Thus, at the time when young Kenric became the lord of Bate, the whole
of the isles west of the peninsula of Kintyre were in the hands of petty
kings, who, holding lands of both crowns, were still uncertain to whom
they should pay their paramount allegiance.
During the minority of Alexander the Third all efforts to reduce the
isles were abandoned. But now that the king was no longer a boy, he was
resolved to compel all these vassals of Norway to renounce their
allegiance and acknowledge their adherence to the Scottish crown.
On the appointed day Sir Piers de Currie crossed over to Bute. He was a
man of middle age, tall and strong. His gigantic limbs were hard and
stout as the trunk of an oak sapling. He wielded the longest sword and
the heaviest battle-axe in Bute and Arran, and he was the best bowman in
all the lands of the Clyde. His life among the mountains of Arran had
given him a mighty power of endurance, for it was his habit to rove for
many days over the craggy heights of Goatfell, climbing where none else
could climb, slaying deer, spearing salmon, following the wild wolf to
his lair, sleeping on the bare heather, drinking naught save the crystal
water of the mountain burns, and eating the simplest food. His band of
retainers, though scarcely less strong of limb than their master, were
wont to say that their labours were even as those of the mythical
Sigmund, who was condemned to make a new island in the ocean of the
rocks that he clove from the topmost peaks of the Mountain of the Winds.
Pages:
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125