t, attended by two armed guards,
for the chapel of St. Blane's, where midnight mass was to be celebrated
for the dying year.

Kenric, less cheerful than his three companions, went with them but a
little distance. Leaving them to continue their way through the dingle
of Lochly, he branched off eastward towards Ascog. He wended his way
across the bare hard land, walking with rapid strides, for the night was
bitterly cold, and the wintry wind made his cheeks tingle as he bent
before it. Under his sheepskin cloak that he held close about his body,
he carried his terrible sword.

He kept to the leeward shelter of the rising ground, but at times he was
obliged to cross the ridges of the bare hills, and there the wind,
sweeping over the wide moonlit firth, was like the cutting of knife
blades upon his face. His breath, that gathered as dew upon the down of
his upper lip, was turned to beads of ice. The streams and pools of
water had shrunk into solid icy masses, and the earth was unyielding as
granite rocks.

Still keeping to the uplands, he at length entered into the woods of
Ascog, and walked among the dark trees until he stood above the steep
path leading downward to Elspeth's cave. He descended by the slippery
ground, holding on by the dry tree branches.

At the mouth of the cave he stood awhile, stamping his feet that he
might be heard. But there was no response. He drew aside the stiff hide
curtain and looked within. All was black, cold desolation.

"Aasta? Aasta?" he called. But no voice answered him.

He went inside the cave and felt about for the place where he had seen
Elspeth leave the flint and steel. He lighted a rush candle and looked
about him. Everything was as he had left it a few hours before. Aasta
had not returned. He found, here a little cap, made of gay feathers and
squirrel fur, that Aasta was wont to wear; and there a necklace of
bright-hued seashells. In a corner there was a pair of small slippers,
trimmed with odd bits of coloured silk, and lined with white hare skin,
and beside them a girdle of crimson leather.

He looked upon these objects with strange reverence, but did not dare to
touch them.

Then he went to the cave's entrance and stood with his shoulder leaning
against the rock, and looking dreamily across the Clyde towards Largs.
It was still two hours before midnight, and believing that he was soon
to encounter his enemy Roderic in a hand-to-hand combat, he felt a
gloomy, melancholy