The Grey Man

'My Willie, my ain son Willie!' she cried. For it was Meg Dalrymple. All her ignorant rudeness seemed to fade away in the presence of death, and as she lifted the poor mishandled head that had been her son's, each of us felt that she grew akin to our own mothers, widowed and bereaved. 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. And they hae slain ye, killed my bonny wean, that never did harm to nae man – '

She undid a kerchief from about the white, swollen neck of her son.

'Kens ony man that image and superscription?' said she, pointing to an embroidered crest upon it. John Mure strode forward hastily. He had grown as pale as death.

'Give it me. I will pass it to His Majesty,' he said, holding out his hand for it.

But the woman leaped up fiercely.

'Na,' she said; 'the butcher kens his knife; but he would only hide it in the day of trial. I will give it to my ain well-kenned lord.'

And she put the napkin into the hands of the Earl of Cassillis, who looked at it with the most minute attention.

'This kerchief,' said the Earl, gravely, 'has the crest and motto of John Mure of Auchendrayne.'

The King looked staggered and bewildered.

'Let all dismount till we try further of this thing,' he said.

But John Mure would have had him go on, saying that it was yet more of the plot. But the King would not now hearken to him; for he was an obstinate man, and oftentime he would listen to no reason, though his ear was ever open enough to flattery. Besides, he thought himself to be the wisest man in all the islands and kingdoms of the world – wiser, even, than Solomon the son of David.

So His Majesty commanded his inclination, and went up to the body. There was also a rope around the neck with a long end, which was embedded in the sand. With his own hand the King drew this out.

He held it up.

'Kens any man this length of rope?' he asked, looking about.

Now, one strand of sea-cordage is like another as two peas; but this was our Solomon's way of judging – to find out the insignificant, and then pretend that it told him a mighty deal.

Yet it so happened that there was a man there from out of the shoreside of Girvan. He was a coastwise sailor, and he took the rope in his hand.

'This rope,' he said, turning it about every way, 'is Irish made, and has been used to tie bundles of neat hides.'

'And who,' again asked the King – shrewdly, as I do admit, 'who upon this coast trades with Ireland in the commodity of neat hides?'

'There are but myself and James Bannatyne of Chapeldonnan,' replied the man, honestly and promptly.

'And this is not your rope?' said the King.

'Nay,' said the man, 'I would not buy a pennyworth of Irish hemp so long as I could twine the hemp of Scotland – no, not even to hang an Irishman would I do it. This is James Bannatyne's rope!'

Then said the King, 'Bring hither James of Chapeldonnan!'

And they brought him. He stood forth, much feared indeed, but taking the matter dourly, like the burly ruffian he was. Nevertheless when put to the question he denied the rope, and that in spite of all threats of torture. Yet I could see that the King was greatly shaken in his opinion, and knew not what to think. For when John Mure drew near to touch his arm and as before say somewhat in his private ear, the King drew hastily away and looked at Auchendrayne's hand as though there had been pollution upon it. So I knew that his opinion was wavering. Also the poor body in the mother's arms daunted him.

Suddenly he clapped his hands together and became exceedingly joyous and alert.

'I have it,' he cried, 'the ordeal of touch. It is God's ordinary and manifest way of vindicating His justice. Here is the dead body of the slain. Here are all the accused and the accusers. Let it be equally done. Let all touch the body, for the revealing of the secrets of the hearts of wicked men.'

Then John Mure laughed and scoffed, saying that it was but a freit, a foolish opinion, an old wives' fable.

But for all his quirksome guile he had gotten this time very mightily on the wrong side of the King. For His Majesty was just mad with belief in such things as omens and miracles of God's providence. So the King shook him off and said, 'It is my royal will, that all who are tainted with the matter shall immediately touch or be held guilty.'

And the saying comforted King James, being, as it were, easily pleased with his own words and plaiks.

So they brought us forward from among the crowd bound as we were, and first of all I touched fearlessly the poor dead body of the lad. Yet it was with some strange feeling, though I knew well that I was wholly innocent. But yet I could not forget that something untoward might happen, and then good-bye to this fair world and all the pleasant stir of life within it.

Then after me the Dominie touched – even Marjorie and Nell doing it with set faces and strange eyes.

It was now the turns of the real murderers, and my heart beat little and fast to see what should happen.

'Let Auchendrayne the younger touch first, being the more directly accused!' cried the King.

But James Mure seemed to flame out suddenly distract, like a madman being taken to Bethlem. He cried out, 'No, no, I will not touch. I declare that I will not go near him!'

And when John Mure strove to persuade him to it, he struck at him fiercely with his open hand, leaving the stead of his fingers dead white upon his father's cheek. And when they took his arm and would have forced him to it, he threw himself down headlong in the sand, foaming and crying, 'I will not touch for blood! I will not touch for blood!'

But in spite of his struggling they carried him to where the body lay. And, all men standing back, they thrust his bare hand sharply upon the neck where the rope had been.

And, it is true as Scripture, I that write declare (though I cannot explain) it, out from the open mouth of the lad there sprang a gout of black and oozy blood.

Whereat a great cry went up and James Mure fell forward oh the sand as one suddenly stricken dead. All crowded forward to see, crying with one voice, 'The Judgment of God! The Judgment of God!'

And I shouted too, for I had seen the vindication of justice upon the murderer. The blood of Abel had cried out of the waste sea sand. The mark of God was on the guilty.

Then suddenly in the midst of the push I heard a stirring and a shouting.

'Stop him! stop him!' they cried.

I looked about, and lo! there, sitting erect upon his horse and riding like fire among heather, was John Mure. He had stolen away while all eyes were on the marvel. He had passed unregarded through the press, and now he rode for his life southward along the shore.

I gave one mighty twist to the manacles on my wrists, and whether those that set them had been kindly, being of my own name and clan, or whether the gyves were weak, I cannot tell. At all events, my hands were free, and so, with never a weapon in my possession, I leaped on a horse – the same, indeed, which the King had been riding – and set it to the gallop after the man whose death was my life.

It was the maddest, foolishest venture, for doubtless my enemy was well armed. But I seemed to see my love, and all the endowment of grace and favour I was to receive with her, vanishing away with every stride of John Mure's horse. Besides, there was a King and an Earl looking on; so upon the King's horse I settled down to a long chase.

I was already far forward ere behind me I heard the clatter of mounting men, the crying to restive horses to stand still, and the other accompaniments of a cavalcade leaping hastily into the saddle. But when I looked at John Mure upon his fleet steed, and saw that I upon the King's horse but scarcely held mine own, I knew that the stopping of the murderer must be work of mine, if it were to be done at all. So I resolved to chance it, in spite of whatever armoury of weapons he might carry.

But first I cleared my feet of the great stirrups which the King used, so that if it came to the bitter pinch, and I was stricken with a bullet or pierced with steel, I should not be dragged helpless along the ground with my foot in the iron, as once or twice I had seen happen in battle.

And that, though an easily memorable, is, I can bear witness, not a bonny sight.

My charger stretched away as though he had been a beagle running conies of the down into their holes. But John Mure's horse went every whit as fast. I saw well that he made for the deep, trackless spaces of Killochan wood. The oak trees that grew along its edge stretched out their arms to hide him; the birken shaw waved all its green boughs with a promise of security. I shortened my grip upon the stout golden-crowned staff which the King carried at the pommel of his saddle.

Yet as John Mure drave madly towards the wood, and sometimes looked over his shoulder to see how I came on, I was overjoyed to notice a wide ditch before him which he must needs overleap – and at that business, if at no other, I thought to beat him, being slim and of half his weight.

So I kept my horse to the right upon better ground, though it took me a little out of the straight course for the wood. His horse at the first refused the leap, and I counted upon him as mine. But I counted too soon, for he went down the bankside a short way to an easier place, where there was a landward man's bridge of trees and sods. Here he easily walked his horse across, and, having mounted the bank, he waved his hand at me and set off again toward the wood.

But now while he had an uneven country to overpass I had only the green fields, rich in old pasture and undulating like the waves of an oily tide when the sea is deep, and there is no break of the water. He was at the very edge of the wood before I came upon his flank. Then I gave a loud shout as I set my horse to his speed and circled about to head him off. But John Mure, though an old man, only settled himself firmer in his saddle, and with his sword in his hand rode soldierly and straight at the wood, as though I had not been in front of him at all.

It was wisely enough done, for his heavier beast took mine upon the shoulder and almost rolled me in the dust. He came upon me, not front to front as a rider meets his foe in the lists, but, as it were stem to side, like two boats that meet upon converging tacks.

Yet I managed to avoid him, being light and supple, though he leaned far over and struck savagely at me as he passed. Again at the third shock he had almost overridden me and made me die the death. But I had not practised horsemanship and the art of fighting in the saddle so long for nothing. Indeed, on all the seaboard of Ayr there was no one that could compare with me in these things. Therefore, it was easy for me, by dint of my quickness and skill, to swerve off to the right and receive the sword stroke in my cloak, which I carried twisted about my left arm.

Then keeping still between the wood and John Mure, I met him this time face to face, with my eyes watching the direction of his eye and the crook of his elbow, that I might know where he meant to strike. For a good sworder knows the enemy's intent, and his blade meets it long ere thought can pass into action.

So it was no second-sight which told me that he meant to slash me across the thigh when he came a-nigh me. I knew it or ever his blade was raised. So that when he struck I was ready for him and measured his sword, proving my distance as it had been upon parade. And as the blade whistled by me, I judged that it was my turn, and struck him with all the force I could muster a crashing blow upon the face with the heavy butt of the King's stave, which stunned and unsettled him so that he pitched forward upon his horse, yet not so as to lose his seat.

Nevertheless, owing to the swing of my arm, the stroke fell also partly upon his horse's back, which affrighted the beast and set him harder than ever to the running. So that I was passed ere I knew it, and the wood was won. But I was not thirty yards behind him, and looked to make the capture ere we reached the further side. And but for a foul trick I should have done it. It so happens that there is a little hill in the woods of Killochan, and I, seeing that John Mure was riding about one side, took round the other, thinking that I had the shorter line of it.

But he, so soon as he saw me make round the corner, turned his horse into its own hoof-marks and sped away back again – as it had been to meet them that pursued, but at the same time bearing enough to the south to clear them easily. So that when I came round the hill I saw no quarry, and only heard the boughs crashing in his wake.

Nevertheless, without the loss of a moment, I took the line of his retreat (as I thought), yet not so correctly but that when I issued forth from the wood I saw him nigh half a mile in front. Again he waved a contumelious hand which made me so fiercely angry that I tightened my waist-belt, and vowed to go no more to sunny Culzean if I took not back the head and hands of John Mure at my saddlebow.

So, with set and determined brow, I rode ever forward. It was the cast of the die for me, for Nell herself, our life together, and our green pastures and lavender-scented napery cupboards were all to come out of the catching of this enemy of our house. It is small wonder therefore that I was passing keen upon the matter.

Yet, in spite of my endeavours, I gained but little. And it was already greying to the twilight when I came to a place by the seashore, waste and solitary, where there were but few houses about. I had seen John Mure ride in thitherwards. And so I followed him full tilt, reckless of danger, being weary-heart with the ill-fortune of my riding and quest.

But as I entered the narrows of the pass, a stone flew from an ambuscade. I felt a hot, stunning blow upon the head, and with the pain I remember laying hold of my horse's mane and gripping tight with the hand on which a broken manacle still jangled. Something warm flowed over my brow, and suddenly I saw everything red, as though I had been looking through the stained glass of some ancient kirk – red flowers, red grass, red sand, and red sea.

That was all I saw, and I do not remember even falling to the ground.