Читать книгу: «The Grey Man», страница 6

There was now a full muster of Craufords in the courtyard – a hundred of them, I should say, at least. But no murmur arose among them as, helped by a groom, I mounted and moved slowly through the throng, having saluted David the younger and his brothers with my hand.

Then, as I rode through the gateway, the feet of Dom Nicholas clattering on the stones, I was aware of a troop of twelve that followed me, all well-accoutred men riding in order. And I knew the author of that guard. It was David, who had resolved to see me safe across Dalrymple bridge, and so gave me the attendance of a prince.

Then knew I how excellent a thing it is to have to do in peace or war with gentlemen. For to do them justice, the Craufords of Kerse were neither landloupers nor ambuscaders.

CHAPTER X
SIR THOMAS OF THE TOP-KNOT

My guard of honour did not leave me till I was within sight of the towers of Cassillis, when David Crauford and his men parted from me with silent salute. Nor had the dyke-back hiding gentry so much as ventured to show their faces. So I rode down to Cassillis yett, a well-kenned place and famous in story. Down a smooth, green mead I rode to it. At the gate the porter, a surly rogue, bade me stand.

'Stand thou, hang thee, pock-faced varlet!' I cried; 'haste thee and up with the gates, or thine ass's ears shall answer for it, nailed incontinent to a post!'

Whereupon, seeing him wondering and still wavering, I drew off my glove and flashed the Earl's broad signet ring at him. I declare he laid hold of the pulley like one demented.

'I trust, noble sir, that ye will not mention the matter of my hasty greeting to my lord,' he said to me as I passed, for the rascal was shaking in every limb.

'Let it learn you to be better scraped as to the tongue for the time to come,' I answered sharply, for I was none sorry once for all to read the villain a lesson. There is nothing better than a man who worthily and for his office's sake magnifies his office, but there is nothing more scunnering than that a menial knave, in pride of place, should beard his betters.

In the hall of Cassillis, while I waited for my lord, I met the old man of strange aspect, who had been with us upon the Red Moss. He was dressed in a long, lank robe like a soutane, and he carried a book with him, very filthy and tattered. In this he read, or pretended to read, by whiles, muttering and mumbling the words over to himself.

Seeing me stand alone, he came over and began to speak to me about matters that I knew not of – something that concerned the Black Vault of Dunure, so I understood him to say.

But his appearance as he talked caused me to laugh, though, being an old man, I did not let him see it. His head appeared as bald all about as is a hen's egg. But on the very crown there was an oval place of a hand's breadth or thereby, from which dropped a crest of yellow-white hair, very laughable and ludicrous. For as the old man talked the silly cockscomb on his crown waggled, and being toothless his jaw waggled also. So that the nut-cracker jaw underneath and the waggling plume aloft might well have made a cat laugh.

'I am Sir Thomas Tode,' he mumbled, when I began to get a little familiar with his shambling speech – 'ay me, Sir Thomas Tode' (he pronounced the word as though it had been the name of the foul beast that squats on its belly), 'the famous Sir Thomas Tode am I. Ay, dear mother Mary – I mean Christian friends, but a feck of life it has been my lot to see.'

I thought within me what a strange old scare-the-crows this was, to have the name and style of knighthood. So I asked him what were his ancestral possessions.

'I am only poor Sir Thomas Tode, chaplain to two mighty Earls,' he said, shaking his head and waggling his top-knot, till he looked more like the father of all the apes that ever were, than a sober cleric.

'Even so,' he went on, 'I was bred to Holy Church – I mean brought up in ignorance, to serve the Whore that sitteth on the Seven Hills. I was chaplain to the old Lord Gilbert, the father of the Earl John that is. Ah, many a time did I shrive him soundly, and none needed it more. Faith, but he was a ripe, crusted old sinner – '

And Sir Thomas Tode chuckled a senile laugh at his memories of the bygone wickednesses of the great.

'Faith, I doubt shrewdly that he fries for it now. For in these days there are no prayers to hoist men out of purgatory by the telling down of the good broad bonnet pieces – more's the pity for poor honest churchmen! Ah me, the times that were! The times that were!'

The old man paused a moment to think the matter over, and then very visibly his mind went wandering after some greater and yet choicer wickedness which he might retail to me.

'Have you ever heard,' he said at last, 'of the roasting of the Abbot of Crossraguel? Man, I was there – yes, I was there – Tom Tode was there, and turned him on the iron brander till I burned my fingers!'

And the ancient rascal beat merrily on the floor with his stick and charked together his toothless gums.

'Now sit ye down, and I shall tell you all that took place in the Black Vaut of Dunure – '

Just then I saw a sonsy, red-faced woman, ample of bosom and with many plies of wylicoats pleated and gathered about her, rise from the black stair head – even as Dominie Mure fables that Venus (a heathen goddess, but one of whose ongoings I own it diverts me greatly to hear) did from the sea. With three strides she came across the hall and caught Sir Thomas Tode by the shock of yellow-white hair on his crown.

'Be you at it again?' she cried. 'I will give you your fill of the Black Vaut of Dunure, doddering old bletherer that ye are. Who is to turn my spit, I would have you tell me, gin you waste your time yammering to wanchancy lazybones of the Black Vaut of Dunure? "Black Vaut of Dunure" indeed! You have told your lies till I declare you grow to believe them yourself!'

So without a word of protest from the knightly lips of Sir Thomas Tode, he was led below, his head nodding and bowing as his captor shook the yellow top-knot.

After the pair were gone, I laughed both loud and long, so that they had to fetch me nigh on a gallon of strong ale to recover me of my access of mirth, and prepare me for the presence of the Earl.

And right certainly did I vow within my heart, that it would not be long before I renewed acquaintance with Sir Thomas and his tyrant, for it seemed a strange and merry thing to sec an Earl's chaplain so used. It was, indeed, many a day since I had seen such sport.

At last I was led in to the Earl. He sat in a rich dressing-robe, flowered with gold, and a leather-bound book with knobs and studs of brass lay open beside him. It was the account book of his estates and overlordships.

'What was that loud mirth I heard a moment since?' he asked, for the Earl John did not seem to be in the best of tempers. Indeed he was said never to be canny to come near, when he was in the same house as his wife, a thing passing strange and but not wholly without precedent.

I answered that I laughed at a good story of Sir Thomas Tode, his private chaplain.

'My what!' he cried. 'Oh, ye mean old Tode of the Top-knot! Was his story about the Black Vault of Dunure?'

And without stopping for an answer he went on with one of his proverbs, just as though he had not sent me on an errand, and that in peril of my life. I never met a young man so broadened on wiseacre saws and proverbs in my life. It was clean ridiculous, though well enough in a gap-toothed grandfather, no doubt.

'The loud laughter of the idle gathereth no gear,' said Earl John.

'No,' replied I, 'but since it cheers the heart, it costs less than your good strong ale.'

'Ay, but,' he said, breaking in and looking pleased, 'but you have had some deal of that too. I can smell it.'

Then he looked briskly up, as if delighted with himself for his penetration, and catching me with my hand held guiltily before my mouth, he smiled.

'Well,' he said, 'can you not come to the point – why stand so long agape? What of your mission?'

So, being nothing loath, I told him the whole matter, much as I have related it in this place. And though at the beginning he sat calmly enough to listen, long before I had finished he was striding up and down the room gripping at his thigh, where for common he wore his sword – for, after all, Earl John was a true Cassillis, and neither craven nor hen-hearted.

'And they roared upon you, standing still. Nay, you did well! I wish it had been I! Man, I will give you the horse you rode upon, and all the caparison. I declare I will!'

For which I thanked him in words; but in my heart I said, 'It is an easy present to give that which is your uncle's, and hath indeed been mine for weeks.'

Then he seemed to remember, for he said, 'But give me back my signet. Ye have done well, and on Lammas day ye shall do better. Will ye take a ring or a sword for a keepsake?'

A moment only I divided my mind. A ring, if good, would indeed buy many swords. But Cassillis was not the man to give a ring of price. Contrariwise a sword was a thing that all men had good skill of, and for very shame's sake a good sword would he give.

'I crave a sword,' said I, briefly.

'Ye have chosen like a soldier. I shall not grudge you the wale of swords,' the Earl made reply, smiling upon me, well pleased.

So with that he went out into the armoury, and came back with the noblest sword I had ever seen. Blade, hilt, and scabbard were all inlaid with scrolled Damascus work of gold, thin limned and delicate – I never saw the like. And my blood leaped within me – I declare to my shame, nigh as hotly as it did when Marjorie Kennedy kissed me on the brow in the arbour of the pleasaunce at the house of Culzean.

'Buckle it on, and take it with you,' said the Earl, 'lest looking long upon it my heart should smite me, and I want it back again.'

So I thanked him and presently was gone without great ceremony, lest, indeed, it should be so.

'Stay the night at Cassillis,' he cried after me. 'I have a letter to send to my eame the Tutor in the morning.'

CHAPTER XI
SWORD AND SPIT

The house of Cassillis is not a great place for size, to be so famous. But the Earl has many castles, to which he goes oftentimes – specially to the grand house of the new style which he is building at the Inch, and from which he means to assert his overlordship of the Lairds of Galloway, which, as I see it, is likely to breed him trouble – more than if he had stayed here at home and flairdied his old gammer mistress into good humour.

So, leaving his presence, I went to see that Dom Nicholas had the best of food and bedding, passing through the grooms and men-at-arms in the bravery of my Damascus sword, walking carelessly as though I wore suchlike every day – a thing I liked well to do. I also made them change the straw for better, though, indeed, there was little to find fault with. But it is always best when one goes first into the stables of the great to speak loud, to cry, 'Here, sirrah, what means this?' And then order fresh bedding to be brought, and that instantly. Thus I made myself respected, and so walked out, while the grooms bowed, pulling the while at my moustache and pressing upon the hilt of my sword, so that the point stood out at the proper angle behind with my cloak a-droop over it, as I have said.

Then, on my way back to the house, I must needs pass – or so I made it appear – through the kitchens, where I found my tyrant Venus-of-the-fiery-face in the act of cooking the supper.

Seeing me lean against the baking board, dressed so cap-à-pie, she came and brushed me a place to sit upon. Then she asked, 'Would I be pleased to drink a cup of sack – rare and old?'

So, seeing her set on it, I denied her not; but sat down, unbuckling my weapon for ease's sake, and throwing it down with clank of blade and jingle of buckle on the clear-scoured boards of the great deal table in the midst. The Lord forgive me for caring so mightily about these things and so little for going to church! Some good day, doubtless, I shall change about. And in the meanwhile, what would you?

Were you that chance to read never eighteen and thought you not well of yourself, having a new sword? If not, the Lord pity you. It is little ye ken.

But all the while I longed to hear more of Sir Thomas Tode, and if it might be, to see him. So I asked of the lady of the pans where her husband was.

She set her thumb over her shoulder, pointing to a narrow door as of an aumrie or wall press.

'He is in there,' she said shortly.

'And what else is there in there?' said I, laughing, for what was I the wiser?

'Half a bullock is in there,' she said, laughing also. 'That is the meat-cupboard. It is fine and caller, and he is not troubled with flies upon his miserable bald head.'

'The meat-safe,' cried I, much astonished; 'and what does a reverend chaplain and a knight in the meat-safe?'

'The old dotard will not quit his maundering about the Black Vaut of Dunure to every one that comes near. He got hold of a silly chapman in the yard that came with fish from Ayr, and I declare he must sit down and prate by the hour of the Black Vaut of Dunure. So I shut him up in the meat-safe. Faith, I will give him Black Vaut of Dunure ere I have done with him. The Black Vaut of Cassillis and the company of the dinner roast will set him better.'

'And what says my lord to your using his chaplain so?'

The lady gazed at me a moment in a kind of wilderment. Then she broke into the vulgar speech of the country, which, because I learned to write English as those at the Queen's Court do, I have used but seldom in this chronicle – though, of course, not for lack of knowledge.

'Sain me,' she said, 'this may be a queer, uncanny world, but it is surely no come to that o't yet, that a wife mauna check and chastise her ain man. Guid Lord, no – life wadna be worth leevin' – see till this – ' she said.

And taking a key from her pocket she rapidly unlocked the door of the meat-closet.

Sir Thomas was discovered sitting most forlornly within, upon the corner of a great chest, with many pieces of meat depending from hooks about his head. His wife, reaching in from the step, took him by the top-knot of hair as by a handle, and pulled him out upon the floor of the kitchen with one movement of her arm.

'It's a guid's mercy,' she cried, 'that yince ye war a papish monk wi' a shaven crown, for the place that ye keepit bare sae lang has ripened late, after a' the lave o' the crap has been blawn awa' wi' the wind.'

I had been endeavouring to explain to myself the strangeness of the wisp upon Sir Thomas's head, but the words of his wife made clear the matter. It was but the retarded growth of his long fallow tonsure.

'An' it's a de'il o' a queer thing,' said Mistress Tode, 'that turning your coat ootside in should turn your hair inside oot! Heard ye ever the mak' o' that?'

'It was all owing to – ' began Sir Thomas Tode, looking at his wife with a cringing shamefacedness that was most entertaining.

'Oh, I ken,' interrupted his wife, 'it was owing to the Black Vaut o' Dunure, nae doot! I declare I canna haud ye aff it. I jaloose that it maun hae been owing to the Black Vaut o' Dunure that Mary Greg, a decent cook woman and a deacon in her trade, took up wi' the likes o' you – that mak's yoursel' nae better than a mountibank wi' your yammer-yammering like a corn-crake aboot black vauts and roasted abbots. Fegs, I declare I could roast ye yoursel'. Ye are that muckle thocht and care to me, but ye wadna pay for the trouble. Even the Earl himsel' couldna mak' a profit oot o' you – an' a' folk kens that he wad drive a flea to London market for the sake o' the horns and hide!'

'Wheesht, wheesht, honest woman!' said Sir Thomas Tode, 'wha kens wha may be listenin' – maybe the Countess her very sel'.'

'Faith, an' I carena,' cried the brave cook, tossing her head, 'she is a backstairs body at ony gate, but she canna fear me – na, brawly no'. I ken ower muckle. I ken things the Earl doesna ken. Certes an' serve him richt – a young man like him – but three-an'-twenty, to mairry his grandmither. Though guid kens Mary Greg is no the woman to speak, that mairried nocht better than an auld skeleton hung on strings – for nae sounder reason than that it is the custom for the cook in a decent big hoose to tak' up wi' the chaplain.'

The kitchen began to fill, and I bethought me that I should be going; for it was not seemly that a gentleman and a squire should collogue overly long with all the orra serving-men and women in a great house. But before I could lift my sword and depart, there came in a dark, burly man with a sharp-cleft eagle's face on him, his eyes very close together, and a contemptuous sneer that was liker a snarl, on his face.

'Good e'en to ye, John Dick,' said the cook. 'Mind ye keep the peace, ye wull-cat, for there are to be no collieshangies in my kitchen!'

A voice called something querulously down the stairs.

'Coming the noo, my leddy,' cried Mrs Tode, the cook of Cassillis, 'I am juist pittin' on the pot – '

And she vanished up the stair.

As soon as she was gone, Sir Thomas appeared to wake up from a dream. He looked eagerly around him.

'She will no be back for a while,' he said. 'I might have a chance. I maun tell you of the roasting of the abbot. Man, I saw it – I was there. I held him on the ribs o' the grate. I set him on the brander, and poured the oil on him that he might be roasted in sop. Oh, man, ye think I am a fool. Ever since that day, never hae I been alone without seeing the face o' him, crying out for them to ding whingers into him, or blaw him up wi' powder to ease him – the auld Earl girnin' at him like a wild cat, and hunkering low to watch, with his hands on his knees. Oh, young men, never you put your hand to the torture of man, for it bides with you in the brain – just as, asleep or awake, night or day, I see the Black Vaut o' Dunure!'

'Good life,' cried his wife, entering briskly at the moment, 'is it possible that the auld fule is at it again? The very de'il's in the craitur. He thinks that he was at the roastin' o' a man, whan a' the roastin' he has done in his life has been turnin' the spit in this decent hoose o' Cassillis. Come awa', ye doitered auld loon, what did I tell ye the last time? – Into the keepin' chamber wi' you!'

And she caught him by the top lock to lead him away once more. But I pled for him, saying that I had never heard of his fantasy, and had indeed encouraged him to begin.

The tall man who had been called John Dick, the fellow of the hateful countenance, in whose eyes there was the insolence of challenge, at this point stalked up to the table on which my sword still lay. He took it in his hand with a contemptuous air, examined the Damascus work of fine gold, and was about to draw the blade from its sheath.

'That sword is mine,' said I, scarcely looking at the fellow, 'and does not leave its scabbard save when I draw it.'

'And then,' quoth he, with a bitter sneer, 'I opine it will not do much damage. 'Tis but a bairn's plaik at any rate! And in fit hands!'

'It may be that you would like to try, sirrah,' said I, slipping my hip off the table and buckling on my sword with one movement.

'Very willingly,' said he of the sneer. 'Come out to the green.'

But before I could move to end the matter, there arose from the corner, where he had been lying on an oaken settle, a tall, slender lad of foreign aspect and distinction. He had on him a green suit like the Royal hunting liveries. A long, plain sword in a black leather scabbard swung by his side.

'Launcelot Kennedy of Kirrieoch,' he said, bowing to me, 'I am Robert Harburgh, and though for the time being I serve here as little better than a cullion, I am yet of some blood and kindred. Therefore I shall do you no shame. And you, sir,' said he, turning to John Dick, who stood lowering, 'being your equal here, I can serve your turn to cross swords with – and spare this gentleman the discomfort of defiling his sword of honour with such black ignoble blood as yours.'

And with that he whipped out a long, straight sword which glittered in the firelight. John Dick turned up his lip wickedly, so that we saw his teeth, and the black, curly fringe of hair about his face stood out, till his visage was like that of an angry ramping bull of Galloway.

There were only men in the kitchen when the fracas arose, for Mistress Tode had gone to do some errand for the Countess.

'You are surely a stark man,' said John Dick, 'to mell or meddle with me. Ken ye that I have wounded more men with my whinger than I have fingers on my right hand?'

'And how many may that be?' said the young man who had espoused my cause.

'Why, four,' said John Dick, surprised at the question.

'Then in a little while you shall have one less – and that is but three. Guard yourself!'

And there in the red dusk of the kitchen they cleared themselves for fighting, and their blades met with so stern a clash that sparks were driven from the steel. But Harburgh, my young and melancholy Dane, forced the fighting from the first, driving Dick before him round the narrow and enclosed place, countering and attacking with such dexterity and fury as I had never seen, though for years I myself had been a sound swordsman. But such fighting as this I saw not – no, not in the schools which the King has set up in Edinburgh to be used instead of golf and siclike foolish games, which the men of the east country love to play in their idle folly and wantonness.

They had not gone far when my champion, using a snicking undercut I had never seen, severed the little finger of his opponent, at the second joint just where it overlaid the hilt, so that the tip of it fell on the floor. Whereat Sir Thomas Tode lifted it and wrapped it with care in two sheets of clean scrivening paper which he took from his pocket.

But John Dick, who after all was a man, though a crab-grained and ill-conditioned one, only called a halt for a moment and wrapped his wounded finger in a napkin, drawing the cincture close with cord. And he was in the act of continuing the fight, and pressing his adversary for revenge, being resolved to kill him for the affront, when, with a loud outcry, Mistress Tode rushed down the stairs. She seized a huge spit, and with the sharpened end so briskly attacked both the combatants, battering them soundly about their heads, that they were compelled to desist.

And it was most comical to see these fierce and confident fighters drop their swords' points and shield their heads with their hands to ward off the blows of the stick.

'Varlets!' she screamed. 'Briskly I will learn you to fight and tulzie in my kitchen. Out with you,' she cried, giving John Dick the sharpened end of her weapon in his wame, 'out with you, for it was your de'il's temper that began the fray.'

And so, having opened the door, she fairly thrust him out into the night. But she had not time to close it again before one whom none of us had seen came within the circle of red light. He was a man of a dignified countenance, dressed in black, and he held a plain staff, also of black, in his hand. On his head there was a broad hat with a cord about it. Upon his coat he wore no ornament save a broad, black silk collar which lay upon his shoulders, and over that again there fell another collar of fair soft linen, very white and well dressed.

'What means this tumult in the house of Cassillis?' he asked, speaking as one that has authority, and has been accustomed to wield it unquestioned for many years.

Now there was not a man there but longed to ask, 'And who may you be that speers?' But none answered rudely, for the awe that was upon them.

Then at last Robert Harburgh said to him, but courteously, 'Sir, you ask of the tumult. It was a matter that concerns those only that fought upon their own proper quarrel. It concerns neither you nor yet my Lord Cassillis, in whose house ye presently are.'

'Lead me to my lord!' he said, as one who had only to speak that the doors might be opened.

But Robert Harburgh withstood him and would not suffer him to pass.

'Let me see the Earl of Cassillis instantly!' said he.

'The Earl is at supper,' said Robert Harburgh, 'and cannot be disturbed.'

'I will eat with him,' said the stranger, calmly.

Then when some scullion laughed, for of custom those who ate with the Earl of Cassillis entered not by the kitchen door, the unknown made a gesture of extraordinary contempt and yet withal of a marvellous dignity.

'Go, instantly,' he commanded, pointing to the stair door with his finger, 'and tell your master that Robert Bruce, Minister of Edinburgh Town, would see him in the name of the Lord and of His Highness the King of Scots.'

And Robert Harburgh, who had just outflouted John Dick, the ruffler of camps, bowed before him. And as for me I took my bonnet off my own head and saluted, for there was no one of us who had not heard of the famous and well-reputed minister, to whom the King had committed the rule and governance of all the realm during the half-year he was in Denmark busy marrying of his queen.

So with Robert Harburgh leading and myself following, the minister passed up the stair with due attendance, and into the supper chamber where the Earl and Countess took their meal at even, mostly without speech each with the other. And when through the open door I saw the Earl welcome his guest as he would have done the King himself, and especially when I heard their serious and weighty conversation, the thought came to me that it was well that there were men in Scotland able to make religion so to be honoured. Then again I laughed, thinking of the mighty difference that there was between Maister Robert Bruce, Minister of Edinburgh and sometime ruler of Scotland, and poor Sir Thomas Tode, domestic chaplain to the Earl of Cassillis and the well-pecked husband of Mary Greg, his cook.