So as I came near to the bridge-end, I looked very warily about, and methought that I spied the black muzzle of a hackbutt, where there was no need of such like. Now hackbutts do not, even in Carrick, grow on hedges, though in these days a man might somewhat easily make the mistake of thinking so. I judged, therefore, that there would be an ugly face behind the gun, and a finger on the slow match that intended me no good.
As I paused, turning about on my saddle, I saw a fellow rise out of the copse-wood before me, and run like a rabbit to the bridge-end. That was enough for me. Fighting is well enough, and I can be doing with it, for it is the path of glory and of fortune. But black treachery I cannot stomach.
So being mightily angry, but resolved like steel to show John Mure and his butchers that I despised them, I turned Dom Nicholas's head and set him straight at the deeps of Doon Water, where ford there was none. In a moment we were splashing in the pool, and in another Dom Nicholas had thrown back his head and taken to the swimming like a duck. It was but a little way across, but far enough for me, for I saw the fellows running along the bank from the end of the bridge, blowing on their matches and bidding me stop. Now that was not a likely thing for me to do, being, praise the Lord! in my sober senses.
But when I got to the other shore, and set my horse to climb the steep (which was by a mill on the waterside), I was somewhat dashed to find one sitting quiet on his horse, within ten paces of me, with his fingers on his sword and his pistol bended in his hand.
I apprehended in a moment that this must be James Mure the younger of Auchendrayne, and I thought that I was as good as dead. Yet I held up my hand and cried, 'Herald!' and 'Safe-Conduct!' Though I knew that with such men as the Mures I might just as well and usefully have cried 'Bubbly Jock!' or 'Pigeon Pie!'
The young man in war-gear who sat his horse above me, did not move nor lift his weapon to fire.
'Tell me,' he said calmly, 'who may you be that cries "Safe-Conduct!" and "Herald!" on the lands of Kerse?'
I answered him that I was Launcelot Kennedy—and to effectuate something with him I added 'of Kirrieoch.' For I thought it was unlikely that he would know the hill country well enough to remember that my father was still alive. Which I take to have been an innocent enough deception, in that it hurt no one.
And in this I was right, for he answered at once,—
'I am David Crauford the younger of Kerse, but what said you of safe-conducts?'