The Grey Man

by S. R. Crockett

What wonder that my heart fainted within me to be thus left alone in that den of hideous things, and especially to think of the free birds going to their beds on the cliffs above me and the fishing solan geese circling and balancing home to the lonely rock of Ailsa.

'Ha, Sir Launcelot Kennedy,' said a mocking voice, as the deafening turmoil quieted a little, 'you are near your honours now—that is, if there be such bauble dignities either in heaven or hell. The Treasure of Kelwood in hand, John Mure's life out of hand—and there on the shelf (as it were) are your broad acres and your bonny lady!'

I was silent, for I knew that nothing could avail me now. It was useless to waste words.

'But ere all that comes to pass,' he went on, 'there are sundry little formalities to be gone through.—Oh, we are right dainty folk here in Sawny Bean's mansion. You shall be kept warm and cherished tenderly. There are here twenty sonsier queans than the one whose heart you desire. Warmly shall they welcome, sweetly shall they cherish handsome Sir Launcelot. Their embracements shall sting you more than all sweethearting raptures.'

Again he pauses to observe the effect of his words.

'You that so lately held me in chase, like a steer that has escaped from the shambles. Now you yourself are in the thills. You that have crossed me a thousand times in my plans since that frore night in Sir Thomas Nesbitt's yard in Maybole, you shall now be crossed in a new fashion. You that wagged tongue so merrily at another's expense, you shall see your tongue wag upon the redhot brander to an unkenned tune.

'You that have ridden so fast and so far, you shall ride your last ride—ride slowly, very slowly,' cried the fiend in my ear, 'for I shall hoard every drop of your blood as John of Cassillis hoards his gold rose nobles. I shall husband every minute of your life, as though they were the hours of young bridal content.

'Ye have bruised my old face indeed with your oaken staff, but I will cherish yours, that is youthful and blooming. Tenderly shall we take off the coverture of hide, the tegument of beauty. Sawny Bean has famous skill in such surgery. Gently will we lay you down in the swarming nest of the patient ant. We have read how Scripture bids the sluggard go to the ant, for if that makes him not lively, nothing will. I have ofttimes commented on the passage at family worship. And I must see that the young and headstrong, like you, my Lord Launcelot, give heed to that which is commanded.'

But in spite of all his terrible threatenings, I bode still and answered him never a word. They laid logs of driftwood upon the fire, till the whole inside of the cave grew bright and clear; and all the monstrous deformity of the women and the cruel hideousness of the men were made apparent as in broad daylight. Some of them were painted and stained like demons, and danced and leaped through the fire like them, too. For such monsters have not been heard of, much less seen, in the history of any country as were Sawny Bean and his crew in the cave upon the seashore of Bennanbrack.

'Bring me a knife,' cried John Mure from where he sat, for he appeared like a chief devil among a company of gibbering lubber fiends. He had still his grey cloak about him. His plumed hat was upon his head, and he looked, save for the eyes of him in which the fires of hell burned, a civil, respectable, well-put-on man of means and substance. As, indeed, save for his evil heart he might have been, for he came of as good a family as the Earl of Cassillis, or, as it might be, as I myself, Launcelot Kennedy of Kirrieoch.