The Grey Man

by S. R. Crockett

CHAPTER L

THE LAST OF THE GREY MAN

It was the morn of the execution. Justice, delayed for long, was that day to let fall its sword. We of the Cassillis colours mustered in the dead of the night, for there was no force save the City Guard within the walls. And we had recently had overly many proofs how little these men could do with the unruly commons of Edinburgh if it pleased them to be turbulent. So it had come to be bruited abroad, that there was an intent to prevent the execution and deliver the murderers out of the hands of justice.

But we were resolved that this should not be. So, as was our bounden duty, we armed us to support the right and to keep the King's peace against all riotous law-breakers. The Earl gave to me the command of one half of the band, reserving the other for himself. And already he called me Sir Launcelot, though I had not yet received the acknowledgment of knighthood from the King.

At the first break of day it was to be done. Of this we had private notice from the turnkey of the Tolbooth.

I had worked earnestly upon my mother and Nell that they should abide from the business—which was, indeed, not for womankind to see. Though I knew that there would be many there, ay, even dames gentle of degree. But my father marched with me.

'Shall I put my harness off me,' said he, 'when there is a chance of a tumult, and of the defeating of the solemn justice of Providence and of King James? God forbid! Wife, help me on with my jack.'

So I placed my father in my own command, and I set him in the second rank with Hugh of Kirriemore beside him and Robert Harburgh in front of him, where I judged he would not come to any great harm. And we Kennedies had the King's private permission thus to come through the town under arms. When we arrived at the place the tall scaffold had already been set up at the cross, and even ere we arrayed us first about it, many a candle had begun to wink here and there in the tall windows of the High Street.

The Earl was to command a second strong guard from the prison port to the scaffold, lest the rabble should try to overwhelm the City Guard and the marshal's men as they convoyed the prisoners to the place of execution.

Thus we of the first band stood grimly to our arms a long time after the gloaming of the morning began. The hum of the folk gathering surrounded us. There was, however, little pleasance or laughing, as there is at an ordinary heading or hanging; and that did not betoken good, for when the populace is silent, it is plotting. This much I had learned in my long service and afterwards as a knight-at-arms. Therefore I hold it the true wisdom to strike ere the many-headed can bite. That, at least, is my thought of it.