The Grey Man

by S. R. Crockett

'Na, na,' she said, 'and that's by with. Kate Allison needs no general lovers. Wear you your own lady's favours; I can get them that loe me and none other, to wear mine.'

I pursued the subject no further at that time, meaning, however, to return to it. For a man likes not to see the things which have been freely his slipping from him like corn through a wide-meshed riddle. It makes his mind linger after things long past, and he begins to think them sweeter than any favours that ever he had, even when all the garden was most fully his to wander in and cull at his lordly pleasure.

Too soon for my liking, therefore, we came to the door of the Grieve's house, which was but a wide kitchen with two smaller rooms off it. I heard a voice uplifted as it seemed in prayer, and I bethought me with shame of my so late mean and earthly thoughts; but I looked at Kate Allison, and she was so pleasant to look upon that I found excuses for myself.

Then the prayer being done we went in, and they told the man in the inner room that that same Launcelot Kennedy, for whom he had inquired, was come.

So in a moment there came forth from the inner chamber, even as I had expected, Maister Robert Bruce. He wore his long, black cloak, and his fine, cloth coat showed soberly beneath it. His hat was on his head, which he doffed for a moment to Kate Allison and her mother, and then set on again. He bade them excuse him, for that he had much business to talk with me. I followed him out, and as I passed Kate, methought she looked disappointed that I should go thus soon. So, the corners of her mouth being down, and her mother's back turned, I put my hand beneath her chin, and plucked at the loose slip-knot of her bonnet, which was a pretty quipsome thing that haymakers use, but prettier on her than on any of them. Whereat she flashed forth a great, sharp pin and set it spitefully in my arm, which also was a pleasing habit of hers. But all was innocent and friendly enough, and my only excuse for thinking more of daffing with Kate Allison than of listening to the grave converse of Maister Robert Bruce, is that then I was nearing nineteen years of my age—which, as you all do know, is a time when maids' dimples are more moving than the wisdom of the sages.

That is all mine excuse, and, as well I wot, but a poor one. Yet when once Maister Bruce had me in the wood, taking me by the arm, the majesty of his countenance and the moving fervour of his voice so worked upon me that in good sooth I thought of naught but what he said.

He told me that he was resolved to depart out of this land of Carrick and Kyle, which might have been the Garden of Eden if it were not inhabited by devils. He had come no speed at reconciling the parties at feud, even as I could have told him before he began.

'When I had thought,' he said, 'that I had made some way in softening the heart of Gilbert Kennedy, who vaunts himself to be sincerely attached to me—and I do believe it—I said to him that he ought, for the settling of the quarrel, to give in his submission to his liege lord, the Earl of Cassillis. In a moment comes the fire into his eyes, the anger grows black in his heart, and all my good words are undone. I think you Kennedies are all of you possessed with evil spirits, even as it was in the days of the Gadarene out of whom Christ cast many devils.'

He paused a moment, and then continued,—

'So the name of the devils of Carrick is Legion, for they are very many!'