“God give you thanks, my lord the king,” said Aasta softly.

And as the morning dewdrop shines upon the harebell, so shone the tears of gratitude that filled her deep blue eyes.

At that moment as she turned away the cry of the cuckoo was heard from the woods, and the girl kissed her hand and said in the Danish, “Cuckoo, cuckoo, when shall I be married?”

But the bird answered not at all, and Aasta grew very sad.

Kenric, leaving her behind, then wended his way back towards Rothesay.  But not far had he gone into the wood when he found that the girl was following him.

“My lord,” said she, coming to his side and walking near him, “when yesterday I heard that these three strange men had come to Bute, and Elspeth told me what manner of wicked men they were, now is the time, I thought, when the mighty sword of king Somerled must be unearthed, for most surely will that sword be needed.  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.  So many men of that land took ship and went forth upon the seas to seek other homes, and they came to the land of the Scots.  They were adventurous and valiant men, who took to conquest and sea roving as a cygnet takes to the water.  Now these vikings were soon such a thorn in the side of King Harald, that he resolved to quell the evil by following his old enemies to their new abodes and hunting them across the western main, and he passed down among the Western Isles, and harried and wasted those lands farther than any Norwegian monarch before him or after him.  So it befell that the Western Isles, that had belonged to the Scots, were peopled and ruled over by the Norsemen.”