XXIV. The stranger smiled: "Since to your home Announced by prophet sooth and old, His noble hand had grasp'd an oar:1 Yet with main strength his strokes he drew, And moor their shallop on the beach. XXV. The stranger view'd the shore around; 1[MS." This gentle hand had grasp'd an oar: Yet with main strength the oars he drew."] Until the mountain-maiden show'd 1 The Celtic chieftains, whose lives were continually exposed to peril, had usually, in the most retired spot of their domains, some place of retreat for the hour of necessity, which, as circumstances would admit, was a tower, a cavern, or a rustic hut, in a strong and secluded situation. One of these last gave refuge to the unfortunate Charles Edward, in his perilous wanderings after the battle of Culloden. "It was situated in the face of a very rough, high, and rocky mountain, called Letternilichk, still a part of Benalder, full of great stones and crevices, and some scattered wood interspersed. The habitation called The Cage, in the face of that mountain, was within a small thick bush of wood. There were first some rows of trees laid down, in order to level the floor for a habitation: and as the place was steep, this raised the lower side to an equal height with the other: and these trees, in the way of joists or planks, were levelled with earth and gravel. There were betwixt the trees, growing naturally on their own roots, some stakes fixed in the earth, which, with the trees, were interwoven with ropes, made of heath and birch twigs, up to the top of The Cage, it being of a round or rather oval shape; and the whole thatched and covered over with fog. The whole fabric hung, as it were, by a large tree, which reclined from the one end, all along the roof, to the other, and which gave it the name of The Cage; and by chance there happened to be two stones at a small distance from one another, in the side next the precipice, resembling the pillars of a chimney, where the fire was placed. The smoke had its vent out here, all along the fall of the rock, which was XXVI. It was a lodge of ample size, But strange of structure and device; Of such materials, as around The workman's hand had readiest found. Lopp'd of their boughs, their hoar trunks bared, To give the walls their destined height, While moss and clay and leaves combined Their slender length for rafters spread, Due westward, fronting to the green, A rural portico was seen, Aloft on native pillars borne, Of mountain fir with bark unshorn, The ivy and Idæan vine, The clematis, the favour'd flower Which boasts the name of virgin-bower, And every hardy plant could bear Loch Katrine's keen and searching air. An instant in this porch she staid, so much of the same colour, that one could discover no difference in the clearest day."-HOME'S History of the Rebellion. Lond. 1802, 4to, p. 381. "On heaven and on thy lady call, And enter the enchanted hall! 66 XXVII. My hope, my heaven, my trust must be, Dropp'd from the sheath, that careless flung A battle-axe, a hunting spear, And broadswords, bows, and arrows store, And there the wild-cat's brindled hide Or mantles o'er the bison's horns; 1 [MS." Here grins the wolf as when he died, There hung the wild-cat's brindled hide, And deer-skins, dappled, dun and white, To garnish forth the sylvan hall. XXVIII. The wandering stranger round him gazed, She sigh'd, then smiled and took the word; "You see the guardian champion's sword; As light it trembles in his hand, As in my grasp a hazel wand; My sire's tall form might grace the part But in the absent giant's hold Are women now, and menials old." XXIX. The mistress of the mansion came, 1 [See Appendix, Note B.] |