The Grey Man

by S. R. Crockett

Ay, well might I say it. How was I to face Nell Kennedy—she that had with a long, kindly look committed her father into my keeping that very morning? Tenderly we lifted the body, which in life had been so noble and now was so pitifully mishandled. The villains had despoiled the dainty garmentry, torn the lace, and snatched the jewellery which Helen Kennedy had set in place as, daffing right merrily, she prepared her father (as she said) to 'gang worthily and bonnily before the King.' But the King he went before was One, as he himself would often say, that looked not on the outer appearance but on the heart. And concerning that last Thomas Kennedy need have had no fear that his would not be well looked upon—for it was upright, and kindly, and true, nor did it ever move to the hurt of any man in all this world. And as I took him up, I saw still more clearly the black-hearted rage of the persecutors. For it showed as manifestly as any other fact the hellish intent of the murderers, that they had taken time, even while I was in the act to come at them, to despoil my master of his purse with a thousand merks of gold therein. Nay, his very ring of fine diamonds they tore from his finger, and his golden buttons of wrought goldsmith work were riven from his frilled sark—one murderous loon snatching one thing and the other another, worse than brute beasts of the field.

We laid him gently upon the back of wise Dom Nicholas, that all the time stood like a statue, and then when everything was ready, moved graciously and soberly away, as though he had been well aware of the melancholy burden he bore. Even thus we brought my dear master to the sea terrace of Greenan which he had so lately left.

And when John Kennedy of Balterson heard the trampling of the horse on the flags of the court, he came out crying loudly and heartily as was the manner of the man.

'Wi' what's this, Culzean? Are ye back again?'

So running to the door he stood with his table-knife in his hand and a bit of his mid-day meal thereupon, astonished beyond the utterance of words.

'What's this? What's this?' he cried. 'Oh, sirs, what foul wark is here? Wha has done this?'

And I told him their names—at least so far as I knew them.

'Thomas of Drummurchie!' he cried. 'It shall not be the uplands of Barr parish that shall keep ye frae the stark sword of John Kennedy of Balterson. And thou, Walter Mure of Cloncaird, that has so often sat in this house of the Greenan, by the grace of God I shall lay thee as low as thou hast laid my friend this day.'

But I begged Balterson to think of something else than the taking of revenge—of which all in good time. So presently he got me a horse litter with two steady-going beasts, and I walked alongside it with Dom Nicholas arching his head and treading softly as if he also mourned. Thus we came to the town of Maybole, which was as our own place. And such dule and lament as there was that day saw I never anywhere.

For the town had loved him as its liege lord, far more than either John, Earl of Cassillis, or his father the King of Carrick. Such a congregation as met us at the town gate! The women all crying the cry of death, the men cursing and calling vengeance. The minister was there to pray, and all classes and conditions were moved to tears.