"Forgive me my sins against thee," said Cora, in a choking voice.
"They are forgiven."
"And my husband—Mac Ian Rua?"
"Even he, too, is forgiven," said the King, as the door of the hut was thrown open, and the tall huntsman, fresh from the pursuit, and still clad in his lurich—the same stalwart warrior who had that day slain Enrique and Enotus, and saved his monarch's life, and whose loud bugle blast had rallied the Scottish bands—stood before Cora and her father, with astonishment and fear in his eyes, while one hand grasped his axe, and the other the antlers of the stag, and his ruddy children clung joyously to his sturdy legs.
To dwell longer on this scene would mar its effect.
The huntsman was forgiven, and the old king spent the happiest night of his long life with his daughter on one side of him, and her husband on the other, while his grandchildren clambered about him, and in wild glee rolled about the floor the glittering helmet which was encircled by a diadem.
He told them how he had pined and sorrowed, and how deep his grief had been,—for Cora was ever the object around which all his affections had been entwined,—and how desolate his heart, his hearth, and home had been since her loss.
Then Cora related, that with the exception of bitter remorse at times, how happily they had dwelt in this green bower beside the Fiddich, far away from courts and kings, with their children budding round them, maintained by the fruit of her own industry and the skill of Mac Ian's hand.
They supped that night on venison broiled on a wooden spit, with cakes of Cora's baking, and nut-brown ale of her husband's brewing. When the old king was disencumbered of his armour, Mac Ian and he sat over their cans and fought the battle thrice again; and when he lay down to sleep on a soft bed of freshly-pulled heather and smooth skins—the spoils of fell and forest—Cora produced a clairshach, or harp cf humble form, and once more sang him to sleep, as of old, by the warlike lay of the king of bards; that soul-stirring lay he loved so well—"The Battle of Cattraeth;"—and often, as his eyes were closing, the old man raised himself with a flush of ardour, as she related the slaughter of the men of Dunedin in Anuerins' burning words, which told how, among the Pagan Saxons, "were three hundred warriors arrayed in gilded armour—three loricated bands, each with three commanders wearing torques of gold."
With early morning came the king's train. They had traced him to the hut, and all flushed with victory, pursuit, and slaughter, Duncan, Earl of Caithness, Nicholas, the secretary, Hugo of the Rutherford, Crinian, Thane of Dunbar, Gillemichael, Earl of Fife, and others, stood by his humble couch of skins, and after reporting the utter extermination of the Danes, heard him relate the joyous and wondrous discovery he had made overnight.