CHAPTER VIII. AN ERIACH FINE.

Under the clear sky of high noon the people of Bute had assembled on the
great plain of Laws, at the margin of Loch Ascog. They had come from all
parts of the island, for the word had travelled round with the swiftness
of a bird's flight that their good king, Earl Hamish, had been cruelly
slain by his own brother, and all were eager not only to see the man who
had done this treacherous deed, but also to hear judgment passed upon
him for his crime.

At the foot of the great standing stone Sir Oscar Redmain, as steward or
prefect of Bute, took his seat as judge. Noble and comely he looked,
holding his great glittering sword, point upward, waiting for the
prisoner and his accuser. At his right stood Godfrey Thurstan, the good
abbot of St. Blane's, with his cowl drawn over his reverend head to
shield him from the warm sun. 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. Without the verge of the
sacred circle of justice were gathered a great crowd of islanders --
herdsmen and husbandmen, tribesmen, fishermen, and thralls -- who had
left their labours on hill and in vale, or on the sea, and come hither
crying out loud for speedy vengeance.

Duncan Graham the seneschal and his guards of the castle had already
gone amongst these onlookers to see that no man carried weapons, for it
was held in strict custom that none should bear arms or make disturbance
at such a time on pain of life and limb.