The Grey Man

by S. R. Crockett

Earl John was so full of pleasure that his countenance shone, and he cracked his thumbs like a boy, seeing his enemy already in his power. He rode here and there among us, and saw to it that all the hackbuttmen had good-going matches, and all the footmen practicable spears and pikes.

When we gathered in the High Street of Maybole the snow was just beginning to fall, and presently it came driving up from the south, so that we had it on our backs all through the fight.

I was put in the very forefront of the muster with my twenty horsemen. For, save and excepting those of Culzean, and the few that surrounded his own person and were his gentlemen (as Robert Harburgh and others), my Lord of Cassillis counted not many horsemen, but rather spent his means upon providing hackbuttmen with the latest species of ordnance.

Nevertheless, gallantly enough we rode forth from Maybole, with the hackbuttmen and spearmen coming on foot after us. The street was full of them as far as one could discern through the oncoming storm, rising and falling like the waves of the sea. Yet was our soldierly figure a little spoiled by the falling snow—at least to the eyes of the women that looked down upon us in droves from the upper windows of the houses. But, of course, a soldier cared nothing for such a trifle.

When once we got outside the town, my lord bade his men line the hedges and banks, so that the hackbuttmen might have both rests for their pieces and shelter for themselves. On the other hand, the Laird of Bargany hid few hackbuttmen, for he said, 'It is not the arm of a gen'leman. Comes a bullet of lead and be he lord, prince, or peasant, Childe Roland or base craven, there is no difference and no remead.'

No sooner were we set, all under cover, than our spearmen upon the left and we upon the right, discerned the host of Bargany beginning to crown the opposite knolls. And through the pauses of the storm I could see the leaden glint of their spears, and hear the words of command. It was indeed a picked day for a grim fight to the death.

At the head of all Gilbert Kennedy rode, behind him the Wolf his brother, and the Laird of Auchendrayne wearing a long cloak, for it was a stormy day and he no longer a young man like the others. Then it was that my heart rose against the fighting, and I had no such gladness in it as was usual with me, all for the sake of young Bargany, whom I loved. Yet as soon as I set eyes upon John Mure of Auchendrayne, I felt the iron grow in my veins and the hot anger mount to my head. Of its own accord my hand gripped the spearhilt, for this day, by the Earl's command, I was again to lay a lance in rest. But I had now learned the game and art of it, and took lessons no longer from anyone.

'If the Lord prosper me this day, I will make an end of one false rogue!' So I vowed, solemn as if I had been in the kirk on a Sabbath day.

Then the two forces drew so close together that we could see and hear one another—that is, before the snow swept down, blotting out faces and forms, friend and foe alike.

Immediately there began the challenging and taunting, as is ever the way in these clan battles, where every fighter knows everyone else, and has met him at kirk and market a score of times.