Late in the evening, the moon being at the full, Allan and Ailsa
Redmain, with Margery de Currie, set out, attended by two armed guards,
for the chapel of St. Blane's, where midnight mass was to be celebrated
for the dying year.
Kenric, less cheerful than his three companions, went with them but a
little distance. Leaving them to continue their way through the dingle
of Lochly, he branched off eastward towards Ascog. He wended his way
across the bare hard land, walking with rapid strides, for the night was
bitterly cold, and the wintry wind made his cheeks tingle as he bent
before it. Under his sheepskin cloak that he held close about his body,
he carried his terrible sword.
He kept to the leeward shelter of the rising ground, but at times he was
obliged to cross the ridges of the bare hills, and there the wind,
sweeping over the wide moonlit firth, was like the cutting of knife
blades upon his face. His breath, that gathered as dew upon the down of
his upper lip, was turned to beads of ice. The streams and pools of
water had shrunk into solid icy masses, and the earth was unyielding as
granite rocks.
Still keeping to the uplands, he at length entered into the woods of
Ascog, and walked among the dark trees until he stood above the steep
path leading downward to Elspeth's cave. He descended by the slippery
ground, holding on by the dry tree branches.
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