In an ancient time there was a lord of Lossie who practised unholy
works. Although he had other estates, he lived almost entirely at
the House of Lossie--that is, after his return from the East,
where he had spent his youth and early manhood. But he paid no
attention to his affairs: a steward managed everything for him,
and Lord Gernon (for that was the outlandish name he brought from
England, where he was born while his father was prisoner to Edward
Longshanks) trusted him for a great while without making the least
inquiry into his accounts, apparently contented with receiving
money enough to carry on the various vile experiments which seemed
his sole pleasure in life. There was no doubt in the minds of the
people of the town--the old town that is, which was then much
larger, and clustered about the gates of the House--that he had
dealings with Satan, from whom he had gained authority over the
powers of nature; that he was able to rouse and lay the winds, to
bring down rain, to call forth the lightnings and set the thunders
roaring over town and sea; nay, that he could even draw vessels
ashore on the rocks, with the certainty that not one on board would
be left alive to betray the pillage of the wreck: this and many
other deeds of dire note were laid to his charge in secret. The
town cowered at the foot of the House in terror of what its lord
might bring down upon it--as a brood of chickens might cower if
they had been hatched by a kite, and saw, instead of the matronly
head and beak of the hen of their instinct, those of the bird of
prey projected over them.
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