Fare you well."
As she sighed and dropped the curtain she turned to leave the cave, and
there crept towards her the gaunt form of a great dog wolf, upon whose
breast there was a patch of pure white hair. The animal lazily stretched
himself and yawned, showing his long red tongue and his white fangs.
Aasta bent down and patted his shaggy coat.
"No, Lufa, it is alone I go. Get back to your corner," she said coaxingly.
The animal turned tail, and with the obedience of a tame dog went back
into the darkness and lay down on his mat of sheepskin, while Aasta,
drawing her cloak about her, slipped silently out into the clear
twilight and faced the keen east wind.
Turning along a narrow path that led upward to the head of the bank, she
followed the course of a little stream whose pure water was now turned
into icy crystals. As she gained the level height the wind blew her hair
about her pale and beautiful face. She drew her hood over her head and
turned inland. To the south the giant fells of Arran, shrouded in snow,
stood out white and distinct against a steel-blue sky, with the wan moon
above them. But the ground that Aasta trod was bare and hard, and the
drifted snow lay only in the deeper hollows crisp as ice. She crossed
the Great Plain beside the Seat of Law, until she came to the wooded
shores of Loch Ascog. She observed that the ruffled water of the little
lake was of a deep blue, and she thought of the weird belief of that
time which held that those waters claimed once every year a new victim,
and that they only assumed that dark-blue colour in token of a coming death.
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