Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 14, 2025
She, my lord, is still in life." "In Bute?" "Ay, even in Bute." "God be thanked for that!" sighed Roderic. "There is yet some happiness in store for me. Where is she? Where may I see her?" "This very day may you see her, my lord. Tonight the good abbot of St. Blane's holds the festival of the New Year. Aasta will be within the chapel."
As well might you seek to move Goatfell as think of holding your own against Roderic MacAlpin." But Kenric, learning thus how Aasta had come by her terrible fate, felt his craving for battle grow stronger. He spoke no word, but stood with his naked weapon ready in his hands. Roderic threw off his heavy cloak and drew his sword.
The moon's light revealed a white patch of hair upon its breast. Kenric staggered backward, unwilling now to strike. "Aasta!" he cried. "Aasta? The werewolf?"
Aasta, making pretence to help him, pulled the opposite way and the boat did not move. Then seeing that he was intercepted the lad promptly whipped out his dirk and sprang towards Allan with his weapon raised. Allan stepped aside, yet did not attempt to unsheathe his sword. Harald followed upon him, but in an instant Aasta had leapt behind him and flung her plaid in a loop over his head.
"Oh, deceitful woman that you are!" muttered the youth, "to tell me that you were not of the people of this land. Had it not been for you I might even now have been afloat!" "Had it not been for me," said Aasta, "you would even now have been dead, for if I had let you use your dirk as you intended, Allan Redmain, whose prisoner you now are, would certainly have slain you."
Where now were the enemy? At last Elspeth Blackfell came to Kenric, who stood with the abbot within the thick walls of the inclosure. "My lord," said she, "I hear the tread of many feet. It is by land they come. Oh, that I knew where my sweet Aasta hath gone, and if she be still in life!" "Father," said Kenric to the abbot, "will you now do as I propose?"
"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.
Aasta stood like a pillar of stone before him, with the sunlight upon her red-gold hair; nor did she stir a finger or blink an eyelash as young Kenric, firm on his feet, flung back his arms and swung the terrible weapon once, twice, thrice, to right and left in front of her. Seeing the maiden's fearless courage, "Now do I in sooth believe," said he, "that you are in very deed a witch, Aasta.
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.
"Ah, then, 'twas you who slew the young son of John of Islay?" cried Thorolf, though not in anger. "The lad was found dead on the very rock you speak of." "Not so," said Kenric; "I slew him not. And 'tis now for the first time I hear that he is dead." "But you had companions?" "A girl was indeed with me. But ah, surely Aasta cannot have done this thing?" "Aasta? That is a Norse name.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking