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Updated: June 26, 2025
"My lord," said Aasta, "what Dovenald says is but wisdom; and now, if you would take safe hiding, I know of a little cave above the shores of Ascog Bay wherein you might be secure from all discovery." "What? and would you counsel me to shrink from meeting this man? No, no, my friends. I am no craven, and it is not thus that I will desert my post.
"Have I not sworn an oath on my mother's blessing that I will have this man Roderic's life? Why, then, should this assize be assembled?" "Go, do my bidding, rash boy," said Dovenald sternly. "Seek not to oppose the customs of your ancestors, and let not your thirst for vengeance now blind you to the folly of violence.
At his left Dovenald, most learned in the laws of the land, ready to explain and discuss the ancient legal customs; and round them in a circle were the others of the twelve ruthmen. The witnesses or compurgators stood in an outer ring within a fencing of cords running from stake to stake.
"Methinks, my lord," said old Dovenald, as he stood with Kenric and Aasta, "that this outlaw will not now be satisfied until he bath compassed your death. Forget not, I implore you, that you alone stand between him and his ambitions. It would go ill with us all if he should succeed, and methinks 'twere well that you took timely refuge where he could not find you."
Kenric was engaged in giving a last attention to this shot truck, when, from the heights of the battlements, he saw the figure of Aasta the Fair running towards the castle from the northward. It vexed him much to see the wild girl thus exposed to the dangers that might soon overtake her, and he bade Dovenald, the old bard, go down and unfasten the postern that she might enter.
Instead of being king in Bute, he was a prisoner in the deepest dungeon of Rothesay Castle. The moor fowl had scarcely shaken the dew from off their wings ere the two sons of the dead Earl Hamish were climbing the heathery heights behind Rothesay. With them went the aged Dovenald, bearing in his arms a young goat, white as the driven snow. When they were upon the topmost knoll they stood a while.
Then standing upon the Stone of Destiny, Kenric took from the steward a straight white wand, and the abbot and three friars anointed him king. At the same time old Dovenald, clothed in a scarlet robe, advanced from the crowd, and bending low before the throne repeated the catalogue of Kenric's ancestors.
No man in all Bute can say that he ever broke a promise or told an untruth. Think you that because he is hasty with his dirk he is therefore a thoughtless loon, who knows not when a gentle word can do more service than a blow? When did he ever draw dirk or sword without just cause? You do not know him as I do, Dovenald, or you would not breathe a word in his dispraise.
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