“ It was indeed a picked day for a grim fight to the death.
At the head of all Gilbert Kennedy rode, behind him the Wolf his brother, and the Laird of Auchendrayne wearing a long cloak, for it was a stormy day and he no longer a young man like the others. Then it was that my heart rose against the fighting, and I had no such gladness in it as was usual with me, all for the sake of young Bargany, whom I loved. Yet as soon as I set eyes upon John Mure of Auchendrayne, I felt the iron grow in my veins and the hot anger mount to my head. ”

“ FIGHTING THE BEASTS
Having shut and locked the armoury door behind me, I stood a great while very still on the steps in the black shadow; for nothing could I see, though I looked till my eyes ached. So I set out with my sword bare in my hand, and my left hand hafting an easily-drawn dagger. I declare if I had only known for certain that the thing which troubled the house was naught but flesh and blood, I had not cared the tickling of a Flemish poulet. For I was growing to rejoice in adventure, believing that my own luck was to win through in safety whatever might befall to others. ”

“ For I think that which touches us most in the grief of a widow, is not our feeling for a particular woman, but our obligation to the mother of all flesh.
So when Meg Dalrymple lifted her son's head, it might have been a mourning queen with a dead kingling upon her knee.
'My ain, my ain lad!' she cried. 'See, lammie, but I loved ye. Ye were the widow's ae son. Fleeter-footed than the mountain roe, mair gleg than the falcon that sits yonder on the King's wrist, ye were the hope o' thy mither's life. ”

“ But ere the men could carry out the orders of the Earl, the broad-breeched man who had accompanied Auchendrayne, and who had all the while stood still and watchful, dropped his plaid, which like a mask he had held beneath his eyes. He was a middle-sized, fleshy man, with no great dignity of face, and with a weak mouth that dribbled perpetually at the side as if the tongue were too large for it. He wore a slashed doublet very full at the sleeves, baggy trunks, and a sword in a plain scabbard hanging at his side. ”

“ Like one risen from the dead, the old man looked up at the tower which was now beginning to show black against the dulling red glow of the dying fire.
'Thou tower of Ardstinchar,' he cried, lifting up a voice like the wind whistling through scrannel pipes, 'they have burned you that erstwhile burned me. Curse me Cassillis and the Lords of it! Curse me all that cleave to it, for their tender mercies are cruel. I, Allan Stewart, sometime Abbot of Crossraguel, lay my curse bitterly upon them for the cruel burning they gave me before their fire in the Black Vault of Dunure. ”

“ The earth be kind to your body, sweet. The heavens receive your soul with honour, and the angels that warred with Satan and vanquished him, stand up at your entrance to give you room!'
She smoothed the cloth upon the face with mighty love in the caressing of her finger tips.
'Good-night, dear love,' she said, lifting it for the last time and kissing his brow. 'It is sweet, even thus in death, to tell thee that I love thee!'
Then, when Marjorie had done bidding her love farewell, we lifted the crossed spears, and setting them again on the shoulders of men, we carried Gilbert of Bargany away. ”

“ For Marget Kennedy, his eldest daughter, was married to the young Laird, the Sheriff's son, and abode at the castle of Lochnaw. Now in these days the air of Galloway, brisk yet kindly, suited my master better than the sea winds which were ever blowing about Culzean. And what was more to him than all Galloway was not so torn by feuds as Carrick and Kyle. And a man held not his life ever in the palm of his hand, as a tavern drawer does an unsteady cup which at any moment may be spilled. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Waeheartedly enough we left the little white housie behind us, sitting blythsome on its brae above the white stones of the burn. And in my imagination to this very day, whenever I am away from the Minnoch for long, rises a clear picture of the water-side as we saw it that morning—a wide valley filled to the brim with sunshine and the stir of breathing airs, the whaups and peesweeps beginning to build, and keeping up all the time above our heads a brave welter of crying and the whistle of eddying wings.
'I wonder not that sometimes you grow homesick,' said Nell Kennedy. ”

“ When first we saw it the grey battlements looked pleasantly enough out of the greenery, basking as peacefully in the sun as though they had risen over the abode of some hermit or saint. We saw nought of the customary stir and bustle of an habited house about the mansion of Auchendrayne. None ran to the office houses. None carried bundle nor drove cattle about the home parks. It was a peace like that of a Sabbath day. 'A black devil's Sabbath!' said the Dominie, grimly. ”

“ And to him Bargany replied,—
'But, Lochnaw, ye know well that ye have no warrant thus to shut up the Earl of Cassillis, immuring your lawful feudal superior and defying ancient custom.'
Then spake the red-bearded Laird of Garthland.
'If it come to that, we are bound to you and not to the Earl, Gilbert Kennedy. Ye are bound to maintain us in our rights! Am I to lose my auld and kindly office and possession, which I have held in direct line from Uchtred, Lord of Galloway? Of a truth, no, Bargany! Ye are of a conscience overtrue for work of this kind. ”

“ I who stand here, in the presence of these dead men of my folk, charge the Kennedies of the North with the blood of my kin, the spoiling of my vassals, and the heart-breaking of my father. In the name of God I swear! If I stay my hand and make not an end, the God of Battles do so to me, and more also!'
Gilbert Kennedy kissed the book which he gripped in his left hand, and then with sudden gesture of hatred he flung down the sword which he had held aloft in his right. ”

“ For after the corner is turned and the long lane leads straight to the garden of roses, a woman cares not whether a man be clothed in dishclouts or whether he glitters like a bridegroom in cloth of gold.
So when I came near to the house there issued forth to meet me Kate Allison, which seemed to me like ancient days come back, and my heart beat in a fashion I never thought to feel again. For a burnt stick is easily lighted, and Kate Allison was, without doubt, both bonny and kind. She was waiting for me at the corner of the barn like one that has an assignation. ”

“ I stood in the doorway with my sword and dagger in hand, and as soon as I felt one come against the point of my blade, I let him have it with all my might, for it was not a time for half-measures. Then, though I heard the answering cry of wounding, there was no time for further action, for something came at me with a rush like a wild beast of the wood, and the snarl of the springing heather cat. Now there are many things that a lad of eighteen or nineteen may do—things of worth and daring—but he cannot stand against the weight of a strong and well-grown man when he leaps upon him. ”

“ In a moment more they were amongst us—Bargany himself first of all, with Cloncaird and James and Andro Bannatyne, and behind them, with his sword bare, Auchendrayne himself. Yet I opine he came not willingly, but that his horse, unaccustomed to noise, ran away with him. By what freak of madness they resolved thus to charge, as it had been an army in position, it is beyond me to tell. In a moment these five were in the midst of the slicing steel and the flame of ordnance—the snow-flakes driving in their eyes and their swords cutting a way through the white drift to reach the foe. ”

“ The Earl, who, to do him justice, was no coward as to his own skin, went hither and thither between Cassillis and Maybole, and even south to Auchneil, riding freely as though he had been within his own borders all the time. And the traps that were laid for him by Auchendrayne and Thomas of Drummurchie, the Laird of Bargany's barbarous brother, were too many to be told. Yet for the sake of the new alliance, such as it was, Culzean meddled not at all with the matter, though doubtless it was a source of infinite bitterness of spirit to him. ”

“ So 'Launcelot of the Spurs' I am called, or sometimes, by those who would taunt me, 'Launcelot Spurheel.' But for all that I come of a decent muirland house, the Kennedies of Kirrieoch, who were ever lovers of the Cassillis blue and gold—which are the royal colours of France, in memory of the ancient alliance—and ever haters of the red and white of Bargany, which we hold no better than butchers' colours, bloody and desolate. ”

“ There has been a waesome slaughter o' your folk—ten o' them are dead—'
'Is the sow flitted?' cried Crauford, louder than ever. 'Can you no answer, yea or nay?'
'Oh, Kerse, hear me and weep; your braw and bonny son Jock, the flower of Kyle, is stricken through the heart, and lies cauld and dead on the ground.'
'Scoundrel, dolt, yammering calf, answer or die. Is the sow flitted?' The patriarch stood up on his feet, fiercely threatening the messenger with his staff.
'The sow is flitted,' cried the man. That and no more. ”

“ I am not averse from fighting, but I own it is the riding out in array that I chiefly love.
What a heartsome sight it was when we turned our faces towards Cassillis Yett, and saw the companies of Kennedies come riding and running over every green knoll—long, upright men of the South who had started the night before from far Minnochside and Auchneil, shoulder-bent shoremen who came over the edge of Brown Carrick, pikemen, spearmen, and hackbuttmen, together with a multitude of limber, pranksome lads with only a leathern jacket and a whinger. ”

“ My father and I went cannily down by the riverside, and as soon as we turned Hew-the-Friar's corner, we saw all the noble tower of Ardstinchar flaming to the skies—every window belching fire, and the sparks fleeing upward as before a mighty wind, though it was a stirless night with a moon and stars floating serenely above.
Down by the waterside and straight before us we saw a post of men, and we heard them clank their war-gear as they marched from side to side and looked ever up at the castle on its steep, spitting like a furnace, flaming like a torch. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Besides, who in Carrick would harm a maid going homeward from her love-tryst?'
The Dominie rose and walked away to the other side of the Rock of Ailsa, where for long he sat by himself and fingered the necklace of beads. His face was fixed, as if he were making of the rosary a very catena of hate, a receptacle of dark imaginings and vengeful vows. Scarcely could I recognise my quaint and friendly Dominie.
It was that night, as the blackness grew grey towards the morn, that I yielded my watch upon the roof of the little Castle of Ailsa to the Dominie. ”

“ For me, I am but a useless old man, past the labour of fighting. Yea, I know it was your own lance that put me there. But I bear no malice, it was the fortune of war. You know me better than to suppose that John Mure bears a grudge for that shrewd thrust you dealt me on the day of the quenching of our hopes in blood by the gate of Maybole.'
I bowed and thanked him for his courteous words. ”

“ Then the Laird's wicked brother, Thomas, called the Wolf of Drummurchie, came forward, hatred fairly sparkling in his eyes, and his teeth set in a girn of devil's anger.
'I swear,' he cried, 'to harry John of Cassillis, the enemy that has wrought us this woe, with fire and sword—to cut off him and his with dagger and spear, to light the thack and to lift the cattle. I will be an outlaw, a prey for the hunters for their sake. ”

“ We are not mates born for smooth things. Sorrow is our dower and suffering our weird, and the pity of it is that we must dree it apart. I think we are both "fey" to-night,' she said, breaking off with a change of tone. 'We had best go within.'
'Within?' said Bargany, scornfully, for he bethought him that he could never enter the house of Culzean as a friend.
'Now, Gilbert,' said Marjorie, 'be a man and forgive. Be a man also to Isobel Stewart, that she may know you a truer man than she has ever met in King's courts—ay, truer and nobler, as I think you, than the King himself. ”

“ Lie you there that wert the noblest man the sun shone on, of adversaries the most fearless, of enemies the most chivalrous, of friends the truest, of loves the sweetest—lie you there. Those that hated you were many. But there was one that loved you—ay, and loves you, and ever shall love you! Lie you there, heart that never feared aught but God and dishonour and a lie—heart that never took favour from man nor refused one to woman. ”

“ Now there was no mistaking but that we came home with our fingers in our mouths, and the countryside jeers at us of Cassillis and Culzean were many as the leaves of the summer trees. Nor could I win belief that I had been, by command of the Earl, at the house of Kerse along with the Minister, instead of on the green inch of Dalrymple by Skeldon haughs. For, believe it who will, there are many right willing to have a catch at me; though, God knows, I had never gone out of my way to put a slight upon any man, nor yet thought more highly of myself than I ought to think. ”

“ It was John Mure who was speaking, for his son was but a lout, and had little to say all the days of him. He waved his hand to the steps, by the door of Culzean, whereon there stood Marjorie Kennedy, with her arm on Nell's shoulder, both being pale as death, and seeming more dowie and sad than I had ever seen them look before.
'It is to be the burying of strife,' cried Auchendrayne; 'in this loving cup I drink it. The day of our love is at the dawning, and the auguries of the time to come are of the happiest. ”

“ It was the morn of the execution. Justice, delayed for long, was that day to let fall its sword. We of the Cassillis colours mustered in the dead of the night, for there was no force save the City Guard within the walls. And we had recently had overly many proofs how little these men could do with the unruly commons of Edinburgh if it pleased them to be turbulent. So it had come to be bruited abroad, that there was an intent to prevent the execution and deliver the murderers out of the hands of justice. ”