Part 15

Yet the things that happened during these months were many. First of all there was the marrying of my pretty cruel Kate to Robert Harburgh, who had at last gotten leave to depart from the Earl, and the down-sitting to settle on. So the day came that I had looked for to be so bitter to me, and lo! it was not bitter at all; for I stood beside Nell Kennedy in white, who was Kate Allison's best maid, and it was indeed a sight comely. Then it was that for the first time I honestly judged Nell to be more beautiful than her sister Marjorie, of which I have often thought since.

When all was over, and Nell and I had done racing and throwing of old shoes after them, as they rode away together to their well-furnished house of Chitterlintie, it chanced that she and I walked home together. We were silent a long while.

Then said I, 'Nell, do you remember how it was our daily use to quarrel?'

'And so it may be again,' she said, tossing her head.

'I wonder where the rope is, and the tow-steps that used to dangle from the White Tower?' she asked after a moment.

'They are e'en there yet,' I said, 'if it be that you desire to go and see your lad. But be more timely, I pray you, in your homecoming, for now you have no excuse in the way of sisters--'

Then I remembered, and was shamed. However, Nell paid no heed, but seemed to be thinking of something else.

'Nor have you now any excuse for going down by to Sandy the Grieve's,' she said, giving me tit for tat.

'Nell,' said I, 'we are very good friends, are we not?

'Ay,' said she, drily, 'brawly do I ken the reason of that.'

'And what may the reason be?' I asked of her.

'Just that I am all there is left,' she said, so quickly that I declare the saying took the wind from me, like a sudden blow where one's breath bides. Nor do I yet know the answer to that, for on the surface of the thing there was certainly some reason in what she said.

'Oh, I am not proud,' she went on, 'and you and I are good friends and good company. I am e'en content to be Mistress Do-no-better!'

'Nell,' said I, going nearer to her, and taking her hand, 'Nell, you and I are now to be more than that.'

But she drew her hand away with a jerk.

'Try a new way of it,' she said; 'I am not taking Mistress Katherine Allison's cast-off sweet speeches!'

So that base little wretch Kate Allison had been at the telling of tales!

After this I saw no better way out of the bog than to withdraw myself from her, and walk apart in that silent dignity, which, upon occasion, I have at my command.

'No, Launce,' she said, standing up with her hands behind her and her mouth pouted, 'you are a good lad enough, but simple. I knew that I would send you into the sulks. That was the reason I said it. If you take me for a sweet confection that melts in the mouth, you mistake me sorely!'

But I made no answer, not indeed having any to make, and so marched off by myself. Yet for all Nell's ill-treatment and scorning of me, I did not grieve any more for that minx Kate. For, as I was no long time in discovering, the pretty traitress had told Nell many of those sweet things I had said to her. I never imagined that girls told such speeches and love-makings the one to the other. I had aways believed that a lass kept her own secrets, and only told other people's. It was, indeed, most true what Nell had cast up to me. I was but a simple lad.

*CHAPTER XXVII*

*ON THE HEARTSOME HEATHER*

Now I must tell during this time of Sir Thomas Kennedy. He seemed altogether another man. He had ever, indeed, been kindly and generous, forgiving and unsuspicious. But during these spring months of the year after Bargany's death, he seemed to ripen like a winter apple when it is laid by, till there was no more sourness in him anywhere.

Oftentimes he would come and cause me to read to him out of the Gospels. Aforetime it had always been from the Old Testament, which I had ever thought the more interesting, till Sir Thomas that spring showed me other of it, making me read through the Holy Gospels.

Indeed, to talk with him and watch his life was better than any sermon. I declare that before I understood his character and thought, I knew not that religion was aught more than the colour of a faction--a thing to fight about, like the blood feuds of Cassillis and Bargany, concerning the wrong and right of which not one in a thousand knows anything, and still fewer care.

Yet for all his increasing gentleness there was naught unmanly about my lord, but ever the bearing and speech of a most courteous knight. He had a great love for noble and sweet music, and often diverted himself on the viol, upon which he played most masterly. The scurril jest, indeed, he would sharply reprove; but his heart still inclined to wit and mirth, and his countenance was constantly cheerful.

Specially this was so when he and I, with Nell and little David, rode south to Galloway, where we were to abide a long season with Sheriff Agnew. For Marget Kennedy, his eldest daughter, was married to the young Laird, the Sheriff's son, and abode at the castle of Lochnaw. Now in these days the air of Galloway, brisk yet kindly, suited my master better than the sea winds which were ever blowing about Culzean. And what was more to him than all Galloway was not so torn by feuds as Carrick and Kyle. And a man held not his life ever in the palm of his hand, as a tavern drawer does an unsteady cup which at any moment may be spilled. Nevertheless my good master found an infinite sadness in this, that in a wide realm of men that are called Christians, I, Launcelot Kennedy, should have come to the years of manhood with no better opinion of religion than that it was the rag of faction. And this, too, with ministers in mostly every parish, with preachings and communings, and all the outer husk of godliness.

But during this springtime, Sir Thomas showed me quite other of it. But yet I gave not in to all his argument about the Kingdom of Peace. For I answered that I was his soldier and servant, and that time and again it had been so ordered by Providence that fight I must--for the safety and honour of my master and eke for mine own, this being the sphere of life in which my lot had been cast.

'I object it not,' said Sir Thomas; 'defence and the appeal to arms are lawful. But I have lived many days, and I think shall not live many more. Yet never have I seen the lasting success of them that make the appeal to the sword. Truly does Holy Writ say, that they that flee to the sword shall perish by the sword.'

And as we paced together he read to me much from his little Bible, and bemoaned his sins and evil life, especially how that he had been overtaken in the house of Sir Thomas Nisbett on the New Year's night of the attack. I wished that I dared tell him that I had arranged the matter with his host for the saving of his life. But I judged that repentance is no bad thing for young or old, so I e'en let him repent his fill and bemoan as he would.

Few places more heartsome have I seen than the tower of Lochnaw. First, it stood near to an inland loch, where ducks squattered and splashed, instead of being like Culzean, set amid the thresh of winds and the brattle of the sea. Then the Sheriff and his children were well agreed, and friendly with their neighbours, so that it was a proverb, that the wolves and the lambs lay down together in that countryside. For if you stirred an Agnew, you had all the wolves of Galloway on your back! But in truth the Agnews were somewhat strange 'lambs,' though their name bears that signification.

'We are called Agnews because we have so often been fleeced,' said the Sheriff once in his pleasantry.

But I told him that was bad sense though good wit--because in the hills we shore not the lambs till they had grown to be sheep.

'Ay, well,' said the Sheriff, twinkling with his eyes, 'shear my son Patrick there, for he is now sheep-muckle, and has been so silly as to mix himself with the unruly folk of Carrick.'

I had indeed great pleasure in the house of Lochnaw. It is a fair place, with walls, moats, and drawbridges all about--very proper for defence--so that there be no artillery set against it. But to my thinking the mounds might now very well be levelled and turned into walks and terraces, as has been done at Culzean.

I sat down daily with the family at table, and was in all respects as one of them. For the Sheriff said, 'Ye are not to be strange with us--for my wife comes from within sight of Kirrieoch Hill, and likes dearly to listen to the tongue of the muirland border folk.'

'Ay,' said my Lady Agnew, for I will not call her the old lady, seeing that she had kept the heart that was within her young, 'ay, and I have not seen any folk to better them on these fat, profitable Rhynns.'

'That,' said the Sheriff, 'was what I thought when I went to the Minnoch side for a wife.'

And very gallantly he lifted his wife's hand to his lips, like the noble and courtly gentleman he was. And to this day the Agnews have ever been proud of their wives. And with reason.

'Hearken to these young folk,' said Lady Agnew, as the noise and tumult of much laughter and daffing came up to us. 'Hark to them. Is it not good to be young?'

'And therefore it is good to be my Lady of Lochnaw!' said I, for I determined to show that there were folk in Carrick that could be gallant as well as Galloway Agnews.

'Hoot, Culzean,' cried the Lady Agnew, 'how have ye brought up your squire, that he cannot see a well-looking woman, but on the instant he maun begin to court her?'

'What,' cried my master, 'the regardless loon--and that before her husband's face, too!'

'That, at least, is not a Galloway fault, at ony gate,' said the Sheriff, smiling, 'for Galloway ever behaves itself before folk, and courts only behind backs and slily by the licht of the moon.'

'Ye talk havers, Andrew,' said his wife. 'Never did I meet you behind backs all the days of our courting.'

'Na,' said the Sheriff, 'but your father, honest man, was sair troubled with deafness, and your mother was blind, and lame o' a leg forbye.'

'Haud your tongue, guidman. Have some mense afore the young man, for he looks a sober chiel and blate. What should he have to do with lasses? At his years!'

Here Nell Kennedy broke out in peal on peal of laughter, and when they asked her the reason,--

'It was but at Launcelot's face when my lady praises him for being blate. He looks as innocent as our grey cat Grimalkin, when she has eaten all the fish for supper.'

I wish that I could dwell longer on these sweet, peaceful days in Galloway, but the spring went on apace, and Sir Thomas was summoned back to Culzean. His nephew the Earl urgently needed his advice, and wrote to him to say so.

'The Earl makes you many compliments,' said the Lady Lochnaw.

'Ay, ay,' said Culzean, 'Earl John was aye a great spender with his tongue, even as was the daddy of him.'

So we were bound to ride away from this kindly and merry house of Lochnaw, and much did I desire to return thither. Never once did we speak of wars and stratagems while we remained under that roof, but all of friendship, of lusty daffing, and of leasome love.

But when we mounted I bade farewell to all with a wae heart. I envied the Sheriff greatly, for he had a wife whom he loved in age as in youth, and yet whom he knew wherein to be the master of--a thing, I take it, which makes home happier than all besides. I thought within me that Patrick, his son, had set himself a harder field to plough in his Marget. Yea, already methought he had let the reins slip from his hands--which, after all, is no strange thing, considering that she was own sister to Marjorie and Nell Kennedy, of whose stiff necks I had oft had experience.

Ere we went, the Sheriff said a word that amused us all. 'When I came to be Sheriff,' he said, 'I found my father at the horn, outlaw and rebel, for refusing to pay teinds to cover the back of a bishop's lady with silks and satins. And when I die it looks like that I shall see my son at the horn for cleading of his wife according to the degree of a queen.'

For young Patrick Agnew liked better than all to be for ever gadding about after the merchants of France and the Low Countries, who knew his weakness so well that they would come from far to sell him stuff for the decking of his lady--who, when all was said and done, was nothing to compare to Nell or even to Marjorie, her younger sisters.

So we departed, almost heart-broken to leave the sweet place of Lochnaw. And the Sheriff rode with us to the village of Stranrawer--a long, clarty, Irish-looking street with pigs and bairns running about it, set on the shore of a fine loch. Here Sir Andrew and his retinue bade us farewell, and so turned them and rode away back to the homely steading of Lochnaw.

Now, upon our homeward journey it was the great good pleasure of the knight, my master, that we should ride up the Minnoch Glen to visit my father and mother, whom I had not seen for long. Sir Thomas put it, that it would be well that we rode not directly by Ardstinchar and near to Bargany along the shore road, for the folk of Bargany were cruelly set against us. Nevertheless, I knew that the real reason was that he wished me to see my mother.

So we struck across the moorland country of Wigtonshire to the head of the Loch of Cree, which is a vast, wild, swampy place where many waterfowl congregate, and where duck and seagull build their nests.

As we breasted the swelling moors, we came in sight of the mountains that were dear to me, for I was hill-bred and loved them--so that I could have ridden on, carolling like a lark, had I been in any other company.

But Sir Thomas and Nell knew what was in my heart, for as we rode up Minnoch they looked at each little thatched cot-house, and asked what it might be called--which was most amiable of them, for I loved to tell over the well-kenned names, though the hearing of them could not possibly have pleasured Nell or her father.

When we came to the brow of the hill, along the side of which runs the track to the Rowan Tree, I begged of them that I might ride a little way in front, in order to prepare my father and mother for their reception. Really, I went because I did not wish them to see me meet my mother, for I knew that I was bound to weep.

But it fell not out as I had expected, for the dogs that were about the farm came barking and youching round the corner, and I saw the rough head of our herd laddie looking out of the barn. Then he scudded across the yard like a hare, and, anon, there came my mother forth, with a white hood upon her head, and girt about with her apron--even as she had been when, as a boy, I used to come pelting home from the hills, hungrily looking for a piece and a slockening drink of milk.

So she came own the little loaning to meet me, nearly running in her eagerness, I declare. And there, at the gate-slap, I leaped down from Dom Nicholas and took my mother about the neck, greeting like a great silly bairn. But for my life I could not help it. Yet I need not have cared, for Nell and Sir Thomas were admiring something on the hills, with their heads close together; and over my shoulder I could hear him pointing out to her the road to Straiton, and the way across the hills to Girvan--so they observed not my weakness.

Then came Sir Thomas forward, and I presented him to my mother. Whereupon he greeted her by the name of Lady Kirrieoch, for that was a title of courtesy to a laird's wife. And though Kirrieoch is but a little place and a wild, uncouth holding, yet Sir Thomas walked by my mother's side, leading his horse and talking, with his hat in his hand all the while, as if she had been the Queen of Scots herself.

And as I looked steadfastly away towards the wind, so that they should not see that I had been weeping, and also to let the air dry my eyes (for such weakness is ridiculous in a man), Nell came riding by on her palfrey. She cast a little glance about her to see that none observed, a look quick and timorous. Then she leaned over and gave me a light little pat on the cheek with her hand--a thing she never did before, but which I liked very well.

Then came out my father to meet us at the door, and Sir Thomas took him by the hand heartily.

'You and I, Laird,' he said, 'are not so young as we were at the King's muster on the Boroughmuir, and when you held the colours of Cassillis, even as your son does this day.'

'No, Sir Thomas,' said my father, 'brittle bones, slack sinew, thin-sown hair have come to us both since that day, when it was my good fortune to serve with you and under you.'

'Ah, Kirrieoch,' replied the Tutor of Cassillis, 'I envy you here on your high and heartsome muirs, where the wild cats are your greatest enemies, and naught more dangerous than the erne ever stoops to slay.'

'It is a gye hard struggle at times,' replied my father, 'with Launcelot away and only two old bodies left with the serving men.'

'Ah, bide a wee,' said the Tutor. 'I have made it my business to see that in a little, when the lad has won his spurs, you shall have Launcelot back with something worth while in his pouch, and a handle to his name as good as the lave of us.'

'I am glad that you have such good reports to give of him,' said my mother.

'Oh,' said the Tutor of Cassillis, drolling, 'I am none so sure of that. He has enough conceit of himself, indeed. But in his presence we will not say more.'

And then my mother set the table for us with her own hands, though Sir Thomas insisted that she should not; but with all due acknowledgment of his courtesy, my mother continued the work with dignity and grace. Besides which, I question whether at the moment Susan, the byre lass, was dressed fitting to come into a room where there was the company of great folk.

But it was more than pleasant to see Nell rise to help my mother to spread the cloth and lay out the silver spoons. We had the best of muirland fare--mutton of the sweetest, black-faced and small, toothsomely fed on the sweet, tender grasses that nestle among the heather-knowes. Also we had sweet milk, oaten cake of a rare crispness, a kebbuck of rich cheese, and butter, as the Scriptures say, in a lordly dish, for the vessel was of silver, and had upon it the ancient arms of the Kennedies.

The Tutor picked it up and looked at it.

'These are the bearings of my great-grandfather!' he exclaimed, much astonished.

'Yes,' said my father; 'and he was also my grandfather.'

'Bless me!' cried the Tutor of Cassillis; 'I knew not that we were so nearly related.'

And all through the remainder of our stay he called my father 'cousin.' And as for Mistress Nell, there was no end to her merriment on the subject.

'Now we shall fight more than ever,' she said, 'for we Kennedies always fight with our cousins. And I must find the handle of the hayrake with which I used to beat my cousin Philip. It will serve excellently for drubbing Launcelot, my new sweet coz!'

At last we rode away, and Nell Kennedy kissed my mother lovingly when we bade farewell, so that my heart warmed more than ever to the lass.

Waeheartedly enough we left the little white housie behind us, sitting blythsome on its brae above the white stones of the burn. And in my imagination to this very day, whenever I am away from the Minnoch for long, rises a clear picture of the water-side as we saw it that morning--a wide valley filled to the brim with sunshine and the stir of breathing airs, the whaups and peesweeps beginning to build, and keeping up all the time above our heads a brave welter of crying and the whistle of eddying wings.

'I wonder not that sometimes you grow homesick,' said Nell Kennedy. 'When you are distracted and morose, I shall now know the reason.'

So we came in due season to the house of Culzean, and there we found all well, with James playing tennis contentedly in the court; and Sandy, up at the stables, acting the big man and giving his orders as large as my lord.

*CHAPTER XXVIII*

*WARM BACKS MAKE BRAW BAIRNS*

It was the morning of the 11th of May, and we were on the morrow to take our journey to the town of Edinburgh. I had advertisement the night before that I was to ride to the town of Maybole to meet John Mure of Auchendrayne, and on my master's account to appoint a tryst with him at the Duppil, not far from the town of Ayr, for my Lord desired not to pass through that place, knowing that many of the faction of Bargany abode there. But Sir Thomas ever believed that Auchendrayne was of those that wished him well, because of the marriage and of all that had passed between them.

So I had to ride on this mission that I loved not over well. But I had nought to say. For whenever I spake to the Tutor concerning John Mure, he would clap me on the head and say, 'Ye are overcareful and suspicious, Launcelot. John Mure and I are fathers of the same pair of bairns, wherefore, then, should we not be as one--even as they?'

Poor man--I could not find it in my heart to tell him of the happening beneath the town-gate of Maybole, when James Mure's wife bade farewell to Gilbert Kennedy of Bargany, as he lay there dead on his enemies' spears.

So at early morning I rode as I was bidden to Maybole to meet the Laird of Auchendrayne, who, as my master knew, had some business there. But it so fell out that I missed him, for he had lodged all night in the town at the Black House, which belongs to one Kennedy of Knockdone, a friend of his and of the Laird of Newark's.

I was loath to ride all the way after him to Auchendrayne, and so bethought me that I should get the loan of a laddie from my crony, Dominie Mure, out of his school at the foot of the Kirkwynd. My way led me by the Green, where it was sorely in my mind to try a stroke of the ball. But I remembered me that Sir Thomas bade me be soon back, that I might be ready to ride with him on the morrow's morn to the town of Edinburgh by Duppil and the Ford of Holmestone. So, though I saw some brisk birkies licking at the ball, one of them being Laigh-nosed Jamie Crawford that had his nose flattened with the stroke of a golf ball on the hills of Ayr, I refrained me for that time and went to seek a boy.

But I saw none on the Green, saving some raggedy loons playing kick-ball, whom I did not like to trust with so important a message. I went on, therefore, to the schoolhouse. And as I went it cheered me to think on Dominie Mure and his humours, for he and I had been gossips of a long season.

The schoolhouse of Maybole was a curious building tacked on to the rear of the kirk, with vaulted passages of timber, in which were doors which could on occasion be opened, so that the school itself might be used as an addition to the kirk should the latter be crowded. But in my time the space was but seldom in demand. It was an age of iron, and men's minds craved not naturally that which was peaceable and good. The old Papistry had passed away, but the new religion had not yet grown into the hearts of the people.

I came to the schoolhouse door. The noise of conning lessons that used to go humming all along the Kirk Vennel was louder than it was wont to be. Indeed, I thought that of a surety Dominie Mure had gone as far as the change-house for his morning glass of strong waters, wherein I did that worthy man an injury. The dominie's Highland pipes lay on the desk before him, the great drones looking out like eyes at the scholars. They were the recreation of his leisure, for he had been in his youth in the savage North, and had learned to be no ill-considered performer even in the country of pipes and pibrochs.

I looked within, and there, mounted upon two desks and a chair, stood the Dominie with his head through a round hole in the boards of the roof, and all that one could see of him convulsed with animation.