The Grey Man

by S. R. Crockett

So I got me into an angle of the garden and climbed a wall, which, being grown with ivy, was a good and safe post of vantage. From thence I could overlook the whole enclosure. After a little my eyes became better accustomed to the darkness. The lights from the windows also made a faint glimmering athwart the hedges, and I could distinctly see men darning themselves into their hiding-places, and getting ready their pistols and hackbutts.

Even as I sat there on the wall and froze, a plan came into my head which sent the blood surging through my veins, like the tide scouring the gut of Solway. I remembered that Sir Thomas Kennedy was at no time very active on his legs, and what with the income in his knee and the good wine under his belt, he would assuredly be in no key for running when he issued forth.

Also they were certainly many who lay in wait for him. I counted at least five moving about in the faint light. So I mounted the top of the ivied wall, and slid down the outside, landing heavily on my hinderlands in a ditch. I stole round to the gable door of Nisbett's house, and told the manservant that I had come to see my master, whereupon they permitted me to go up to the room on the first storey, where the guests were already set down at the banquet. I knew well that it was no use speaking to my lord, but I did venture to call out the host, Sir Thomas Nisbett, whose head was stronger and whose heart more readily suspicious than those of the Laird of Culzean.

Him I told how the matter stood, whereupon he wished to speak to the Provost and to call the town officers. But I assured him that these determined assassins in the yard could render an account of the town guard twice told over.

'So,' said I, 'I have this to propose to you in a word. When the time comes for the guests to depart, you will detain my master—and the Provost, too, if you can.'

'Ere I have done with them they will not move far to-night, or my name is not Thomas Nisbett,' said the host, nodding his head, for these were the manners and hospitalities of the time.

'And you will lock them in a secure place till the morning!'

'But,' said Nisbett, 'will not the villains attack my house? If it be as you say, they have assurance for everything.'

I told him that they might very well do that, but that if he gave me a mailed coat with plate sleeves, and also kneecaps of steel, together with my arms and cap, I thought I could make a race for it and carry them all off along with me.

'But, laddie,' he cried, 'ye gang to your death!'