Chapter 10 AASTA'S CURSE.

Roderic of Gigha, for all that he had been absent from Bute for a score of years, had not forgotten the old landmarks that had been familiar to him in boyhood. After swimming across Loch Fad he found himself among the tall pine trees of the forest of Barone. Wet and weary after his escape from his pursuers, and smarting sorely of his many wounds, he passed through the forest glades and emerged at the point where, on the evening before, Kenric had entered.

As he skirted the lands of Kilmory he saw a herd of shaggy long-horned cattle browsing there, with many sheep and goats. He looked about for their shepherd that he might ask him concerning the earls of Jura and Colonsay. He began to regret that he had so lightly dismissed his friends, who might better have waited to carry him in their ship to Gigha.

Presently he heard voices from behind a great rock. A young sheepdog appeared, but when it saw him it turned tail and slunk away as if it were afraid of him. Then from behind the rock came young Lulach the herd boy, and with him a most beautiful girl. Lulach stood for a moment looking at the strange man.

"Ah, 'tis he! 'Tis he whom we were but now speaking of!" he cried, and dropping the brown bread cake that he had been eating he ran away down the hill in terror.

But the girl stood still, with her hand resting on the rock.

Now this girl was the same strange maiden who had appeared so mysteriously before Kenric on his night journey through the forest. Tall she was and very fair -- tall and graceful as a young larch tree, and fair as the drifted snow whose surface reflects the red morning sun. Her eyes were blue as the starry sky, and her long hair fell upon her white skin like a dark stream of blood. Men named this wondrous maiden Aasta the Fair.

Earl Roderic started back at sight of her great beauty as she stood before him in her gray and ragged garments, for she was but a poor thrall who worked upon the lands of Kilmory, minding the goats upon the hills or mending the fishermen's nets down on the shore.

"Fair damsel," said he, "tell me, I pray you, if you have seen pass by an aged man and his companion towards the bay of Scalpsie?"

"'Tis but an hour ago that they passed hence," said Aasta. "Cursed be the occasion that brought both them and you into this isle!"

Then she pointed across the blue moor of the sea where, under the shadow of the high coast of Arran, a vessel appeared as a mere speck upon the dark water.

"Yonder sails their ship into the current of Kilbrannan Sound."

"Alas!" said Roderic, "and I am too late."

"Alas, indeed!" said Aasta. "Methinks they had better have tarried to take away with them the false traitor they have left upon our shores. What manner of foul work detained you that you went not hence with your evil comrades? But the blood that I now see flowing from your wounds tells its own tale. You have slain Earl Alpin in the fight. Woe be upon you!"

"Even so," said Roderic, "for hard though he pressed me with his vigorous blows, yet my good sword was true to the last, and I clove his young head in twain."

"Woe to you, woe to you, Roderic of Gigha!" cried Aasta, shrinking from his approach. "Curses be upon you for the evil work that you have done. May you never again know peace upon this earth. May those you love -- if any such there be -- may they be torn from you and slain before your eyes. Worse than brute that you are, meaner than the meanest worm that creeps, curse you, curse you!"

Then as Aasta drew yet farther back her hand was caught by another hand which drew her gently aside, and from behind the rock appeared the gaunt figure of old Elspeth Blackfell. And Lulach the herd boy, having overcome his fears, crept nearer and stood apart.

Roderic paused at seeing the old crone, and his face grew pale.

"Unworthy son of Bute!" said Elspeth, pointing her thin finger at the island king, "you have heard this good maiden's curse. Even so do all the dwellers in Bute curse you at this hour. But the great God who sees into all hearts, and in whose hands alone must rest our vengeance -- He will surely repay you for the sorrows that your wickedness has caused. Go, Roderic MacAlpin. Go, ere it is too late, and before the high altar of St. Blane's pray to Him for the mercy and forgiveness that you sorely need."

Roderic bowed his head and nervously clasped and unclasped his hands.

"Go while there is yet time and confess your sins," continued Elspeth. "And if there is aught of penitence in your black heart then seek from our good and holy abbot the means whereby you may fulfil your penance during the days that remain to you on earth."

It seemed that a great change had come over him as he walked away, for his step was halting and his head was bowed. He walked along by the cliffs that are at the verge of the sea; southward past Scalpsie and Lubas and Barr, then inland to the little chapel of St. Blane's. And ever at his heels hobbled Elspeth Blackfell.

When Earl Roderic had entered the holy place to open his heart in confession to the abbot, Elspeth waited on the headland above the bay of Dunagoil. In that bay there was a ship, and the shipmen were unloading her of a cargo of English salt and other commodities of the far south. Presently the old woman went downward to the beach, and there held speech with the shipmaster, who, as it chanced, being a man of Wales, could make shift to understand the Gaelic tongue, and from him she learned that the ship was to leave at the ebb tide for England.

Now Elspeth had seen young Ailsa Redmain as the girl was passing to her father's castle, and Ailsa had told her how the wicked lord of Gigha had been made an outlaw. So Elspeth questioned the shipmaster, asking him if he would be free to carry this man away from Bute.

"My good dame," said the mariner, "that will I most gladly do, for your holy bishop or abbot, or whatever he be, hath already paid me the sum of four golden pieces in agreeing that I shall do this thing -- though for the matter of that, this man is a king in his own land, and methinks the honour were ample payment without the gold; so if the winds permit, and we meet no rascally pirates by the way, I make no doubt that ere the next new moon we shall be snug and safe against the walls of our good city of Chester."

So ere the curtain of night had fallen over the Arran hills the outlawed earl of Gigha had left behind him the little isle of Bute, and it was thereafter told how he had in secret confessed his manifold sins to the abbot of St. Blane's, and how in deep contrition he had solemnly sworn at the altar to make forthwith the pilgrimage of penance to the Holy Land, there to spend the three years of his exile in the service of the Cross.