The Standard Bearer

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE CURSING OF THE PRESBYTERY

As gently as I could I withdrew from her grasp, and with a pocket Bible in my hand (that little one in red leather of the King’s printers which I always carried about with me), I climbed the stair.

The word I had come so far to speak should not remain unspoken through my weakness, neither must I allow truth to be brought to shame because of the fears of the messenger.

So I mounted the turret stairs slowly, the great voice sounding out more and more clearly as I advanced. It came in soughs and bursts, alternating with lown intervals filled with indistinct mutterings. Then again a great volley of cursing would shake the house, and in the afterclap of silence I could hear the waesome yammer of my lady’s supplication beneath me outside the tower.

But within, save for the raging of the stormy voice, there was an uncanny silence. The dust lay thick where it had been left untouched for days by any hand of domestic. I glanced within the great oaken chamber where formerly I had spoken to Mary Gordon. It was void and empty. A broken glass of carven Venetian workmanship and various colours lay in fragments by the window. A stone jar with the great bung of Spanish cork stood on the floor. There was a crimson sop of spilled wine on the table of white scoured wood. The table-cloth of rich Spanish stuff wrought with arabesques had been tossed into the corner. A window was broken, and there were stains on the jagged edges, as if some one had thrust his hand through the glass to his own hurt.

Nothing moved in the room, but in the thwart sunbeams the motes danced, and the unstable shadows of the trees without flecked the floor.

All the more because of this unwholesome quiet in the great house of Earlstoun, it was very dismaying to listen to the roll and thunder of the voice up there, speaking on and on to itself in the regions above.

But I had come at much cost to do my duty, and this I could not depart from. So I began to mount the last stairs, which were of wood, and exceedingly narrow and precipitous.

Then for the first time I could hear clearly the words of the possessed:

“Cast into deepest hell, Lord, if any power is left in Thee, the whole Presbytery of Kirkcudbright! Set thy dogs upon them, O Satan, Prince of Evil, for they have worked ill-will and mischief upon earth. Specially and particularly gie Andrew Cameron his paiks! Rub the fiery brimstone flame onto his bones, like salt into a new-killed swine. Scowder him with irons heated white hot. Tear his inward parts with twice-barbed fishing hooks. Gie William Boyd his bellyful of curses. Turn him as often on thy roasting-spit as he has turned his coat on the earth. Frighten wee Telfair wi’ the uncanniest o’ a’ thy deils’ imps. And as for the rest of them may they burn back and front, ingate and outgate, hide, hair, and harrigals, till there is nocht left o’ them but a wee pluff o’ ash, that I could hold like snuff between my fingers and thumb and blaw away like the white head o’ the dandelion.”

He came to an end for lack of breath, and I could hear him stir restlessly, thinking, perhaps, that he had omitted some of the Presbytery who were needful of a yet fuller and more decorated cursing.

I called up to him.

“Alexander Gordon, I have come to speak with you.”

“Who are you that dares giff-gaff with Alexander Gordon this day?”

“I am Quintin MacClellan, minister of the Gospel in Balmaghie, a friend to Alexander Gordon and all his house.”

“Get you gone, Quintin MacClellan, while ye may. I have no desire for fellowship with you. You are also of the crew of hell – the black corbies that cry ‘Glonk! Glonk!’ over the carcase of puir perishing Scotland.”

“Hearken, Alexander Gordon,” said I, from the ladder’s foot, “I have been your friend. I have sat at your table. A word is given me to speak to you, and speak it I will.”

“And I also have a gun here that has a message rammed down its thrapple. I warn ye clear and fair, if ye trouble me at all with any of your clavers, ye shall get that message frae the black jaws of Bell-mouthed Mirren.”

And as I looked up the wooden ladder which led into the dim garret above me, I saw peeping through the angle of the square trap-door above me the wicked snout of the musket – while behind, narrowed to a slit, glinted, through a red mist of beard and hair, the eye of Sandy Gordon.

“Ye may shoot me if ye will, Alexander,” said I; “I am a man unarmed, defenceless, and so stand fully within your danger. But listen first to that which I have to say.

“You are a great man, laird of Earlstoun. Ye have come through much and seen many peoples and heard many tongues. Ye have been harried by the Malignants, prisoned by the King’s men, and now the Presbytery have taken a turn at you, even as they did at me, and for the same reason.

“You were ever my friend, Earlstoun, and William Boyd mine enemy. Therefore he was glad to take up a lying report against you that are my comrade; for such is his nature. Can the sow help her foulness, the crow his colour? Forbye, ye have given some room to the enemy to speak reproachfully. You, an elder of the Hill-folk, have collogued in the place of drinking with the enemies of our cause. They laid a snare for your feet, and like a simple fool ye fell therein. So much I know. But the darker sin that they witness against you – what say ye to that?”

“It is false as the lies that are spewed up from the vent of Hell!” cried the voice from the trap-door above, now hoarse and trembling. I had touched him to the quick.

“Who are they that witness this thing against you?”

He was silent for a little, and then he burst out upon me afresh.

“Who are you that have entered into mine own house of Earlstoun to threat and catechise me? Is Alexander Gordon a bairn to be harried by bairns that were kicking in swaddling clouts and buttock-hippens when he was at the head of the Seven Thousand? And who may you be? A deposed minister, a college jackdaw whom the other daws have warned from off the steeple. I will not kill you, Quintin MacClellan, but I bid you instantly evade and depart, for the spirit has bidden me fire a shot at the place where ye stand!”

“Ye may fire your piece and slay your friend on the threshold of your house, an’ it please you, laird of Earlstoun,” cried I, “but ye shall never say that he was a man unfaithful, a man afraid of the face of men!”

“Stand from under, I say!”

Nevertheless I did not move, for there had grown up a stubbornness within me as there had done when the Presbytery set themselves to vex me.

Then there befell what seemed to be a mighty clap of thunder. A blast of windy heat spat in my face; something tore at the roots of my hair; fire singed my brow, and the reek of sulphur rose stifling in my nostrils.

The demon-possessed had fired upon me. For a moment I knew not whether I was stricken or no, for there grew a pain hot as fire at my head. But I stood where I was till in a little the smoke began to lazily clear through the trap-door into the garret.

I put my hand to my head and felt that my brow was wet and gluey. Then I thought that I was surely sped, for I knew that men stricken in the brain by musket shot ofttimes for a moment scarce feel their wound. I understood not till later the reason of my escape, which was that the balls of Earlstoun’s fusil had no time to spread, but passed as one through my thick hair, snatching at it and tearing the scalp as they passed.

CHAPTER XXXV

LIKE THE SPIRIT OF A LITTLE CHILD

The smoke of the gun curled slowly and reluctantly out of the narrow windows, and through the garret opening I heard a hurried rush of feet beneath me on the stairs, light and quick – a woman’s footsteps when she is young. My head span round, and had it not been for Mary Gordon, whose arm caught and steadied me, I should doubtless have fallen from top to bottom.

“Quintin, Quintin,” she cried, passionately, “are you hurt? Oh, my father has slain him. Wherefore did I let him go?”

I held by the wall and steadied myself on her shoulder, scarce knowing what I did.

Suddenly she cried aloud, a little frightened cry, and, drawing her kerchief from her bosom, she reached up and wiped my brow, down which red drops were trickling.

“You are hurt! You are sort hurt!” she cried. “And it is all my fault!”

Then I said, “Nay, Mary, I am not hurt. It was but a faintish turn that came and passed.”

“Oh, come away,” she cried; “he will surely slay you if you bide here, and your blood will be upon my hands.”

“Nay, Mary,” I answered; “the demon, and not your father, did this thing, and such can do nothing without permission. I will yet meet and expel the devil in the name of the Lord!”

She put her netted fingers about my arm to draw me away; nevertheless, even then, I withstood her.

“Alexander Gordon,” I cried aloud, “the evil spirit hath done its worst. He will now depart from you. I am coming up the ladder.”

I drew my arm free and mounted. As my head rose through the trap-door I own that my heart quaked, but there had come with the danger and the excitement a sort of angry exaltation which, more than aught else, carried me onward. Also I knew within me that if, as I judged, God had other work yet for me to do in Scotland, He would clothe me in secret armour of proof against all assault.

Also the eyes of Mary Gordon were upon me. I had passed my word to her; I could not go back.

As I looked about the garret between the cobwebs, the strings of onions, and the bunches of dried herbs, I could see Sandy Gordon crouching at the far end, all drawn together like a tailor sitting cross-legged on his bench. He had his musket between his knees, and his great sword was cocked threateningly over his shoulder.

“What, Corbie! Are ye there again?” cried he, fleeringly. “Then ye are neither dead nor feared.”

“No,” said I; “the devil that possesses you has been restrained from doing me serious hurt. I will call on the Lord to expel what He hath already rendered powerless.”