And methought I would send that
sword by the hands of Duncan Graham. But Duncan came not to the tryst.
And now that Earl Alpin is slain -- now that, as it seems, my lord, you
have resolved to bring this false traitor of Gigha to his merited death,
methinks it is you who should bear that sword, that by its aid you may
fulfil your vengeance."
Kenric looked at the maiden in blank surprise, and he thought that
either there was something strange and mysterious in her nature or that
her mind was wandering.
"The name of my great ancestor, king Somerled, God rest him! is indeed
as well known to me as my own," said he; "but of this sword of which you
speak I have heard nothing. Truly, I know not what you mean, Aasta."
They were now passing through the pine forest, where athwart the tall
trunks of the trees slanted the rays of the evening sun, and there was
no sound but the cooing of the wood pigeons and the crackling of the dry
twigs and cones as Kenric and Aasta stepped upon the velvet turf.
"Long, long ago," said Aasta, "as Elspeth has ofttimes told me, there
lived in Norway a great and ambitious king named Harald Fair Hair, who,
for the love of a proud maiden, put the whole of Norway under his feet;
and being lord over that great country by right of conquest he laid
claim to every man's odal, or lands, in such wise that his realm was no
longer a place in which a freeborn man could live.
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