The Grey Man

by S. R. Crockett

Then there was a pause for parley. Of this I will not write at length, because it was for the most part but rudeness and dirtiness that were bandied about and between—each party miscalling the other for greater thieves and worse murderers than their neighbours. Even in this I do not think we had the worst of it, for John Dick (whose finger-stump was well healed) spat out oaths as if for a wager. And Muckle Hugh miscalled the Craufords in a voice like thunder, as though they had been dogs that would not run aright upon the hillsides of Kirriemore, in that dear land which looks towards Galloway.

Now, I cannot say that I was keen of this particular quarrel. For though there was some pleasure in making a figure in the great hall at Kerse, I foresaw but a brawling of clowns and the splattering of confused fighting without honour or chivalry, in this affair of swine and blundering melées. Yet, because I was there in the place of my knight, I could do no more than just bear the brunt and abide.

Presently the Craufords came on with their horsemen first and the pikemen behind. But the mounted men came not far, for the bog laired their horses, and they sank deeper and deeper at every step. Then the footmen came between them and charged up to our foremost lines, so that we were hand-to-hand and hard at it in a trice. It was not, however, the work of many minutes to gar them turn about and run, for our front was solid and broad, while the hackbutt shooters had fine rests for their guns, so that on a still day they could bring a man down at thirty yards or more. A good many Craufords were already splattering like wounded waterfowl in the moss which protected our front.

After this we had time to look across the Doon Water, from which there was a crying. And lo! there on the bank stood our late guest, Maister Robert Bruce, the Minister of Edinburgh.

But our Earl was now too hot to think of courtesy, so he bade the minister stop where he was, or come over and take a pike by the end; and this greeting made me sorry, for he was a grand-looking man, with his long black cloak and his noble black horse, which, they say, had once been the King's own charger.

So I took the great risk of drawing the Earl aside, and urged upon him that he should call a parley and see what the Minister wanted. This, very reluctantly, he did, and we could hear Master Bruce speaking from over the Doon Water clearly, as if he had been in his own pulpit.

'In the King's name I bid you cease,' he cried; 'and in God's name I debar and forbid you. If ye persist, I shall deliver you to Satan, so that ye may learn that it is dangerous to despise authority.

'Hoot toot, Maister Bruce, the days of curses are by with,' said the Earl, 'and, besides, the most of us have ta'en a heap of risks afore noo. We can e'en afford to take another.'

'I wish to speak,' said the Minister, 'with Crauford of Kerse.'

'Then gang farther up the waterside and gie a cry. There's nae Craufords here except dead anes!' said the Earl, who had his daft coat on him that day, so that we feared he had been bewitched.