The Grey Man

by S. R. Crockett

And as we went, Bargany told me of the Earl's message brought him by James Young, the Minister of Colmonel. And in especial how he had telled a great lie to win through the men of Galloway—in which sin it was then uncommon for a minister to be found out.

'Not but that my heart is with the lads of Galloway,' said Bargany, 'but after all, Gibby Crack-tryst is the first of the Kennedies, and I shall not see him put down, whatever be his deserts, by Garthland and the Sheriff. If Cassillis is to go down, Bargany shall go with it; and all Galloway, twice told, shall not accomplish that!'

Although I felt chilled by the dull, unheartsome day we had left behind us, I can tell you I thought no little of myself to be thus riding in comradeship with Bargany at my elbow. For though I had so ridden with the Earl once or twice, yet I counted ten times more on Bargany. Forty horsemen were of our company, and mine was the weariest body among them all. For it was my first long day, after my sickness with harness on my back, and pulses beat where my wounds had been, so that I feared that they would break out afresh, and I have to be left behind.

At last we stayed our steeds at a small tenant's house called Craigaffie, a little way from the Inch, where a vassal of Bargany's dwelt. Him we sent to meet the Earl and tell him that we were there—also to bid the Galloway men come to an arbitrament, if so they would. For they had enclosed the Earl back and front in his own house of the Inch, so that none could pass—save indeed one that knew the byeways and outgates as did this Peter Neilson of Craigaffie.

Presently there came back from the Earl a message most piteous, for he knew the men of Galloway had him fast; and he was afraid for the safety of the rents and mails that he had with him in silver and minted gold—far more, to do him justice, than he was anxious about his own skin. Bargany was his dearly-beloved cousin, his eame, his saviour. He would keep friendship with him more than with any friend he had all the days of his life, for this notable deliverance he had wrought. He was to come and put himself in the Earl's hands after he had sent the lords of Galloway about their business. The Earl's plighted word would be his security.

At this Bargany gave a smile, and set his thumb over his shoulder at the forty swords that were riding behind him.

'These,' said he, 'will be the best security that John, Earl of Cassillis, will not harm me when I go to visit him in his castle of the Inch.'

It was no long season before there came MacDowall of Garthland and Sheriff Agnew to represent the men of Galloway, and never in my life, save when I went as herald to the great house of Kerse, did I see such an exchange of high civilities. It was as the meeting of heroes, when compared to the double-dealing and deceit of our break-tryst Earl. More than ever, I wished that I had been born on the other side of the score. But it hadna bin to be.

Agnew the Sheriff was a tall man, with dark hair quickly frosting to grey, a hawk's nose, a long arm good at laying on, and a biting tongue which he knew well when to hold. The Laird of Garthland, on the other hand, was red of beard and brown of hair, altogether a man well set, beginning also to be well-stomached with good feeding and sleeping on benches of the afternoons.

It was Garthland who saluted first, for he came of the oldest race in Galloway—save, perhaps, it may be, the MacCullochs of Ardwell. But the eagle-nosed Sheriff was the chief spokesman.