the intervals of the feast with the music of his harp, or, if need were,
to recite to the company the saga of King Somerled and other great
ancestors of the kings of Bute.

Earl Hamish -- a tall, courtly Highlander, with sad eyes and a long
brown beard -- sat at the head of the board, that with his own strong
hands he might carve the steaming venison. At his right hand sat the
earl of Jura, Erland the Old, and at his left Earl Sweyn the Silent. His
beautiful wife, the Lady Adela -- attired in a rich gown inwoven with
many devices of silk, and spun by the Sudureyans -- sat facing him at
the far end of the board. At her right hand sat Earl Roderic of Gigha;
and at her left Alpin, her son.

So the feast began, with much merry discourse of how the men had fared
that day at the hunting in Glen More.

Now Erland and Sweyn, kinglings of Jura and Colonsay, though owing
yearly tribute to their overlord, Alexander the Third of Scotland, were
both men of the North, and they spoke with Earl Hamish in the Norse
tongue. Their discourse, which has no bearing upon the story, was mainly
of cattle and sheep, and of the old breast laws of the Western Isles.
But Roderic of Gigha spoke in the Gaelic, which the Lady Adela, though
an Englishwoman born, could well understand.

"Ah, but," said he, addressing young Alpin, who had been boasting of the
manly sports that might be enjoyed in his father's dominions, "you
should one day come to Gigha, for there, I do assure you, we have
adventure such as you never dream of in Bute."

"I marvel, my lord, how that can be," said Allan Redmain scornfully,