The Grey Man

by S. R. Crockett

'An insult! an insult! an insult in the hall of Kerse. Kill the black Kennedy!' they cried, gnashing on me with their teeth like wild beasts.

I declare I never was happier in my life, knowing that I had made that day a figure which would not be forgotten, and that my bearing among them would be spoken of over all Carrick and Kyle. How I wished that Marjorie Kennedy could have seen me. And I smiled as I thought how little it mattered after this, whether or no Nell Kennedy turned tale-pyet.

'I will take the smile off his black Kennedy's face with a paik of this Lochaber axe!' cried my great lout. But indeed I smiled not at him nor any of his sept, but at the thought of Nell Kennedy.

Then when they had roared themselves out in anger, they became, as I take it, some deal ashamed of the hideous uproar, and of a sudden were silent—as with a stave thrust in the joint and a twist of the wrist one may shut off a noisy mill-lade.

So I got in my last word.

'Thereafter, John, Earl of Cassillis, bids me say that he will leave not one standing stone in the house of Kerse upon another, for the despite and contempt done to him as its overlord.'

Then the loud anger gave place to silent, deadly hate, and it was some time before any could speak. David the younger would have spoken, but his father waved him down, fighting for utterance.

'Hear ye, sir, and bear this message and defiance to your master. He has put a shame on us in this our own house. Tell him that he may bring his swine to Kerse every Lammas day, and fetch with him every swineherd Kennedy from every midden-head betwixt Cassillis and the Inch. There are plenty stout Craufords here in Kyle that can flit them. Ay, though this hand, that was once as the axe-hand of the Bruce, be shrunken now, and though I lean on these bearers of torches because of mine age, tell him that there are twelve stout sons behind me who can render taunt for taunt, blow for blow, to King or Kennedy. And tell him that Crauford of Kerse knows no overlord in earth or heaven—least of all John Kennedy, fifth Earl of Cassillis!'

Then I bowed as one might before some of the glorious pagan gods of whom Dominie Mure has tales to tell. For, indeed, that was an answer worth taking back, and, being a man, I know a man when it is given me to see him. So, with my face to him still, and my bonnet in my hand, I made my way off the dais. There I turned me about, and, as an Earl's spokesman should, set my steel bonnet on my head to go out alone through the crowded hall.

But the old man stayed me.