We should refuse to share our meal?"—
"Then say we, that our swords are steel!
And our vow binds us not to fast,
Where gold or force may buy repast."-
Their host's dark brow grew keen and fell,
His teeth are clenched, his features swell;
Yet sunk the felon's moody ire
Before Lord Ronald's glance of fire,
Nor could his craven courage brook
The Monarch's calm and dauntless look.
With laugh constrained,-"Let
Follow the fashion of his clan!
Each to his separate quarters keep,
And feed or fast, or wake or sleep.'
Their fire at separate distance burns,
By turns they eat, keep guard by turns;
For evil seemed that old man's eye,
Dark and designing, fierce yet shy.
Still he avoided forward look,
But slow and circumspectly took
A circling, never-ceasing glance,
By doubt and cunning marked at once,
Which shot a mischief-boding ray
From under eyebrows shagged and grey.
The younger, too, who seemed his son,
Had that dark look, the timid shun;
The half-clad serfs behind them sate,
And scowled a glare 'twixt fear and hate-
Till all, as darkness onward crept,
Couched down and seemed to sleep, or slept.
Nor he, that boy, whose powerless tongue
Must trust his eyes to wail his wrong,
A longer watch of sorrow made,
But stretched his limbs to slumber laid.
Not in his dangerous host confides
The King, but wary watch provides.
Ronald keeps ward till midnight past,
Then wakes the King, young Allan last;
Thus ranked, to give the youthful Page
The rest required by tender age.
-What is Lord Ronald's wakeful thought,
To chase the languor toil had brought?-
(For deem not that he deigned to throw
Much care upon such coward foe,)—
He thinks of lovely Isabel,
When at her foeman's feet she fell,
Nor less when, placed in princely selle,
She glanced on him with favouring eyes,
At Woodstock when he won the prize.
Nor, fair in joy, in sorrow fair,
In pride of place as 'mid despair,
Must she alone engross his care.
His thoughts to his betrothed bride,
To Edith, turn--O how decide,
When here his love and heart are given,
And there his faith stands plight to Heaven!
No drowsy ward 'tis his to keep,
For seldom lovers long for sleep.
Till sung his midnight hymn the owl,
Answered the dog-fox with his howl,
Then waked the King-at his request,
Lord Ronald stretched himself to rest.
What spell was good King Robert's, say,
To drive the weary night away?
His was the patriot's burning thought,
Of Freedom's battle bravely fought,
Of castles stormed, of cities freed,
Of deep design and daring deed,
Of England's roses reft and torn,
And Scotland's cross in triumph worn,
Of rout and rally, war and truce,-
As heroes think, so thought the Bruce.
No marvel, 'mid such musings high,
Sleep shunned the Monarch's thoughtful eye.
Now over Coolin's eastern head
The greyish light begins to spread,
The otter to his cavern drew,
And clamoured shrill the wakening mew;
Then watched the Page-to needful rest
The King resigned his anxious breast.
To Allan's eyes was harder task,
The weary watch their safeties ask.
He trimmed the fire, and gave to shine
With bickering light the splintered pine;
Then gazed a while, where silent laid
Their hosts were shrouded by the plaid.
But little fear waked in his mind,
For he was bred of martial kind,
And, if to manhood he arrive,
May match the boldest knight alive.
Then thought he of his mother's tower,
His little sisters' green-wood bower,
How there the Easter-gambols pass,
And of Dan Joseph's lengthened mass.
But still before his weary eye
In rays prolonged the blazes die-
Again he roused him-on the lake
Looked forth, where now the twilight-flake
Of pale cold dawn began to wake.
On Coolin's cliffs the mist lay furled,
The morning breeze the lake had curled,
The short dark waves, heaved to the land,
With ceaseless plash kissed cliff or sand;-
It was a slumb'rous sound-he turned
To tales at which his youth had burned,
Of pilgrim's path by demon crossed,
Of sprightly elf or yelling ghost,
Of the wild witch's baneful cot,
And mermaid's alabaster grot,
Who bathes her limbs in sunless well
Deep in Strath-aird's enchanted cell.
Thither in fancy rapt he flies,
And on his sight the vaults arise;
That but's dark walls he sees no more,
His foot is on the marble floor,
And o'er his head the dazzling spars
Gleam like a firmament of stars!
-Hark! hears he not the sea-nymph speak
Her anger in that thrilling shriek?-
No! all too late, with Allan's dream
Mingled the captive's warning scream!
As from the ground he strives to start,
A ruffian's dagger finds his heart!
Upward he casts his dizzy eyes,
Murmurs his master's name,
Not so awoke the King! his hand
Snatched from the flame a knotted brand,
The nearest weapon of his wrath;
With this he crossed the murderer's path,
And venged young Allan well!
The spattered brain and bubbling blood
Hissed on the half-extinguished wood,-
The miscreant gasped and fell!
Nor rose in peace the Island Lord;
One caitiff died upon his sword,
And one beneath his grasp lies prone,
In mortal-grapple overthrown.
But while Lord Ronald's dagger drank
The life-blood from his panting flank,
The Father-ruffian of the band
Behind him rears a coward hand!
-O for a moment's aid,
Till Bruce, who deals no double blow,
Dash to the earth another foe,
Above his comrade laid!
And it is gained-the captive sprung
On the raised arm, and closely clung,
And, ere he shook him loose,
The mastered felon pressed the ground,
And gasped beneath a mortal wound,
While o'er him stands the Bruce.
"Miscreant! while lasts thy flitting spark, Give me to know the purpose dark
That armed thy hand with murderous knife,
Against offenceless stranger's life?"-
"No stranger thou!" with accent fell,
Murmured the wretch; "I know thee well;
And know thee for the foeman sworn
Of my high chief, the mighty Lorn."-
'Speak yet again, and speak the truth
For thy soul's sake!-from whence this youth?
His country, birth, and name declare,
And thus one evil deed repair."-
-"Vex me no more!... my blood runs cold... No more I know than I have told.
We found him in a bark we sought
With different purpose... and I thought. . ." Fate cut him short; in blood and broil,
As he had lived, died Cormac Doil.
Then resting on his bloody blade,
The valiant Bruce to Ronald said,
"Now shame upon us both!-that boy
Lifts his mute face to heaven,
And clasps his hands, to testify
His gratitude to God on high,
For strange deliverance given.
His speechless gesture thanks hath paid,
Which our free tongues have left unsaid!"-
He raised the youth with kindly word,
But marked him shudder at the sword;
He cleansed it from its hue of death,
And plunged the weapon in its sheath.
"Alas, poor child! unfitting part
Fate doomed, when with so soft a heart,
And form so slight as thine,
She made thee first a pirate's slave,
Then, in his stead, a patron gave
Of wayward lot like mine;
A landless prince, whose wandering life
Is but one scene of blood and strife-
Yet scant of friends the Bruce shall be,
But he'll find resting-place for thee.-
Come, noble Ronald! o'er the dead
Enough thy generous grief is paid,
And well has Allan's fate been wroke;-
Come, wend we hence-the day has broke.
Seek we our bark-I trust the tale
Was false, that she had hoisted sail."
Yet, ere they left that charnel-cell,
The Island Lord bade sad farewell
To Allan:-"Who shall tell this tale,"
He said, "in halls of Donagaile!
Oh, who his widowed mother tell,
That, ere his bloom, her fairest fell!-
Rest thee, poor youth! and trust my care,
For mass and knell and funeral prayer;
While o'er those caitiffs, where they lie,
The wolf shall snarl, the raven cry!"-
And now the eastern mountain's head
On the dark lake threw lustre red;
Bright gleams of gold and purple streak
Ravine and precipice and peak-
(So earthly power at distance shows;
Reveals his splendour, hides his woes.)
O'er sheets of granite dark and broad,
Rent and unequal, lay the road.
In sad discourse the warriors wind,
And the mute Page moves slow behind.
STRANGER! if e'er thine ardent step hath traced
The northern realms of ancient Caledon,
Where the proud Queen of Wilderness hath placed,
By lake and cataract, her lonely throne;
Sublime but sad delight thy soul hath known,
Gazing on pathless glen and mountain high,
Listing where from the cliffs the torrents thrown
Mingle their echoes with the eagle's cry,
And with the sounding lake, and with the moaning sky.
Yes! 'twas sublime, but sad.-The loneliness
Loaded thy heart, the desert tired thine eye;
And strange and awful fears began to press
Thy bosom with a stern solemnity.
Then hast thou wished some woodman's cottage nigh,
Something that showed of life, though low and mean;
Glad sight, its curling wreath of smoke to spy,
Glad sound, its cock's blithe carol would have been, Or children whooping wild beneath the willows green.
Such are the scenes, where savage grandeur wakes
An awful thrill that softens into sighs;
Such feelings rouse them by dim Rannoch's lakes,
In dark Glencoe such gloomy raptures rise:
Or further, where, beneath the northern skies,
Chides wild Loch-Eribol his caverns hoar-
But, be the minstrel judge, they yield the prize
Of desert dignity to that dread shore,
That sees grim Coolin rise, and hears Coriskin roar.
Through such wild scenes the champions passed,
When bold halloo and bugle-blast
Upon the breeze came loud and fast.
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