"How then—how?" asked several.
"His death happened thus," began the sergeant in Gaelic. "The Black Comyn was a fierce tyrant, who dwelt in the black Castle of Inverlochy, to which he added the great round western tower, that still bears his name; and there he and his wife, who was the Lady Marjorie, daughter of John Baliol, King of Scotland, were a terror and a grievance to the whole country by their exactions, extortions, and severity. Every one in Badenoch knows the story of his conceiving a love for two pretty girls whom he saw reaping in a field near Croc Barrodh, and whom, because they fled from him, he ordered his Lowland men-at-arms to strip nude as they came into the world, and in that condition he compelled to finish the reaping of the field in the light of open day, while he and his friends mocked them, and looked on.
"Two days after this, he was at the Cell of St. Eonaig, in Blair Athole, where he tarried at a wayside cottage to obtain a draught of beer. The baron was thirsty, and he drank deep; the day was hot—he had ridden far, and the beverage was cool, sharp, and refreshing.
"'This beer of yours pleases me much,' said he; 'whence get you it, dame?'
"'I am my own brewer,' replied the cottager; 'but the malt is brought from St. John's Town.'
"'And the water?'
"'From yonder stream.'
"'The Aldnehearlinn?'
"'Yes.'
"'Good! I shall have such beer made in my Castle of Inverlochy, if it cost me a thousand lives and fifty thousand silver crowns!' said Comyn, wiping the white froth from his coal-black beard with his steel glove.