Kings of Carrick

40 THE KINGS OF CARRICK.
your followers might have rested by night without their
swords by their bedside, and their muskets for pillows."
" I must defend my position, uncle," replied the Earl, " it
was not I who was to blame for Bargany's death. Bargany
brought disaster upon himself. He might have gone home
quietly if he had liked, but he did nothing of the kind. He
marched out from Ayr in battle-array, with his own men and
with half a hundred of the men of Ayr to boot ; and if I had
refused the conflict and allowed him to inarch with all his
men under the very walls of Maybole Castle, the victory
would have been his. As it is, it was mine. Bargany brought
his own death about, not I ; besides, it served him right, for
he had done nothing else for months before his death than
plot against my life, and against the cause which you and I
represent."
"That may be all very true, my lord," responded Sir
Thomas, " all very true, but you take these things too
seriously. You assume that Bargany was worth the crushing
with all your might. Why, what could he have done to have
shaken the position of the Earl of Cassillis ? "
" Not much in himself, uncle ; but you forget that he did
not stand alone any more than his brother does to-day. He
was the head of the insurgents, of the freebooters — for they
are nothing better."
" Admitting all that," responded Sir Thomas Kennedy, " the
result of that fight at the Brockloch but proved what I say,
that neither Bargany alone, nor Bargany and all his crew,
could shake the position of Cassillis. You can afford to be
generous — why not try it, at any rate ? "
" No, thank you, uncle," replied the Earl, " I can try many
a thing that I don't think of trying, and that is one of them.
Let things take their natural course. Everything is fore-
ordained."
" Only within certain limits. A man can manipulate a good
deal of his own foreordination, it seems to me. At any rate,
you need not let other men foreordain for you."