We laid him gently upon the back of wise Dom Nicholas, that all the time stood like a statue, and then when everything was ready, moved graciously and soberly away, as though he had been well aware of the melancholy burden he bore. Even thus we brought my dear master to the sea terrace of Greenan which he had so lately left. And when John Kennedy of Balterson heard the trampling of the horse on the flags of the court, he came out crying loudly and heartily as was the manner of the man. ’Wi’ what’s this, Culzean? Are ye back again?’ So running to the door he stood with his table-knife in his hand and a bit of his mid-day meal thereupon, astonished beyond the utterance of words. ’What’s this? What’s this?’ he cried. ’Oh, sirs, what foul wark is here? Wha has done this?’ And I told him their names—at least so far as I knew them. ’Thomas of Drummurchie!’ he cried. ’It shall not be the uplands of Barr parish that shall keep ye frae the stark sword of John Kennedy of Balterson. And thou, Walter Mure of Cloncaird, that has so often sat in this house of the Greenan, by the grace of God I shall lay thee as low as thou hast laid my friend this day.’ But I begged Balterson to think of something else than the taking of revenge—of which all in good time. So presently he got me a horse litter with two steady-going beasts, and I walked alongside it with Dom Nicholas arching his head and treading softly as if he also mourned. Thus we came to the town of Maybole, which was as our own place. And such dule and lament as there was that day saw I never anywhere. For the town had loved him as its liege lord, far more than either John, Earl of Cassillis, or his father the King of Carrick. Such a congregation as met us at the town gate! The women all crying the cry of death, the men cursing and calling vengeance. The minister was there to pray, and all classes and conditions were moved to tears. And ere we were well past the Foul Alley there were twenty men on horseback to chase the murderers, with John Kennedy of Balterson at their head. But they might as well have chased the wind, for by this time, with the relays of horse that had been ordered for them, they were safe among the wild Crauford country on the borders of Kyle. Of the sad homecoming to Culzean itself I declare I cannot write at length. At the entering in of the woodland I left them, and upon Dom Nicholas I rode drearily forward to do the bitterest day’s work of my life—to tell Helen Kennedy that I brought only her father’s corpse home with me.