that with so small a distance between Bute and Gigha,
you might surely have come to visit your brother long ere this present
time. For although Earl Hamish hath ofttimes spoken of you, yet never
until this day have I seen you; and 'tis well-nigh a score of years that
I have lived in Bute."

"Alas!" said Roderic, looking uneasy, "since my poor father, Earl Alpin,
died, I have had little spirit to come back to these scenes. It was in
anger that my brother and I parted, when, as you well know, the lordship
over the two islands was divided. The larger dominion of Bute fell to
the share of Hamish. I, as the younger son, was perforce content to take
the miserable portion that I now possess. Gigha is but a small island,
my lady."

"Our happiness need not depend upon the extent of our dominions, Lord
Roderic," said Adela; "and I doubt not you are passing happy,
notwithstanding that you have but a younger son's inheritance."

"Not so," said Roderic, planting his heavy elbows on the board; "for
where can a man find happiness when those who are dearest to him have
been torn away?"

"Then you have had sorrows?" questioned the lady.

"When I went forth to take the kingship of my island home," said he, "my
life was indeed most bright and joyous; and on a time it befell that I
went north to Iceland, and there I met one who (with submission I say
it) was not less beautiful than yourself, my lady. She was the most
beauteous damsel that ever came out of the Northland, and her name was
Sigrid the Fair. I married her and we were happy."

Roderic again filled his drinking bowl and looked across the table at
Alpin's handsome brown face.

"We had two children," he continued sadly. "The girl would have been of
the years of your own son there, the boy was two summers younger than she."

"Oh, do not tell me that they are dead!" cried Adela.

"Alas! but that is so," he sighed. "One sunny day they went out hand in
hand from our castle to play, as was their wont, among the rocks and
caves that are at the south of our island. Never since then have they
returned, and some said that the water kelpie had taken them and carried
them away to his crystal home under the sea. Others whispered that the
kraken or some other monster of the deep had devoured them. They said
these things, believing that Sigrid had no heart for her children, and
that she was unkind to them. But many days thereafter I learned that a
strange ship had been seen bearing out