But among them were not my father and brothers, and I knew that I
was the last of my line by that absence.

It was not my fault that I was not lying with them under our roof
yonder. I had headed a charge by a dozen of our best men, when it
seemed that a charge might at least give time for the escape of the
few women of the house to the glen. My father had bidden me, and we
went, and did our best. We won the time we fought for, and that was
all. Some of us got back to the hall, and the rest bided where they
fell. As for me, I had been stunned by an axe blow, which my helm
had turned, and came to myself to find that I was bound hand and
foot, and set aside under the stable wall with two others of our
men, captives also. Thence I must watch all that went on,
helplessly, and after the roof fell I cared no more what should be
done with me, for I was alone and desolate.

Nor did I know who these foemen were, or why they had fallen on us.
In the gray of the morning they had come from inland, and were
round the hall while we broke our fast. We had snatched our weapons
as best we might, and done what we could, but the numbers against
us were too great from the first.

They had come from inland, but they were not Scots. We were at
peace with all the Caithness folk, and had been so for years,
though we had few dealings with them. My father had won a place for
himself and his men here on the Caithness shore in the days when
Harald Harfager had set all Norway under him, for he was one of
those jarls who would not bow to him, and left that old Norse land
which I had never seen. Presently, he handselled peace for himself
here by marriage with my mother, the daughter of a great Scots lord