The Grey Man

by S. R. Crockett

THE SECRET OF THE CAIRD

It was, I can avouch, a strange experience for me to lie on my back in the Grieve's house all through the long days of spring and summer. Kate Allison and her mother were tirelessly kind. The Grieve himself generally set his head past the door as he went and came from his meals, crying mayhap something of the day—that 'it was warm,' or that it was 'a wat yin,' and thinking it the height of a jest to say to me, 'An' what kind o' weather hae ye below the blankets?' For with kindly-natured country folk a little jest goes a great way, and serveth as long without washing as a pair of English blankets.

Then in the forenoon Sir Thomas would come in from the castle, opening the hallan door and walking across the Grieve's kitchen as unceremoniously as he would have done in his own house.

'My lad, they have made a hand of you, but we will dowse them yet for that!' was one of his stated encouragements to me. 'Let me see the clours—hoot, man, they will never mar you on your marriage day!'

And so, kindly and smiling, he would pass out again, walking with his hands behind his back as far as I could see him along the arches of the woodland.

Then would Marjorie come to the door, and inquire for me of good Mistress Allison. But she never accepted of her hearty invite to remain—or, at least, to enter and see the invalid. Gently would she ask after my well-being, and being assured of it, as gently would she go her way—her fair face looking so white and sorrowful the while, that I was wae for her, and for the unkenned secrets of her heart into which God forbid that I should pry.

But that which cheered me most, I think, was the kindness and warm-heartedness showed me without stint, both by Nell Kennedy and Kate Allison. They were no longer flighty and sharp of tongue in speaking to me, but rather spoke freely and sat much in the kitchen, with the door of my room open so that I could see them, nipping and scarting at one another like kittens in their wantonness, which was a great diversion and encouragement to me on my weary bed. And there we had no little merriment, for Nell Kennedy would be saucy and miscall me for my laziness and sloth—also for my lack of appetite, which she called 'dainty and dorty,' meaning thereby that I wanted finer meats than they had to give me.

Also, though she was no maid for gossip, Nell would bring me all the clash of the castle-town and farm-town, all the talk that was gone over in the mill, while the thirlage men waited for their grist. Where she got it to tell me I cannot imagine, but it was all like sweet wine to me that could hear naught most of the day and night, but the birds singing without and Mistress Allison clattering wooden platters within.

Also (and that was the kindliest thing she could have done, and touched my heart most of all), she brought to me all my war-harness and accoutrements. My sword, which she had cleaned herself after the scuffle in the barn; the dagger I had dropped when I caught and clutched the key of the Kelwood treasure, wherever that had been gotten—the pistols; the fine new hackbutt which had just come from the town of Ayr, and which Sir Thomas had given me for mine own, as he would have given a child a toy.

'Give the bairn its plaiks, then,' said Nell, as she laid them on the bed. 'Would it love to play with them? Then it shall!'