“And so is the mountain-road. Was it death by accident or treachery?”
The peasant paused a moment, and then drily answered, “There was no accident in the business, though three men perished; one was murdered and two were hanged.”
“Do you know the particulars?”
“It would be strange if I did not. I was born in these hills.”
“Indeed!”
“Ay, and my fathers before. We have been for centuries herdsmen in these mountains. I have never been thirty miles from the spot where we stand; and every rock, and rill, and hillock, are familiar from early childhood, for on them my eyes first opened.”
“What was the building?”
“A barrack, for soldiers to protect travellers from plunder.”
“And the cairn—”
“Proves that their protection was sometimes unavailing.”