was a strength of our foes, and passing by Killochan, a pleasant and friendly tower, well set in a wooded valley with a view of our old strength of Ailsa, we hastened as fast as we could march with the women in our company to Culzean.
Now near by Killochan there was a school and a schoolmaster, the name of him John Guid. He had been for a long season a friend and crony of our Dominie Mure. To him we resorted, or rather the Dominie went alone to seek him, while I abode with Marjorie and Nell. It was over in the afternoon when he came back, and what was our joy to hear behind him the trampling of a pair of hardy ponies, for with the weariness of her terrible quest and the stress of the night in the Cave of Death, Marjorie looked dismally near to her end. And, indeed, I am not sure that Nell was greatly better.
Marjorie had passed some part of the long march in telling us in bits and snatches the tale of her sufferings, her flight and capture, and how by evil and hateful hands she had been flung into the water from off the Heuch of Benerard.
It was a tale of most tyrannous wrong, and shall be kept for its own place, when Marjorie came to tell it to a greater and more powerful than either Launcelot Kennedy or Dominie Mure of Maybole.
I shall, therefore, let the reader wait yet a brief space for the explanation of many things which are dark to him now, and which had been equally dark to me till that gusty, rain-plashing morning.
So we four fared northward over the moors of Carrick, with Marjorie and Nell riding upon the garrons, and the Dominie and myself hasting along by their side with a hand apiece in their stirrup-leathers. We were just by the edge of the Red Moss, and going straight and snell for my Lord Earl's house of Cassillis, when Nell, who was ever our most keen-eyed watcher, cried out that we were pursued. And when I had turned me about and looked, I saw that of a surety it was so.
Then I thought that if it should happen that we were attacked, it might be as well to have the advantage of position. So I posted our party on a little heathery mound, having an open lairy moss in front with dangerous quags, trembling bogs, and square black islands of moss and peat standing in the midst, all gashed and riven. Here we waited, the two men of us under arms in front, and the maids standing close behind the horses, with the bridles loose in their hands.
I had cast my cloak over the shoulder of Nell's sheltie to clear my arms for the fray, if indeed it should come to the clash of blows; and it pleased me well to see her catch it without a word, and fold it like a wife who watches her husband and is pleased to anticipate his need. This indeed (I say it twice) pleased me well, for I knew that she had done with daffing with me any more, and that she had at last forgotten all the matters concerning that pretty tell-tale Kate Allison.
The three men who rode toward us were at first to our sight like ships low down on the sea-line. But they mounted steadily, spears and pennons first, after that the shine of armour, and then the heads of their horses, becking and bowing with the travail of the moss.
Then verily we that stood had anxious hearts, for we knew not whether they might chance to be friend or foe, and, indeed, it was well that we looked for the worst. As they came nearer we saw that the two who rode ahead were armed in a knightly way, and gripped lances in their hands. But the third, who came behind and held a little aloof, was plainly clad in a grey cloak and hat.
'It is Auchendrayne and a younger man, with the Wolf of Drummurchie in their company; it could not well be worse,' said the Dominie. 'We are like to be hard bested.'
And I knew that Marjorie Kennedy looked once more upon the man who, in cold blood, had slain her father, and also upon the man who according to the law, was her husband.
I had looked for them to call a parley, and had set myself in front to acquit me well in the barter of words before the damsels; but I was not prepared for the event as it happened.
For without a word of preamble, warning or speech-making, John Mure of Auchendrayne (he in the cloak of grey) cried out, 'Have at them! Slay them every one! 'Tis now too late for whimsies. It is our lives for theirs if we do not.'
So with that the two younger men-at-arms came on, couching their long lances and riding directly at us. I stuck my sword downward by the point, naked in the soft moss at my side, so that I should not have it to draw out of the sheath when it came to the pinch. And for the last time I looked at my pistol priming, and longed horribly for one of my lord's new hackbutts of the French pattern out of the armoury of Cassillis.
But wishing would not bring them or I had had a dozen, each with a good Culzean man behind it, with his finger on the touch. But yet you may depend that my imagination bodied them forth, standing there useless in the press, oiled and burnished, as I had seen them. And all the while the two villains came on.
Now, in a plain place we had had but little chance to stand against them, cumbered with the women as we were; but the peat hag I had chosen for our defence on the edge of the Red Moss favoured us. When, however, I had fired my pistol and made nothing of it, save only the clink of the bullet whizzing off the plate metal, they got time to ride round the main obstruction. Then it had gone hard with us indeed, but that the Dominie Mure, as the horses came forward, blew so sudden a snorting blast upon his pipes, that one of the steeds swerved and stumbled, almost throwing his rider to the ground. Then, ere he had time to recover, the Dominie was upon him with his sword, springing upward and striking like an angry etter-cap ever at the face, so that it took the horseman all his time to defend himself.
The other drave at me full tilt with his long spear, and though I leapt aside from the lance-thrust, I, with only my pistol and sword, had been no better than a dead man at the next turn. But Marjorie Kennedy, giving the bridle reins of both horses to her sister, seized the Dominie's Lochaber axe. She sprang behind the visored man, and, hooking the bent prong in his gorget collar behind, she pulled him down from his horse with a clash of armour. Then, after that, there remained nothing for me to do, but to set my sword to his throat and bid him yield himself.
By this time the frightened horse which had stumbled first became perfectly mad, and turning in spite of all that Thomas of Drummurchie could do, it galloped away with him, belly-to-earth, across the Red Moss.
Then the man in the grey cloak also put his horse to its speed, so soon as he saw how the matter was like to go. For he had kept at a distance and taken no part in the fighting. We were therefore left alone, victorious, without a wound, and with the man in the visor, our prisoner.
He seemed to be stunned with his fall, so Marjorie stooped and undid his laced steel-cap, shelling his head as one shells the husk of a nut from the kernel.
The man whom she revealed was James Mure the younger of Auchendrayne, her wedded husband.
We stood thus some time in wonderment what should be the upshot. Marjorie Kennedy (I cannot while I live call her by any other name) stood looking down at the man to whom in foulest treachery she had been given. Then after a while Nell touched my arm, and lo! on the Moss, there was yet another man on horseback coming towards us. I knew the beast. It was the same on which the Wolf of Drummurchie had ridden. But the man was other than the Wolf.
The thing was a mystery to us.
But at last Nell, whose eyes were like an eagle's for keenness—though, as I have before observed, of heavenly beauty, cried out, 'It is Robert Harburgh—we are saved!' Which was no great things of a saying, for I myself had saved her ten times during that last night and day, if it came to any talk of saving. Yet I think from that moment she began to draw away a little from me. Whether as remembering some of my old ploys with that tricksy lass who was now Robert Harburgh's wife, or partly lest she should have seemed to be over-ready in owning her love for me.
At any rate, after I had thought over her unkindness and sudden chill a little while, I was not sure that it might not be after all the best sign in the world. For as the reader of this chronicle must have gathered, I am a man of some penetration in these matters, and it is not given to any woman to twine Launcelot Kennedy in a knot about her little finger.
Also I have had very considerable experience.
'Faith,' cried Robert Harburgh, when he had ridden up, 'whom have we here?'
I answered him with another question.
'Where gat ye that horse, Robert?'
'I got it,' he replied, readily and also calmly, 'from a man that is little likely to need it again, at least for a tale of months.'
'From Thomas of Drummurchie?' I asked.
'Who else?' said Harburgh, simply, as though the fact had been sufficient explanation; as, indeed, it was—in the way he said it.
But all the while Marjorie stood looking calmly down at James Mure. He recovered little by little from the stunning knock, and presently made as if he would sit up.
'Tie his hands,' said Marjorie Kennedy. And then seeing that we hesitated—'nay, give me the halter,' she said, 'I will do it myself.' And there on the open moor, with the bridle of his own beast, I declare she did the binding featly and well.
'Now, listen, James Mure,' she said, raising her voice, 'ye have steeped your hands in my father's blood. Ye have shed yet more blood to cover that crime, even the blood of an innocent young child. With these hands that are tied, you did these things. I am your wife. I will never leave you nor forsake you till you die. I will see that you have fair and honourable trial; but be assured that I shall testify against you truly as to that which I know and have seen.
She turned to us with her old easy way of command, imperiously gracious, but sharper a little than her ordinary. 'Mount him on that horse,' she said, like a queen who issues commands to her court.
And this was she who had walked gladsomely with me in the garden at Culzean, and who in smiling maidenly condescension had given a love-sick boy her favour to wear. What agony of hell had passed over her spirit thus to turn the sweet maiden to a woman of stone?
'Whither shall we take him?' said I, for it seemed to me not at all expedient to delay longer than we could help in that disturbed and fatal part of the country.
'To the Earl, on his way to the King!' replied Marjorie Kennedy.
'If ye bide still half-an-hour where ye are, ye will see the Earl come hither,' said Robert Harburgh. 'He rides to the south to hold his yearly Court of Bailiary on the borders of Carrick.'
For since the great defeat of the Bargany faction, and the death of the young chief at the gate of Maybole upon that memorable day of snow, my Lord Cassillis had gained more and more in power, so that none now was able to make any head openly against him. The death of Sir Thomas, my good master, had also thrown all that additional weight of authority upon his shoulders. Indeed Earl John bode fair to be what his father had been before him—the King of Carrick.
His titular jurisdiction had always included the southern parts of the district. But it was only of late that he had made himself so strong as to be able to enforce his authority there.
Now, however, Earl John was riding to hold his Court near Girvan, in a country which not a great while ago had been purely a stronghold of his enemies, and which still swarmed with the disaffected and rebellious.
So even while we stood and waited there, Nell cried out that a cavalcade rode southward toward us by the edge of the Red Moss. It was not long before we could discern the fluttering pennons of blue and gold, which denoted the presence of the Earl. He had with him a noble retinue of well-nigh four hundred—all handsomely armed—many of them knights and gentlemen of his own name.
We waited for them to come up with us, I meanwhile keeping close by Nell's side, and Marjorie Kennedy standing steadfastly at her husband's head and looking at him, while Robert Harburgh marched up and down with his hands under his points and whistled the 'Broom o' the Cowdenknowes.'
When the Earl John, riding first as was his custom, perceived who we were, he lighted down with much courtesy to salute his cousins.
'How do you, ladies? And what, by the grace of God, brings you hither with so small a company in such a dangerous place?'
Then said Marjorie, 'Earl of Cassillis, you are my cousin; but you are also Bailzie of Carrick and hold the power of life and death. I take you and all your company to witness that I deliver over to you this man, called James Mure of Auchendrayne. He is twice a convict murderer—right cruelly he slew my father and your uncle, and I charge him also with the fact of the murder of William Dalrymple, a poor boy of tender years, whom he killed with his own hands to cover the first deed—both which accusations I shall in due time make good.'
The Earl was manifestly mightily astonished, as well he might be, at the Lady Marjorie's declaration; but he was glad also, because it was no light thing for him to lay the enemy of his house by the heels, and, seeing good prospect of getting the Mures attainted and denounced, to be able to make himself omnipotent in all the lands of the south.
'Bring the man along with us!' he commanded. 'Let him have all tendance and care; but let a double guard be placed over him.'
'I will be his guard!' said Marjorie, firmly. 'I, and no other!'
Nevertheless, Earl John named a retinue to ride with Marjorie and her husband, in the name of a guard of honour; but really because he felt his fingers already on the throat of his house's enemy.
And as we rode back the way we had come—now no longer in fear and trembling, but in manifest state and pomp—Marjorie sate humbly upon a sheltie by the side of the man who was lawfully her husband, and yet whom she had most sacredly vowed to bring to the gallows.
And for the present the Dominie and I resolved to keep the secret of the Cave of Death, and of the fearsome inner place where was bestowed the Treasure of Kelwood.
But immediately after the Court of Justiceaire I resolved to make it known to the Earl, for so Nell and I had made our compact. And as for the Dominie he might be relied upon to speak or to be silent even as I bade him.
CHAPTER XLIII
THE MOOT HILL OF GIRVAN
As may well be imagined, two hundred gentlemen with their retinue of as many more of the commonalty made a gallant stir, and required almost the providing of an army. So that as we went southward the people were well warned to repair to the Court of my Lord Bailzie of Carrick, for the office of Earl John was the greatest of the Lowland hereditary jurisdictions. Though the house of Cassillis has never been so beloved of the people nor yet so careful of their rights as that of the Agnews of Lochnaw, who from very ancient times have been Sheriffs of Galloway.
Nevertheless, it was a right solemn gathering which assembled on the little hill outside the town of Girvan, where such feudal courts had always been held. Within the enclosure, formed by the fluttering blue and gold pennons of the Earl, there was set a high seat for Cassillis himself. In front of him, at a draped table, sat his adviser and assessor, Lawyer Boyd of Penkill, while all round the gentlemen of his house and name sat or stood according to their degree, just outside the line of pennons, within which none might come save the accused and they who gave their evidence.
Then the trumpeter from the summit of the Moot Hill of Girvan made proclamation with three blasts of his horn that the session was open, and that all men's causes were to be brought to the probation.
First there came sundry usual complaints of stouthreif and oppression, for the country was yet very unsettled. A woman cried for vengeance on Thomas of Drummurchie, called the Wolf, for the carrying off of her daughter. But as Drummurchie was already ten times attainted, it seemed as though little would come of it.
But Robert Harburgh strode forward and cried out, 'By your leave, Earl of Cassillis, the Wolf of Drummurchie will carry off no more tender lambs, neither mell with other men's wives any more. The dainty ladies of Ayr need no more draw their purses to rescue him, neither to provide him with costly gear. For he has gone to a country where he shall be keeped bien and warm, beiking forever foment the hottest fires of Satan, so lately his master here on earth!'
And with that he threw the arms and accoutrement of the Wolf on the green with prodigious clatterment.
'But this,' said the Earl John, 'though greatly creditable to our squire and of excellent omen for the peace of Carrick from this day forth, gives not this poor woman again her daughter.'
For he did not wish to assign any reward to Robert Harburgh besides the lands which had already been given him, perhaps desiring to retain so valiant a sworder near to his own person and estate.
'I had been to the house of Drummurchie ere I settled accounts with the Wolf himself,' replied Robert Harburgh, in the same manner of exceeding quiet, 'and there have I set all things in order, sending every man's daughter to her father's house and every man's wife back to his keeping.'
'Retaining none for yourself!' cried Earl John, for daffing's sake. For that was his idea of a jest.
'Whatever my desires, I have married a wife that sees to that—even as hath also my Lord Earl!' quoth Robert Harburgh.
And so the laugh was turned against the Earl John, because all knew how carefully the ancient Countess kept the valleys about Cassillis and the Inch clear of buxom dames and over-complacent maids. For, in his youth, Earl John had the name of being both generally and most subtly amorous.
Yet, strange to say, the jest thus broken at his expense, put the Earl into a good key, for it was only the outlay of money that he grudged. So he cried out, 'Robert Harburgh, your tongue can be as sharp as your rapier. You have rid us of a great curse here in the south, and there is muckle need in these parts of such a sword and such a tongue as yours to keep the landward oafs in civility. You shall have the lands of Drummurchie, with ten men's fighting charges to hold them against all evil folk till such time as the land be quiet.'
And Robert Harburgh bowed low to his lord and retired. As he went I clapped him on the back, and said, 'Robert, I would that my long sword had done as muckle for me.'
'Steady on the hilt! Keep your point low, your tongue silent, and it shall do more!' he answered over his shoulder as he went by.
Then was brought forward James Mure of Auchendrayne, clad only in the suit of russet leather which he had worn under the mail wherein he had been taken. He was ever a hang-dog, ill-favoured oaf, and now looked sullenly and silently upon the ground.
His names and titles were first declared.
'Who accuses this man, and of what?' cried Earl John in loud tones.
And every man in the assembly moved a little, as though he itched to be the accuser himself. But since there was none that directly knew of our adventure, no one stood forth save our Marjorie and Nell, till I myself stepped forth with them, with Robert Harburgh and the Dominie a little behind us.
'Now speak out,' whispered Harburgh of the Long Sword to me, 'and let your nimble wit win you a wife.'
And I looked at Nell, and resolved that if she slipped through my fingers, it should not be the fault of my lack of address.
'Who accuses this man?' cried the herald, taking the word from his master, for the Lords of Carrick and Cassillis were beyond the paltry fashion of pursuivants.
'I do!' said Marjorie Kennedy, and all men set their eyes on her. Neither, so long as the case lasted, did they withdraw their eyes from her face. Then she opened her mouth and spoke firmly and sternly her accusation.
'I, Marjorie, daughter of the Tutor of Cassillis, in law wife to this man, charge James Mure the younger of Auchendrayne with the murder of my father, committed, as all men know, upon the sandhills of Ayr. I also accuse him of the murder of William Dalrymple, the lad who carried the message to Auchendrayne concerning my father's journey.'
'Cousin,' said Earl John, 'you have doubtless abundant proof to support these strange charges?'
Marjorie Kennedy stood up among us, tall like a lily flower, and she held her head erect.
'Hear you, John of Cassillis, and all men,' she said. 'I will tell my tale. Of my own griefs I will say naught, for in no realm do a woman's heart-breakings count for a docken's value. It is enough that my father in the simplicity of his heart gave me to this man, as an innocent sacrifice is cast to a monster to appease his ravening. These many months I dwelt in this man's castle. I have been prisoned, starved, tortured—yet all the Mures in Auchendrayne could neither prevail to break my resolve, nor yet could they close my mouth concerning the things which I saw.
'And now I, that am no more bound to this man than I was when he took me out of my father's house of Culzean—I, who have never looked upon him that is my wedded husband save with eyes of hatred, never lain by his side, stand here to denounce James Mure and his father for black, cruel, repeated, defenceless MURDER!'
CHAPTER XLIV
THE MURDER UPON THE BEACH
Marjorie Kennedy rang out the last words like a trumpet. Not even the Earl's herald could have been heard further.
'All men hear my tale before they judge,' she went on. 'It was the morn before my father's death-day. From my window in the house of Auchendrayne I had seen this man and his father, with Thomas of Drummurchie and Walter of Cloncaird, come and go all day with trappings and harness, because they knew that the time was nigh at hand for my father's riding to Edinburgh. It chanced that I was looking down through the bars of my prison-house, for there was little else to do in the house of Auchendrayne. It was about eleven of the clock when I saw a young lad, dusty from head to foot, venture a little way within the castle yett and stand as one that looks about him, not knowing where to turn. The court was void and silent, and the lad seemed distressed. But while he thus stood James Mure and his father came down the turnpike stair and stepped, talking whisperingly together, out into the flagged court.
'It was John Mure the elder who first saw the lad and called him. I saw the boy put a letter into his hand, the which he opened carefully and read, passing it to his son, who read also. Then James Mure stepped back and called Thomas of Drummurchie and Cloncaird. They came both of them, and the four bent their heads together over the writing.
'Then in a little John Mure closed the letter again as it had been and gave it with certain charges to the boy.'
'Saw you that letter or knew you aught of its contents?' asked the Earl John.
'Nay,' said Marjorie Kennedy, 'my window was too far from, them, and they spoke low and with privity among themselves.'
Then was my time.
'My Lord Bailzie of Carrick,' said I, 'may it please you it was I, Launcelot Kennedy of Kirrieoch, some time squire to Sir Thomas of Culzean, who sent that letter. I sent it from Maybole by the hands of William Dalrymple, the lad whom the Lady Marjorie saw come within the castle yett of Auchendrayne.'
The Dominie stood forward.
'And it was I, Robert Mure, schoolmaster in the town of Maybole, who wrote that letter. I wrote it as Launcelot Kennedy set me the words, for he is a man readier with the sword than the pen, though he hath some small skill even of that. But that day he was hot upon his game of golf (which I hold to be but a foolish sport which rapidly obscures the senses), so I, having, as is mine office, pen in hand, wrote the letter for him. Also I sent one William Dalrymple, called for a nickname Willie of the Gleg-foot, with it to John Mure at his house of Auchendrayne. I bear witness that after a space this boy came back, with the story that he had found John Mure from home. But when we charged it upon him that the letter had been thumbed and opened, he grew confused and confessed that he had been compelled to bring back that message by Mure himself, who had broken the seal and given it again to him, even as the Lady Marjorie has said.'
'And what further proof do you offer of all this?' asked the Earl, bending forward with eagerness to catch the Dominie's words.
The Dominie put his hand into the inner pocket of his coat and pulled out, among various pipe reeds and scraps of writing, a letter which he kept carefully folded in a leathern case by itself.
'There is the thing itself; may it please your lordship to look upon it,' said he, calmly. And as soon as he had said that, the Earl rose eagerly to see the famous missive which had drought about all this turmoil. There was also a stir among the folk that were gathered about, for all strained their eyes as if they could see that which was going on, and read the writing at that distance.
'It is a most notable proof,' said the Earl, 'and so we receive it. But can you not produce the lad William Dalrymple?'
'That can we not,' said the Lady Marjorie; 'but I, and I alone, can tell you all the story of his death—blacker even than the other, because done to a young lad against whom even these cruel murderers could allege no quarrel.'
And again there could be heard the sound of men settling down to deep attention throughout all the crowd at the diet of Justiceaire. And they even crowded in a little past the pennons, so that the heralds had to beat upon the ground with the butts of their halbards, as though to bruise their feet, before they could force them to give back. But James Mure abode stupidlike and sullen before his judge, while his accuser stood not three feet from him and told her story.
'It was just when the bruit of my father's death began to go abroad against the Auchendraynes,' so Marjorie Kennedy again took up her tale, 'and when John Mure the elder began to fear that the matter of the letter would be made manifest, that I again saw the little lad William Dalrymple. One night I observed James Mure leading him rudely by the neck into one of the barred cells which underlie the stables. And to that place with his own hands he carried food and water once every day thereafter.
'Then came to visit John Mure one Sir Robert Montgomery, the Laird of Skelmorlie. And with him they sent the lad, on pretext to be a page at his house of Loch Ranza, which he keeps for the King's hunting lodge on the Isle of Arran. What befell there I cannot tell, but it was not many weeks before William Dalrymple was back again. And this time they sent him (as he told me afterwards) to the Lowlands of Holland, there to serve in the Lord Buccleuch's regiment, which, first as a trumpeter and after as a soldier, he did. Nevertheless, being but young, he wearied easily of the stress and chance of foreign war, and so returned as before.
'Then when, in spite of all, the boy came back, and it was told to John Mure that William Dalrymple was again in his native town, he was neither to hold nor to bind. He neither rested nor slept till he had again brought the lad to his house, where he abode for some weeks, but not so closely shut up as before, so that it was often my chance to see him as he came and went about the court, and even to converse with him. But in a little while he vanished, and from that time I saw him no more.
'Now, the bitterness of my life and my desire to bring to justice the murderers of my father caused me at last to quit the house of Auchendrayne. For now I held, as I thought, the strings which would draw mine enemies to their doom. So upon a night I had it set to escape, she that was my maid helping me, with one other that was a body servant of Auchendrayne's and my tire-woman's lover.
'When I came out I found a pony waiting for me, and it was my purpose to ride to the house of my kinsman, the Earl of Cassillis. But, as I journeyed, what was my great affrightment to come upon a company of two, who rode some little way before me. I could easily have turned bridle-rein and ridden another way, but for something which came into my heart to make me follow on. For in a trice I recognised the riders to be John Mure and his son, the father being wrapped in his great cloak of grey, as is his custom. And by this I knew him.
'So I followed them, but not very near. And because my beast was a stable companion of their horses, he went after of his own accord—till, by the first breaking touch or morn we came to a waste place upon the edge of the sea, where in a secret dell I dismounted and tied my pony to a broom-bush which shot out over a sandy hollow.
'Then, yet more secretly, I followed them across the sandhills, and on the very edge on the links, where the turf ceases underfoot and there is only sand, John Mure and his son, this man before you, waited. For a while they stood listening and talking low together, so that, though I lay hidden behind a whin which overgrew a little turfy dell, I could neither hear what was said, nor yet by reason of the bareness of the sand, dared I to adventure nearer them. 'But they waited not long before one came down to meet them over the turf, bringing a lad with him. Then, immediately James Mure whistled a call, and the reply came back in like manner.
'"You are late, James Bannatyne," I heard John Mure the elder say; "what has taigled you?"
'"My sea cloth is not so well accustomed to night ploys as your cloak of grey!" the man growled as he came along sullenly enough.
'Then the three men of them walked a little apart, and came in their circuit very near to the hollow where I lay. While down on the shore the young lad stood and yawned, with his hands in his pockets, like one that shivers and wishes he were back in bed. Nor had he, I am confident, even then any thought of evil.
'But the talk of the three, as I heard it in snatches, was black and bitter.
'The darkest counsel was that of the man who stands here, for James Mure said only, "The dead are no tale-pyets." And again, "We have had enough of this silly, endless, hiding-and-seeking work. Let the earth hide him, or the sea keep him—and be done with it!"
'Now John Mure the elder, and the man whom they called James Bannatyne, seemed at the least inclined to discuss milder councils. Bannatyne was all for sending the lad over to Ireland. And John Mure listened as though he might be persuaded. Yet I knew his guile, for even when he stood with his back to his son, I saw him lift up his hand for a signal. And with that and no more, James Mure rushed at the poor lad and overbore him to the ground. And there upon the sands of the seashore, this James Mure set his knee on the bairnie's breast, and with bloody hands choked and worried him till there was no life left in the lad. And his father also went and held the lad when he fought, his white, reverend beard waggling in the wind, till at last the bairn lay still. But James Bannatyne stood by and clasped his hands, as the boy tossed and struggled for his dear young life, for I think he was now mainly sorry that he had brought the lad to his death.
'Then I could stand the vileness no longer without protest. So I, Marjorie Kennedy, even though I well knew that they would certainly do the like to me, rose from my hiding-place in the sand-hollow, and cried, "Murderers, cease from your cruel work. God will come and judge you!"
'Whereat John Mure came hastily to where I stood and gripped me. "You have seen all," he said, "then you must die. Let us see if God will come and help you!"
'So I defied them to do their worst with me, for madness had come upon me at the sight of the monstrous cruelty to an innocent bairn. And for the time I cared not what should become of myself.
'Then I called to James Bannatyne requiring of him to declare if he too were a murderer like the other fiends, and to call upon him to protect the innocent.
'"We will settle all that in the one payment, mistress," said John Mure to me.
'So by force I was compelled to abide with them, John Mure the elder taking me cruelly by the arm, while he sent the others to cast into the sea the dead body of the lad. But even so oft as they threw him in, so often the waves cast him out again upon the shore; and that though there was a strong wind off the land, which blew the tops from the waves and drave the sand in hissing streams into the sea.
'So when for the third time the boy had been tumbled upon the beach, John Mure bade Bannatyne bring his boat, saying that they would cast the loon afloat out in the deeps of the bay, so that the outerly wind might drive him to the coast of Ireland. After that they would return betimes to attend to other matters—by which I took him to mean that they would do that for me, which I had so lately seen them do for the young boy. And, indeed, I looked for no other mercy at their brutal hands. So in a little space James Bannatyne brought his boat, and with hard endeavour they launched her, and compelled me to accompany them. There was a strong wind from the east, and we were soon blown far out into the wild sea. There they cast the body of the lad overboard, and turned to make again for the shore. But though they all took oars and laboured in rowing, sames Bannatyne taking twain, they could make nothing of it; but were rather worse than they had been before they started.
'So they began to be afraid, and I was right glad thereat, for I looked that the doom of the twice guilty murderers should speedily come. And so the pain of this trial and my witnessing might have been spared.
'Now the Mures were the most fearful of the quick-risen storm, being as it were inland bred. It was all that James Bannatyne could get them to do to sit still.
'"Ye will wreck us all and send us red-hand before our Maker, with the lad's body not cold in the water, and his spirit there to meet us at the Judgment seat!" said he.
'And with that John Mure rose in his place, and in despite of the swaying and plunging of the ship, into which the water came lashing, he cried out, "The Wraith, the Wraith! It is following us—we are doomed!"'
'And lo! when I looked, I saw that which chilled me more than the whistling tempest. And if it feared me to the soul, judge ye what it must have been to the guilty men whose hands were yet red with the blood of the innocent.
'For there, not thirty yards behind the boat, and following strongly in our wake, as a stark swimmer might do, now tumbling and leaping in the wash of the seas and now lunging forward like a boat that is towed, was the murdered boy himself. And thus he followed with a smile on his face, or what looked like it in the uncertain light of the morning.
'So with that the men who rowed fell on their faces and could not look any more, though the prodigy followed us a good while. Only John Mure sat wrapped in his grey cloak steering the boat, and I sat beside him. Little by little we came to the land, but as it had been sideways, having been driven by the wind to the other side of the wide bay.
'There we disembarked and the Mures kept me close all that day in a place of strength on the seashore, till it was night. They plied me to promise silence, for they believed that I would keep my word if once I pledged it. They offered me all that they had of honour or place in the country. There was nothing, they said, that was not within the power of their compassing. For since the death of Gilbert of Bargany the King needed someone in Carrick strong enough to count spears with the Earl of Cassillis.
'But very steadfastly I withstood them, declaring that I should certainly reveal all their murder and treachery, both in the matter of the death of my lather, and in that which I had seen done upon the sands to the young lad William Dalrymple.
'So finally seeing that they could prevail nothing, they went out and kept silent watch by the door till the even. Then as soon as it was dark they opened the lock and bade me come forth. And this I did, knowing for a certainty that my last hour was come. Yet my life had not been so pleasant to me as to be very greatly precious. So I followed them with no very ill will, nor yet greatly concerned. Then on the craggy top they gave me, for the sake of their house and good name (as they said), one more chance to swear silence. This I would not accept, and they, being startled with the approach of a boat upon the water which steered towards our light, pinioned my arms, and thrusting something into my mouth, forthwith threw me over the cliff into the sea. And as to the mode of my rescuing and standing here before the Earl my cousin, young Launcelot Kennedy, my father's squire, can tell. And also my sister and Robert Mure of Maybole.'
CHAPTER XLV
THE MAN IN THE WIDE BREECHES
She ceased suddenly after this long account of her adventuring, and the folk stood still in amazement, having held their breath while she told of the killing of young William Dalrymple and of the Wraith. And then there arose a great cry from all the people,—
'Tear the murderer in pieces—kill him, kill him!' So that Cassillis had to summon men-at-arms to keep back that throng of furious folk, for the death of my master seemed to them but a little thing and venial, compared to the killing of a lad like William Dalrymple. And this was because the people of Carrick had been used all their days to family feuds and the expiation of blood by blood.
The Earl was about to call me up to give an account of my part in the affair, and I was preparing myself to make a good and creditable appearance—a thing which I have all my life studied to do—when there was heard a mighty crying in the rear of the Bailzie Court. Men cried 'He comes! He comes!' as though it had been some great one. And everybody turned their heads, to the no small annoyance of Earl John, who when on his Hill of Justice loved not that men should look in any other direction than his own.
The ranks of the men-at-arms opened, and there strode into the square of trial, which was guarded by the pennons of blue and gold at the four corners—who but John Mure of Auchendrayne himself, wearing the same cloak of grey and broad plumed hat which had been his wont when he went abroad upon dangerous quests! With him was another shorter man, whose face was for the time being almost hidden, for he had pulled the cloak he was wearing close about his mouth. He walked with an odd jolt or roll in his gait, and his breeches were exceedingly broad in the basement.
It was small wonder that we stood aghast at this sudden compearing of the arch criminal, whose misdeeds throughout all the countryside had filled the cup of his wickedness to the brim.
'Seize him!' cried the Earl, pointing directly at John Mure.
And his Bailzie's men took him roughly by the shoulders and set him beside his son. Then it was to be noticed, as the two stood together, that there was a great likeness between father and son. The elder man possessed the same features without any evident differences in outline. But so informed was his face with intelligence and power, that what was simply dull cruelty and loutishness in the one became the guile of statecraft in the other.
'Wherefore, my Lord Earl,' cried John Mure of Auchendrayne, 'is this violence done to me and to the heir of my house? I demand to know concerning what we are called in question and by whom?'
Then the Earl of Cassillis answered him,—
'John Mure of Auchendrayne, know then that you are charged, along with this your son, with the bloody murder of Sir Thomas Kennedy of Culzean, Tutor of Cassillis; and also with the cruel death of William Dalrymple, the young lad who brought you the message to your own house of Auchendrayne, telling at what hour the Tutor should pass the trysting place, where he was by you and yours foully assaulted and slain.'
'And who declares these things?' cried Mure, boldly, with a bearing more like that of an innocent man than that of any criminal that ever I saw.
The Earl bade us who had accused them so justly to stand forth. Then John Mure eyed us with a grave and amused contempt.
'My son's false wife, whom sorrow has caused to dote concerning her father's death—her night-raking rantipole sister, and her paramour, a loutish, land-louping squire—the Dominie of Maybole, a crippledick and piping merry-Andrew that travelled with them—these are the accusers of John Mure of Auchendrayne. They have seen, heard, noted what others have been ignorant of! Nay, rather, is it not clear that they have collogued together, conspiring to bear false witness against me and mine—for the sake of the frantic splenetic madness of her who is my son's fugitive wife, whose wrongs exist only in her own imaginings.'
'You have forgotten me!' said Robert Harburgh, quietly, stepping forward.
'I know you well,' said John Mure, 'and I would have remembered you had you been worth remembering. You are my Lord of Cassillis's squire and erstwhile a gay cock-sparrow ruffler, now married to the Grieve's daughter at Culzean.'
'Well,' said Harburgh, 'and what of that? Can a man not be all that and yet tell the truth?'
'That I leave to one who is greater, to judge,' said John Mure.
'And I do judge, John Mure,' cried the Earl, rising in his chair of state. 'I judge you to be a man rebel and mansworn, a traitor and a man-slayer. For a score of years ye have keeped all this realm of Carrick in a turmoil, you and they that have partaken with you in your evil deeds.'
'Loud, swelling words are but wind, my lord Earl of Cassillis,' answered Mure of Auchendrayne, a dry smile of contempt coming over his features.
'Now I will show thee, bold ill-doer,' said the Earl, fiercely, 'whether I speak the words of a dotard or no. Forward, men, take him up and bind him. Methinks we have yet engines within the castle of Dunure that can make him declare the rights of this murderous treason!'
Then I rejoiced, not for the torture of our enemy, but because at last the Earl saw fully with our eyes, and would right us against the cruel oppressor of Marjorie Kennedy, and for the murder of my gentle and courteous master.
But ere the men could carry out the orders of the Earl, the broad-breeched man who had accompanied Auchendrayne, and who had all the while stood still and watchful, dropped his plaid, which like a mask he had held beneath his eyes. He was a middle-sized, fleshy man, with no great dignity of face, and with a weak mouth that dribbled perpetually at the side as if the tongue were too large for it. He wore a slashed doublet very full at the sleeves, baggy trunks, and a sword in a plain scabbard hanging at his side. I saw nothing further very particular about the man save the shambling inward bend of his knees. But it was with dumb amaze that the Earl looked at him, standing there arrested in the act of pointing with his hand at John Mure. He stood with his jaw fallen, and his eyes starting from his head.
'The King! the King!' he muttered in astonishment, looking about him like one distracted.
'Ay, Baron Bailzie of Carrick, even your King,' said the man in the wide trunk hosen, 'come to see how his sometime High Treasurer of Scotland executes just judgment in his own regality!'
The Earl came quickly to himself, and he and all the people took off their hats. He stepped down and made his obeisance to the King, bending humbly upon his knee. Then he ushered the King to the throne whereon he himself had been sitting, and took a lower seat beside Adam Boyd of Penkill, his assessor in ordinary.
The King rose to speak.
'My Lord Earl and gentlemen of Carrick,' he said, with dignity enough, but with a thick and rolling accent as if his tongue had been indeed too big, 'I know this case to the bottom. I am fully persuaded of the innocence of our trusty councillor, John Mure of Auchendrayne—who is besides of the fraternity of learned men, and one that hath a history of this realm in script ready for the printers, wherein he does full justice both to myself and to my noble predecessors. He hath, as I should nominate it, an exactness of expression and a perspicuity of argument that have never been matched in the land. I propose shortly to make him my historiographer royal. Also I, the King, do know him to be a man well affected to the right ecclesiastical ruling of this kingdom, and minded to help me with the due ordering of it.'
The King puffed and blew after his speech, and we and all that were there stood silent, for to most of us he might as well have spoken in the Hebrew of which he boasted himself so great a master. Then he went on:—
'I have left my Lord Mar and my retinue some way in the rear. For we go to hunt the deer in whatever forest the goodwill of our loyal subjects may put at our disposal.'
'You are right welcome, my liege,' said the Earl John, starting up and standing bareheaded, 'to my hunting lodges and retinue, both in the Forest of Buchan and also at my house of Cassillis.'
The King bent towards him royally, for James the Sixth had manners when he liked to show them—which, in truth, was not always.
'I thank you, trusty councillor,' said he; 'it is nobly and generously done—qualities which also marked your all-too-brief tenure of the office of High Treasurer of Scotland. But for the judging of this our worthy subject, I propose to take that upon myself, being wholly persuaded of his innocence. And as for those that have falsely accused him, let the men underlie my will in the prison most convenient, and the women be warded meantime in their own house and castle, till I cause to be known my whole pleasure in the matter.'
We stood aghast, and knew not what to say, so completely had Auchendrayne turned our flank with the King. Not a word had we found to allege when the officers of the court, to whom the charge was given, came to put the iron rings on our wrists and march us off, even as we had hoped and expected to see Auchendrayne and his son taken.
And as the Dominie and I were haled away we could see Auchendrayne bending suavely over the King's high seat, and His Majesty inclining to him and talking privately back and forth, with many becks and uncouth graces such as he had used in his address to the Earl and his people.
'He is the very devil himself,' said the Dominie, meaning Auchendrayne and not the King; 'he hath not halted to cozen the greatest man in this realm with his lying tongue!'
But I said nothing, for what had I to say? I had seen lands, honours, love, and consideration vanish at a stroke.