"
They were a band of madmen in their black despair. How they tore through
the black night; what unguarded weak spot they found in Ian's castle
walls; how they fought their way through it, leaving their dead bodies
in the path, none really ever knew. By what strange chance Dark Malcolm
came upon Wee Brown Elspeth, craftily set to playing hide-and-seek with
a child of Ian's so that she might not cry out and betray her presence;
how, already wounded to his death, he caught at and drove his dirk into
her child heart, the story only offers guesses at. But kill and save her
he did, falling dead with her body held against his breast, her brown
hair streaming over it. Not one living man went back to the small, rude
castle on the Glen--not one.
I sat and read and read until the room grew dark. When I stopped I
found that Angus Macayre was standing in the dimness at the foot of the
ladder. He looked up at me and I down at him. For a few moments we were
both quite still.
"It is the tale of Ian Red Hand and Dark Malcolm you are reading?" he
said, at last.
"And Wee Brown Elspeth, who was fought for and killed," I added, slowly.
Angus nodded his head with a sad face. "It was the only way for a
father," he said. "A hound of hell was Ian. Such men were savage beasts
in those days, not human."
I touched the manuscript with my hand questioningly.
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