Chapter XV A Midnight Leaguer
The place of my refuge was a summer-house set in a garden, and mostly made of wood. But it had three feet of stonework about the walls, which chance fortifications, as I think, saved my life. Then I praised the forethought with which I had brought with me abundant powder and shot in the horns I had slung at my girdle. I also remembered to thank Providence for misdirecting the bullets as I ran out of the garden door.
Here in this small child’s playhouse it was my fortune to stand such a siege as mayhap never man stood before. And of that I shall tell, so that all may judge and see whether the reward which the Earl of Cassillis afterwards obtained for me, was at all out of keeping (as some allege) with the services which I, Launce Kennedy, sometime esquire, rendered to him and his house.
Yet I did the thing for love and by no means for reward. Ay, and largely without thought also. For such was the spirit of the times, that wagers of battle were accepted lightly to spite one and overpass another, like children that play Follow-my-leader upon the street.
So I lay in my summer-house, behind the low breastwork of stone, while above me the bullets rattled through the frail woodwork like hailstones that splash into still water.
Lying thus prone, I charged my pistols—a thing which, from long practice, I could do very well in the dark, and gazed out through the open windows that looked every way. What I suffered from most was the want of light upon the approaches of my castle at the top of the garden. For I was placed upon a little hill, and the ground sloped in every direction from me. Yet even this advantage of position did me little good, for the light was too uncertain to show me those that might come against me. And more than all, this uncertainty put me in a sweat lest I should shoot at shadows and allow the real enemy that came to invade and slay me to pass harmless, so that they would break upon me before I was aware.
Occasionally, however, the light that burned somewhere in the town cast glimmerings over the garden, and then I could see dark figures that crouched and scudded behind bushes and sheltered ayont the trunk of every leafless tree. After that God-sent illumination grew brighter, I think it is not too much to say that each time I got a fair chance at an enemy, there was one rascal the fewer alive—or at least one that had a shot the more in him. It cheered me to see them crawling out of the range of my ordnances as if they had been few and I a host.
Most of all I aimed, with the deadliest and most prayerful intent to kill, at the tall man in the cloak, whom I had seen from the first directing the ploy. Time and again I believed that I had him, but upon each occasion it was some meaner rogue that bore the brunt.
Thus I held my own with Sir Thomas’s French pistol laid aside ready for them if they came with a rush, and my own for common use to load and fire again withal, till the barrels almost scorched me with the heat. Also I kept my sword ready to my hand, for when it comes to the edge of death, I put more confidence in my blade than in all the ordnance in the land. Though Heaven forbid that I should speak against the pistolet, when that very night I had so often owed my life to it. My chief hope now was that the Provost of the place, who had been a guest with Sir Thomas, might escape and rouse the townsfolk. The people of Maybole loved not the Barganies greatly, but, on the contrary, were devoted to the service of my master Culzean, because of his kindliness of disposition, and the heartsome way he had of calling them all ‘Sandy’ and ‘Jeems,’ according to their Christian name, a thing which goes a far road in Scotland.
It so happened just then that the fire that did me so much good—which, as I afterwards learned, was lighted by one of my enemies for frolic in the wood-yard of one Duncan Crerar, millwright—burned up a little and cast a skarrow over the garden where I was. When it was at its brightest, there came four fellows running up the brae all with their swords bare in their hands, so that it seemed that I was as good as dead, for it was manifestly impossible that I could withstand them all. But I minded the saying of a great captain of the old wars, ‘Stop you the front rank, and the second will stop of itself.’ So I took good and careful aim with my pistols at the two fellows that led the charge, and fired. The first of them tossed his blade in the air, spun about like a weathercock and fell headlong, while the other, lamed in his leg, as it appeared, tried to crawl back down the hill again. The two that came behind were no little daunted by this fall. Nevertheless, they still came on, but I cried out as loud as I could, ‘Give me the other pistols, Sir Thomas, and I shall do for these two scoundrels also!’
At which they gave back in great astonishment and ran, I make no doubt, to tell their masters that they had to do with more than one old man well lined with sack and canary. Then in the breathing space I charged my pistols again, and cried to the fellow that was limping along the ground by the back of my summer-house,—
‘Link it, my lad, back to your master, or I shall put another bullet in ye, in a place where it will stop you from groaning and hirpling there at my lug!’
For I understood well that he desired to take me in the rear.
At this moment there happened a thing surprising. I saw a tall, dark figure overleap a wall at the side from which the shots came thinnest. I saw it stoop and lay fire to something that was darker than itself, when instantly there arose from the pile of millwright’s shavings and kindling wood a clear light which caused all the garden to be seen without any difficulty.
Then the tall, unknown figure, which seemed yet unaccountably familiar to me, walked slowly up the middle walk toward the summer-house, the pistols cracking all about, and the bullets splashing faster than ever upon the roof and sides of my shelter.
Then I saw who it was.
‘Run for it, Robert Harburgh,’ I cried. ‘Man, you are mad.’
But I declare he never altered by a single pulse-beat his deliberate advance. At the door he paused as one that upon the threshold would turn to kick a yelping cur. Then giving the sharpshooters a wave of his hand in contempt, he entered and shut the door.
‘Saint Kentigern’s fish and a thousand devils,’ said I, ‘I am not feared of any man, but there is no sense in foolhardiness, Robert. Come in out of reach of their bullets this moment, thou fool!’
‘Ah,’ he returned to me, ‘I had as lief die and be done with it.’
‘But then I would not, for my stomach is in good order,’ replied I, swiftly, ‘so lie down on thy belly and at the least help me to keep alive, for I am most consumedly anxious to keep my body from proving leaky by the entering in of bullets.’
So, obediently he laid him down, watching one side of our cunning defences. He told me that he had heard what was a-doing—how that the Mures and Drummurchies, together with Sawny Bean, the savage carl that was called of the common people ‘The Earl of Hell,’ had gotten the Laird of Culzean in a little summer-house in a walled garden and were there worrying him to death.
‘So,’ said Harburgh, ‘having nought better to do, I primed my pistols and came.’
The firing upon us grew hotter than ever. We seemed at times to be closed within a ring of fire. Yet neither of us were the least hurt, save that a chip from the edge of a stone, driven off by a bullet, had struck me on the cheek and made it bleed.
When the fire which Robert Harburgh had lighted burned up, we that were marksmen lost no chances at any who showed so much as an arm or a leg. And many of those murderous rascals whom we did not kill outright (not having a fair chance at them from their lying in shelter and other causes), were at least winged and sore damaged, so that we judged that there would be some roods of lint bandage required about Drummurchie and Auchendrayne on the morrow.
Outside we heard a great and growing turmoil and the sound of many voices crying ‘To the death with the murderers! Break down the doors!’
It was the noise of the people who had risen in the night and were coming to help us. For in a moment the gate of the yard was broken down, and a rout of men in steel caps and hastily-donned armour came pouring in. And it had been comical to watch the array, if our urgent business had allowed. For some had put on a breastplate over their night gear; some fought like Highlandmen in their sark-tails, which, on the night of the New Year, must have been breezy wear; while others again had snatched a hackbutt and had forgotten the powder, so that now they carried the weapon like a club by the barrel.
Before these angry levies our cruel invaders vanished like smoke, as though they had never been, clambering over walls and scurrying through entries. But it is reported that several of them were sore hurt in thus escaping—indeed, here and there throughout the town were no fewer than five dead and six wounded, chiefly in the two gardens where I had been compelled to discharge my pistols.
Robert Harburgh stepped out of the summer-house before them all, stretching his limbs.
‘’Tis a cramped, ungodly place, friends,’ he said. ‘After all, it is better to fight in the open and risk it!’
‘Where is the Laird of Culzean?’ cried some that knew him not. ‘If ye cannot show us the laird, ye shall die forthwith!’
‘Nay,’ replied Harburgh, ‘concerning that I ken not. ’Tis not in my province, being general information. My parish is fighting, not the answering of questions. Come hither, Launce, and tell them of thy master!’
Whereat I came forth and told them of the cruel plot and the attack upon Sir Thomas at Nisbett’s house. But they would not be satisfied till they had gone there and found him. Nothing would do but that he should show himself unhurt and speak a word to them at the window. Which, being of short-grained temper and with a monstrous headache, he was most loath to do. But Robert Harburgh, who had experience of suchlike, being before his marriage a great man of his cups, poured water upon his head, and, having dried it by rubbing, he brought him to the window, where he spoke to the people as his kindly friends and neighbours, and thanked them for their affection.
‘Nay,’ cried one, ‘thank your own young squire, who has to-night ta’en your life upon him.’
So the people of Maybole, for the honest and honourable love which they bore us, abode under arms till the morning, and searched all the town for the murdering ruffians of Drummurchie. Yet they found them not, for such always have a back door to escape by.
In the morning, Sir Thomas called for his hat and cloak, and when they were brought he started in wonder and cried, ‘What, in the name of the shrunk shanks of the Abbot of Crossraguel, is the meaning of this hole?’
Then Robert Harburgh said, ‘’Tis but an airy summer suit that Launcelot wore last night, when he went forth among those that sought to kill the Laird of Culzean.’
My master stared without comprehending. But when he fully understood, he clasped me in his arms.
‘God knows,’ he said, ‘I would give my right hand, if I could believe that I had a son who would ever do as much for me. Those I have are good for naught but golf and stool-ball.’
Wherein by his hasty words he did his honest, silly lads much wrong.