ut-brown, and his sparkling eyes were dark and gentle
as those of a fallow deer. The sun and the bracing sea air had made
ruddy his fair skin, even to his firm, round throat and his thick arms,
that were left bare by his rough coat of untanned buckskin.

"You have been weeping, Ailsa," said he, looking into her tearful eyes.

"Sir," said she, speaking, as he did, in the guttural Gaelic tongue,
"come, I beseech you, to the help of two poor ouzels, whose nest is far
in under the roots of yonder birch tree. If you help not quickly, their
little fledglings will be eaten up by a thieving stoat that has but a
few moments ago entered their nest."

"Youmake needless dole, Ailsa, over a pair of worthless birds and their
chicks," said he scornfully. "Why, I have this day slain a full
half-score of birds! Ay, and right willingly would I have doubled their
number."

"The birds you have slain are for men's food," said she, "but the birds
I speak of sing as sweetly as the mavis, and I have watched them
tenderly for many sunny days past. Rescue them for me, good Kenric, for
I love them right well, and I would not for the world that any ill
should befall them."

Then Kenric went with her to the stream's bank, and as he stood there
his keen eyes saw something move across the short grass at the water's
edge. Promptly he put an arrow to his bowstring and took deft aim. The
shaft sped quickly to its mark, plunged into the body of a stoat, and
pinned the animal to the soft turf.

"There, Ailsa," said he, "the murderous thief is justly punished!" and
springing down the bank he put his heel upon the writhing animal and
lightly drew out his arrow from its body, while Ailsa picked up the
bleeding fledgling that the stoat had been carrying away in its teeth.
She took the maimed little bird to the birch tree that Kenric might
restore it to its nest. But at the mouth of the nest lay the dead body
of one of the parent birds, and hovering near it was the mother ouzel,
uttering sharp cries of distress at the murder of her mate and little one.

"And now," said Kenric, "I must hie me back to St. Blane's, for our good
Abbot Godfrey bade me be with him ere nightfall. Where is your brother
Allan? Say, was he of those who went with my father and Alpin to the
punting in Glen More this forenoon?"

But Ailsa was again weeping over the fate of her water ouzels and did
not answer him.

Ailsa was some two years younger than himself. They had been compa