The Lords of Cuningham

Preface

. From the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries Ayrshire was the chosen home of the blood feud. National troubles Aveakened the central authority to such an extent that the barons, turbulent and jealous, took occasion by the hand; and when their energies were not called into exercise by the necessity for presenting common front to common foe, they sought to advantage them selves by carrying on destructive and desolating strife with their neighbours and rivals. In Ayrshire these feuds were prosecuted with wonderful tenacity. In 1448, the office of King's Bailie in Cuningham, long held by the Cuninghames — Earls of Glencairn — was bestowed upon the eldest son of the first Baron Montgomerie. Incensed at the slight, Glencairn took the field ; and the Mont gomeries, nothing loath, sacked and burned the Castle of Kerslaw.

In 1565, the King's coroner for RenfreAvshire, William Cunninghame of Craigens, was set upon and wounded by the Master of Montgomerie ; and two years later the rivals met in combat, to the loss of life and the accentuating of the rivalry. Arbitration was resorted to, and the Earl of Eglinton secured in the bailieship of the northern division of Ayrshire. But, so far from meliorating the existing conditions, the only result was to drive the Cuninghame family to continued reprisal.

PREFACE.

. Further mediation begat a truce ; but isolated instances of revenge, at the instance of both parties, were perpetrated at irregular intervals. Edward Cuninghame of Auchenharvie was slain in 1526, and Archibald Cuninghame of Waterstoun two years later,; upon which, according to a Manuscript History of the Family of Eglinton, " William, Master of Glencairn, raised all his friends and allies in the shire of Renfrew, and made a furious inroad into Cuningham, destroying in their progress not only houses and lands belonging to the Montgomeries, but the very corn fields, and finally burnt Eglinton Castle itself, with all the ancient records of the family." How the feud again slumbered, how anew it broke out, and after what fashion it culminated in a crowning act of tragedy, will be found in the pages that follow.

CONTENTS. CHAPTER. PAGE. I. — Sir Neill Montgomerie sets his Wife a-thinking, 9 II. — The Lady of Lainshaw set Others a-thinking, 16 III. — The Cuninghames in Council resolve to act, - 26 IV. — The Earl of Eglinton at Lainshaw, - - 34 V. — Sir Neill Montgomerie startles his Guests, - 43 VI. — The Earl of Eglinton at the Ford of the Annick, - '- - - - - 50 VII. — In Lainshaw when the Deed was Done, - 56 VIII. — The Montgomeries resolve and carry out a notable Revenge,- - - - - 65 IX. — Lainshaw in ferment — the Midnight Ride and the Watcher, - - - - - 74 X. — Sir Neill Montgomerie receives his Explana tion, ------- 86 XI. — Domestic Stormclouds breaking over Lainshaw, - - - - - 95 XII. — Lady Elizabeth turns her back on Lainshaw, 103 XIII. — Gabriel Montgomerie's Feelings hurt ; he relieves them by a Deed of Vengeance, 118 XIV. — The Feud goes on.

Gabriel receives, but declines, Counsel, - - - - 130 XV. — The King's Commissioners make Enquiry, - CONTENTS. CHAPTER. PAGE. XVI. — Sir Robert of Skelmorlie continues to Slay and meets his due Reward, - - - 150 XVII. — A stern Alternative and a consequent Warning, 162 XVIIL — Gabriel Montgomerie on a fresh Quest, - 175 XIX. — William Cuninghame goes forth from Lainshaw, - - - - - - - 187 XX. — Angry Men encounter at Lainshaw, - - 200 XXI. — Winter, its Doings and its Conferences, - 213 XXII. — Gabriel Montgomerie takes a bold Step, - 226 XXIII.— Repulsed at the Gate of Robertland, - - 238 XXIV. — No Escape for a Montgomerie, - - 248 XXV. — The Loid of Kilmaurs is Suspicious, - - 260 XXVI. — Plotting Escape — -the Captive refuses to solicit Freedom, ------ 269 XXVII. — Robertland changes Masters, - - - 283 XXVIII. — They stand in their Lot at the end of the Days, - -

Chapter I. Sir Neill Montgomerie Sets His Wife A-thinking

IT was the spring time. Nature was in her best and brightest. The trees had awakened from their winter sleep, and were pushing out their buds to meet the vernal influences half-way. The birds that had been silent when the snoAv lay upon the ground, and that had cowered — poor little things ! — under the shelter of the copse and the greenwood when the rude winds of March Avere Avhistling and blustering and bidding the winter die hard, had emerged from their seclusion, and were tuning their voices for the chorus of the early summer. The ivy that had clung tenaciously to the walls, and to the gnarled trunks of the fathers of the forest all Avinter, and that had resisted all the efforts of the Avinds and the rains to loosen its hold, \Aras putting out new shoots and setting out and upward for fresh conquest over the stone and lime and the tree-trunks to which it had lent its softening presence.

Everything in Nature Avas getting lighter and brighter and more radiant. The swallows and the starlings were coming, and the errant landrail that had wintered in the north of Africa had resumed his ceaseless note in the lengthening grass. Amid one of the thousand fair scenes, made the fairer by the soft touch of the sweet spring time, was that of which the house of Lainshaw was the centre. A grey old pile, itself unpicturesque, save for its suggestiveness. It was like the other peels of the country side. Built for security as Avell as comfort, its Avails were thick, its gates heavy, its doors strong. Strength Avas in its bulwarks rather than beauty. It was a dwelling meet for the times : and the times were rude. It was a house for the baron and the retainer, and the clash and clang of arms ; Avhere one looked naturally— nor failed in looking— for the oaken hall and the stands of arms and of armour, reflecting, when the nights were long, the uncertain glare of the dancing log fire ; a house built against surprise, and to resist the on-coming of the foe.

But, for the time being, Lainshaw sat amid a scene of peace, and Avas itself peaceful. Its doors stood open to all the Avorld. No watchman watched upon its walls, no armed retainers added to its strength. A flag floated above it, but it was the flag of AA-elcome and not of defiance. Its cannon projected, but their grim lips were silent and spake not. If there was one home in all North Ayrshire in the latter end of the sixteenth century where one might have looked for peace, it was this same Lainshaw. Elsewhere the never-slumbering feud betAveen the Earl of Glencairn and the Earl of Eglinton — between the Cuninghames and the Montgomeries — was proceeding apace and intermittently. But the laird of Lainshaw Avas a cadet of the house of Eglinton, and his Avife, the Lady Elizabeth, was a daughter of the house of Aiket ; and Aiket Avas in possession of the Cuninghames, and held by as staunch a Cuninghame as ever made war upon the Montgomeries.

Their union had been one of love as well as of policy. Policy had mingled with the love, though neither Sir Neill nor his spouse had ever known of it. Theirs was the love, and that was enough for them. For a hundred years and more the feud had been going on almost without stay or hindrance. Incalculable trials and evils had followed in its train. Castles had been sacked and had blazed, and homesteads had been devastated. The knight had been slain on the field of combat, the farmer in his stackyard the cottager by his door, the hind on the braes. Intrigue had been met by intrigue, plot had begotten plot. No man's life had been safe when the avengers of blood were abroad on their stern mission. The keeps of Aiket and of Robertland had been sacked, and their inmates driven out of their shelter, or slain beneath the shadow of their homes.

Even Eglinton Castle itself had not escaped destruction ; for the Cuninghames, with Glen cairn at their head, had come upon it unawares. The Earl had escaped. He had marked the advance of the Cuninghames by the curling smoke which ascended to the sky as they fired the homesteads on their line of march, but the fair mansion itself, sitting calm and strong by the placid banks of Lugton, had been given over to the flames that had swept its interior with the besom of destruction, and reduced the ancestral home of the chief of the Montgomeries to ashes. But now that a Montgomerie had wedded a Cuninghame, and in the children that sat around the table, the blood of the rival families for the supremacy of North Ayrshire had been mingled, the bands of marauders gave Lainshaw a wide berth. Occasionally a wandering Montgomerie looked in as he passed, but it pained him to see the hospitality of the house dispensed by a daughter of Aiket ; and betimes a Cuninghame made a friendly call, but departed only half-pleased that the daughter of Aiket had so far forgotten herself as to wed one of the hated race of Montgomerie.

Sir Neill did not trouble himself. He was happy in his wife and family, and in the peace he enjoyed he did not begrudge others their share of embroilment, but went on calmly doing his duty as became the Laird of Lainshaw. If Lady Elizabeth was not equally satisfied, she had at least up till now succeeded in hiding her dissatisfaction. The feud between the two families was never referred to. Sir Neill had attempted to discuss it once ; the reception which his attempt met did not encourage him to renew the discussion. And, though Sir Neill knew it not, the young Montgomeries that called him father were versed in all the lore of Glencairn, and mourned and grieved over the wrongs done to their mother's house by the followers and friends of the Earl of Eglinton. Lady Elizabeth had depths that had never been fathomed.

Her husband had not even attempted to sound them. " I bring you tidings, Lady Elizabeth," said Sir Neill, addressing his spouse, as they sat together by the evening fire. " Tidings, too, that will interest you. The Court sits at Stirling — you know that ? " "' Yes, I know that, and I am afraid it hardly interests me. I am not myself a welcome guest at the foot of the throne. Nor can I conceive that either the Cuninghames or the Montgomeries should care very much where the Court sits — the King has treated them as if they were of no account." "True, but the minds of monarchs change, and ' we must change with them, Elizabeth. The Earl of Glencairn has regained the influence he has lost ; and Avho knows whether the Earl of Eglinton may not be on the eve of entering anew upon the influence that once belonged to the Montgomeries ?

" " Perhaps he may, but that does not concern me much. " " How do you know Elizabeth ? There is much in the turn of events ; and it is concerning that very matter that I wish to speak. The Earl of Eglinton has been summoned to Stirling." "He has?" " Yes, a week hence he sets out on his journey to the city of the rock." " That may be, Sir Neill, but I am not going to travel in his train. He is not likely to forget that I am a daughter of the house of Glencairn." "You are indeed, Elizabeth, a daughter of the house of Glen cairn, but you are also a daughter of the house of Eglinton ; and when you married me — " " When I married you, I did not any the less cease to be my father's child. Nor have the Montgomeries forgotten it. Never since I came to Lainshaw, five and twenty years ago, has an Earl of Eglinton crossed the threshold, and never once, all these long years, have I been invited to Eglinton."

"True, Elizabeth, but better late than never. And therewith is connected the tidings I am going to impart to you. The Earl of Eglinton is coming here." " Not to Lainshaw, surely ? " " Yes, to Lainshaw. As he is passing on his way to Stirling he will be our guest." Lady Elizabeth started, then grew thoughtful. The embroidery Avork on Avhich her nimble fingers had plied dropped from her hands ; and insensibly she fixed her gaze upon the fire. " Why, Elizabeth," observed her husband, "the tidings don't seem to over-joy you. I thought you would have been otherwise disposed." " You do not know yet," returned Lady Elizabeth, quietly, " how I am disposed. I am thinking." The Lady of Lainshaw continued looking into the fire. The gaze was an unconscious one. She saw the bright flames and the glowing embers, but she saw them as though she saw them not.

Wrapt in contemplation, she seemed a moment to have forgotten her husband's presence; but glancing sideways at him, she noticed a darker look than usual on his face ; and composing herself, she took up her embroidery and resumed her work. " We must really, Elizabeth," said Sir Neill, " try and forget the past. I have tried to forget it, and to me the past is now but a memory and not an influence. And I hope that you too, will cease to remember what has been, and that you will give the Earl of Eglinton the greeting that it becomes us to give him. He is my chief, the head of the house of Montgomerie, and I am bound to him by the ties of kinship. Even Avere it not so, the Earl is but a young man, and has never in any way, or in any degree whatever, wronged you or yours." " No, Sir Neill ; that is true.

He has never wronged me, but I cannot forget the past. An hour ago it was to me a sealed book, but you have opened the book and I cannot forbear to read it. I thought I had done with my recollections, but you have recalled them from their slumber. I cannot forget — I never shall forget so long as I live — how the father of this Earl came to Aiket with all his men about him, and bid my father surrender the old home. I was but a little girl then, but I remember it all now as if it had been yesterday. It was a futile assault he made, but do you think I can forget that my father's brother was slain in the encounter? I saw him die." " Elizabeth, that is an old story. More than two score of years have passed since then, and the old Earl is with his fathers. Besides, when you remember the assault on Aiket, have you forgotten the vengeance of the Cuninghames ?

Have you for gotten how Glencairn and his men stood on the banks of the Lugton and watched the castle of Eglinton Avrapped in fire and in smoke ? " "No, I have not forgotten that either. Memories die too hard for that. But you say the Earl of Eglinton comes here this day eight days ? " " Yes, as he passes on his way to Stirling. He dines here and goes hence immediately afterwards ; and he bids me, in the message I have received from him, give you his greeting and his assurance of his respect." "Why could he not have left us alone, Neill?" said Lady Elizabeth. " Our Avay of life has been quiet and peaceful. We have not concerned ourselves actively Avith the ongoing of the feud. Why should the Earl intrude himself upon our quiet, and awaken memories that have slumbered so long ? " "There is no need, Elizabeth, why these memories should be awakened by the Earl's coming.

Let our reception of him rather be the earnest that the memories are dead. You know you are a Montgomerie now." "lam a Montgomerie in name. I became a Montgomerie by choice, and I have never regretted it. But I am a Cuning hame in blood. I never was more alive to it than now • and Neill, you are putting a torch to the heather in inviting the Earl of Eglinton to Lainshaw." " I have not invited him, Elizabeth. He is coming here freely ■5 and of his own accord ; and I shall never, while breath remains in my body, turn my back upon the chief of the house to which I have the honour to belong, and whose call I am bound in good faith to obey." " And you think that I am to forget the past and welcome to Lainshaw the son of the man who let the devil loose among my kinsfolk, giving their homes to the flames and themselves to the sword ?

" " Elizabeth, Elizabeth ! For my sake — for heaven's sake — let these byegones be byegones. Will you not let them sleep for one single day ? They have slumbered well nigh a quarter of a century — why recall them now? The Earl must have the welcome that is his due." "And so he shall, if come he must. He will not find me remiss in my duty as a hostess. I shall give him fitting greeting. You say he comes here to dinner ? " " Yes." " And resumes his journey when he has dined ? " "Yes." " Does he travel alone ? " " Alone — save that he will be accompanied by his body servants." " Very well, Sir Neill. He shall have proper welcome. Your wishes shall be attended to." Left alone, Lady Elizabeth once more let her embroidery fall upon her knee and resumed her train of thought. What was there in the dancing flames to darken the light on her face ?

Nothing. The darkness was the reflected darkness in her soul. The past ! Why should the past have been so recalled ? She had thought it slumbering — it never was more wide-awake than now. What new duties had its awakening evolved ? To what did it call her? She AA'as a Cuninghame — a Cuninghame of the Cuninghames. The family honour was in her hands — what if she were to compromise it ? What if it were to suffer ? And yet she was a Mongomerie. The wife of a Montgomerie. Her children were Montgomeries. And when she passed away they would be incorporated with the Montgomeries, would turn their backs on Glencairn and their faces to Eglinton. She had thought that the past and she had parted company ; and yet, here it was before her with all its vivid memories. The old stories, the tales and traditions of her child days, in which she had been nursed, were dancing before her with every flicker of the firelight.

Fierce the family war, and fateful and baleful the incidents that had followed in its train ! From the mists — the dark mists — of her early years she saw stand out in its ruins the Castle of Kerelaw, once a tower of strength, and she recalled the story of its burning at the hands of the men of Eglinton. She remembered noAv, as she had not remembered these many years, the ill-will begotten by the transference of the bailieship of the district from Glencairn to Eglinton. And many a scene and many an incident besides. These things dead ! Why, they had never been more alive than now. One by one they trooped past — every wrong done, every blow struck, every conflagration kindled, every consumma tion reached, every life sacrificed. They jostled one another as they emerged from their hiding-places.

And Lady Elizabeth's brow darkened the more, and the hot blood of the Cuninghames flowed the faster because of the long sleep that had preceded the awaking. And now the Earl was coming — the Earl of Eglinton — the chief of the Montgomeries! And she was to give him welcome! But whether as became the wife of Sir Neill Montgomerie of Lainshaw, or as the daughter of the old Laird of Aiket, a daughter of the house of Glencairn ?

Chapter II. The Lady Of Lainshaw Sets Others A-thinking

" s~^ OME hither, Isabel," said Lady Elizabeth the following V^/ morning, " I desire to speak with you." Isabel — Isabel Boyd — the person addressed, obeyed. Like her mistress, she gave her sympathies to the Cuninghames. Her father had ridden a yeoman in the train of the old laird of Aiket. He had followed him in his rides, on his raids, on his journeys. And she remembered still, how, in the days long passed away, he had returned to tell of the deeds done on the Montgomeries. Full Avell, too, she remembered one fateful day when he was brought home dying from a wound inflicted by a lance borne by one of the retainers of Eglinton. She had never forgotten that ; and though when Lady Elizabeth came to Lainshaw, a fair young bride, she had accompanied her as her maid, she had never been able lo withdraw her sympathies from her kith and kin, or her antipathies from the race of Montgomerie.

But the long piping times of peace, so far as Lainshaw was concerned, had converted the feud to little more than a mental heritage. She was a Cuninghame in sympathy still ; but her animosity to Eglinton was latent, and she had no conscious desire that it should be otherwise. " Sit down, Isabel, I've something to say to you. No, not over there. Sit down here beside me." Isabel wondered, but Avondering, obeyed. Lady Elizabeth was her divinity, and she owed her, and gave her, implicit obedience. "The Earl of Eglinton comes here next week." The information thus quietly imparted Avas the prelude to a brief but emphatic silence. Isabel's mind did not at once respond to the significance of what she had been told. But as it gradually filtered down into her comprehension, and as she looked at her mistress and read its import in the light of her eyes, and in the flush upon her forehead, she was quick to divine that there was more in the simple communication than lay upon the surface.

And having divined that, she began to have a dawning perception of the full import. '■ The Earl of Eglinton, did you say, my lady? " "Yes." "Coming here — to this house — to Lainshaw?" "Yes." "I never thought, Lady Elizabeth, to see the Earl of Eglinton beneath this roof." " Nor did I, Isabel. All these years Lainshaw has almost been shunned by Montgomeries and by Cuninghames alike. I have seen it. I have felt it. I have borne it in silence, con tent and satisfied if it were better for our happiness and peace, and for the well-being of our children. It has been a long calm ; but now it is about to be broken, and I feel, Isabel — I hardly knoAv what I feel — I feel as I have not felt these five and twenty years past. They all seem blotted out. They look like a dream to me, and I am afraid to awake and find that I have spent a pleasant quarter ofa century in dreamland."

" But what can your ladyship do ? And Avhy should you so concern yourself? If Sir Neill invites the Earl to this house, or if the Earl thinks to come of his own free will, come he will, and there can be no gainsaying him ; and Ave must even do the best we can." " We must even do the best we can, Isabel, must Ave ? " Isabel in reply shrugged her shoulders, and then looked at her mistress. And she saw an unwonted look in her mistress's eyes. '• Must Ave ? " repeated Lady Elizabeth ; " yes, I suppose we must, but Avhat is the best Ave can do ? " "Whatever it pleases your ladyship to do — that is the best." " I've seen the day, Isabel, and you have seen the day, when such a chance as this Avould not have been permitted to pass, by a daughter of the house of Cuninghame. Times change, and we with them ; and mayhap I shall have to put up Avith the indignity as best I can.

I Avish I could. But it ill becomes me, wife though I be to Sir Neill Montgomerie, to cry welcome to the son of the murderer of my uncle." " But what else can you do, Lady Elizabeth ? You cannot bring shame upon Sir Neill by slighting his guest, be he gentle or simple." " Isabel, I thought you had been cast in a more rigid mould than that, and that your memories like mine, would have quickened your perception and your impulse. You cannot have forgotten your father. But whether you have or not, is it right, is it fitting, that I, the bearer of so many sad memories impressed on me by the misdeeds and the wrong-doings, and the treachery of the Montgomeries of Eglinton, should forget what is due to the house of my father, and to the name of Glencairn ? " Isabel was loath to suggest or to give counsel.

She read her mistress's mind, and instinctively shrank from the reading. " Your ladyship," she replied, " knows best what is due to your ladyship's position ; but I fear me you cannot do otherwise than give the Earl hospitable welcome." "Yes, I must give him hospitable welcome — there is no alter native to that ; I have given my word to Sir Neill, and I cannot go back from it. But what I wish to know now is this — is the hospitable welcome to be the sole result of the Earl of Eglinton's visit to Lainshaw ? " Isabel would not suggest. Whatever was in Lady Elizabeth's mind must come forth of her own free will. There would be no divided responsibility. " What other result can your ladyship desire ? " Lady Elizabeth took time to reply. She did not like the reserve that had come over her attendant.

She had hoped for active sympathy and suggestion ; she had met nothing more sub stantial than temporising. But she still hoped to bring Isabel to her aid. " Believe me, Isabel," she said — and she spoke so earnestly that Isabel was fain to believe her — " I would to Heaven I could forget the past ; I would I could blot out now and for ever the remembrance of the days that are long gone by ; but since last night — I feel I can trust you, Isabel, for you as well as I were reared in another school than that of the Montgomeries — since last night, I say, and in the silence of the night, all the stories I was told as a child ; all the wrongs done to the Cuninghames by the Montgomeries ; all that We ever suffered at their hands — all have rushed upon me with the force of a driving torrent. I tried to fight them back, but up they came one by one.

I shut my eyes to them, but I saw them. I steeled my heart against them, but they entered in and they have the mastery. And now I feel that I am the creature of predestination. I am appointed to the discharge of a mission. I feel now that I have been asleep for a century, and that I have only now awaked to a sense of duty neglected all through that long slumber. I have tried to fight back my predestination, but it has come upon me with the force and power of a conviction." Isabel saw her mistress was in earnest, in dead, grim earnest. The earnestness was in her voice, in her eyes, in the set muscles of her face. The attendant felt the strength of the Avaters on the outer circle of the whirlpool, and resolved to beware. Otherwise she must be engulfed. " I have not lived to forget, Isabel," resumed Lady Elizabeth.

" I cannot, if I would, obliterate the sense of all the wrongs done by the Montgomeries to the house of Glencairn. I cannot banish from my recollection the smouldering, blackened ruins of the house of Kerelaw. I can never forget Edward Cuninghame of Auchenharvie slain in the open fields, basely and cruelly. I cannot but remember — would to God I could do otherwise ! how the Earl of Eglinton snatched the baillery of Cunningham from the Earl of Glencairn. These things possess me, Isabel. I cannot get rid of them. They dominate me ; they drive me on ; they impel me against my judgment. They point the path- Avay to duty, and as a daughter of Aiket I must follow it." The deeper plunged the Lady Elizabeth, the nearer the shore struggled the attendant. She began to fear the intensity of her mistress's passion, and temporised the more.

" Oh, my lady," she replied, " bethink you what you are doing, and to what the path you are entering upon may lead ! Think of the happiness you are throwing into the scale ; think of your husband and family ; think of the future ! With you I would gladly have revenge ; but is life's happiness so valueless that you can afford to throw it away ? " " Better wreck happiness, Isabel, than wreck honour. Happi ness would vanish for ever from my breast were it purchased at the sacrifice of honour and what is due to the house of Glencairn." " I am in your ladyship's hands. I am ready to do whatever you bid me. But ere you ask me to go further, ere you go further yourself, ere you do anything that may react to your un doing, let us take counsel with the heads of the house of Cuning hame. Let us act on their advice, with their consent, and with their assistance, if we are to act at all.