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'Aweel, aweel, my dear, said the lady, with a quiet smile of submission, 'ye ken these matters best, and you will do your pleasure they are far above my hand only, I doubt if ever the town-clock will go right, or your meals be got up so regular as I should wish, till Peter MacAlpin gets his office back again.
And on a time 'tis a full score and four years ago she disappeared, and we could find her nowhere, until my lord went out upon his ship and boarded the galley of a bold viking of the south whose name was Rudri Alpinson, or, as the Scots called him, Roderic MacAlpin.
"What means all this, William MacAlpin?" asked Aasta, kneeling by his side; "and wherefore come you back to Bute thus covered with bleeding wounds?" The man pointed westward, and with his dying breath said: "Run you to Castle Rothesay, I beseech you; run and tell my lord Kenric that the Norsemen with their hosts have landed on Gigha, and have wrested the island from us.
"Oh, devil's messenger, or devil himself that thou art!" he cried. "Cursed be the hour that brought you in our midst, Roderic MacAlpin. You have slain my father, you have slain my brother; my dear mother is now by your cruel hand laid helpless on her couch. But by my father's soul and by my mother's blessing, I swear that you shall die. By my hand and none other you shall perish!
Had he been armed with a knife such as the one you used, methinks you would not now be here to utter your false words. Your own arms were left in the armoury hail, where 'twas right they should be; and you took up the knife from the board, knowing full well what you meant to do with it. Oh, Roderic MacAlpin, may your tongue shrivel in your throat ere you utter such base and wicked lies again!
Roderic drank off what remained in his wine cup. "I am he," he said coolly as he again folded his arms. "And who, then, are you who demand to know?" "Then if you be he," said Kenric, "you are the vilest man that ever breathed within these walls. Oh, Roderic MacAlpin, unworthy son of a noble and good prince, you have brought the guilt of blood upon your father's name!
She leapt with a wolf-like howl upon Roderic MacAlpin, and so pressed him with her blows that he stepped back and back. The maid, though strong, was ill-trained in the use of the sword, and her every blow was skilfully parried. But to Aasta's side came Kenric, his eyes gleaming with fierce hatred of his foe.
Their left is supported by Paris, their right by the fortresses of Verdun, and their center by the entrenched camps of Mailly, just south of Vitry-le-Francois. About thirty American and English newspaper men met at lunch to-day at the restaurant Hubin, Number 22 Rue Brouot. Among those present were Fullerton, Grundy, MacAlpin, Williams, Knox, Reeves, O'Niel, Sims, and others.
Every one was in fine spirits, the trend of feeling being that Paris was the most interesting place to be in just now, and that perhaps the best story of the war may yet be written in Paris. I drove in a cab with MacAlpin to the Gare du Nord to meet a train of British wounded that was expected to arrive there. We found the station almost deserted.
"Men of Bute," said he, "I charge you all that if within three years to come any of you shall see this man Roderic MacAlpin within the isle of Bute, or within his forfeited lands of Gigha and Cara, or in any other land in the dominions of the King of Scots, you shall put him to the sword and slay him."
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