The same morning Douglas, true to his promise, leaves the island with Ellen and Allan-bane, and takes refuge in the Goblin Cave (Coir-nan-Uriskin), in the darkest cleft of Benvenue. On his way to the muster on Lanrick mead, Roderick ventures into the neighbourhood of their cell, and listens for the last time to Ellen's voice mingling with that of Allan-bane in a hymn to the Virgin.
No thought of peace, no thought of rest,
Assuaged the storm in Roderick's breast.
With sheathed broadsword in his hand,
Abrupt he paced the islet strand,
And eyed the rising sun, and laid
His hand on his impatient blade.1
Beneath a rock, his vassals' care
Was prompt the ritual to prepare,
With deep and deathful meaning fraught;
For such Antiquity had taught
Was preface meet, ere yet abroad
The Cross of Fire should take its road.
The shrinking band stood oft aghast
At the impatient glance he cast.
A heap of withered boughs was piled
Of juniper and rowan wild,3
Mingled with shivers from the oak
Rent by the lightning's recent stroke.
Brian, the hermit, by it stood,
Barefooted, in his frock and hood.
'Twas all prepared: and from the rock
A goat, the patriarch of the flock,
Before the kindling pile was laid,
And pierced by Roderick's ready blade.
Patient the sickening victim eyed
The life-blood ebb in crimson tide
Down his clogged beard and shaggy limb,
Till darkness glazed his eyeballs dim.
The grizzly priest, with murmuring prayer,
A slender crosslet formed with care,
A cubit's length in measure due;
The shaft and limbs were rods of yew,
Whose parents in Inch-Cailliach wave1
Their shadows o'er Clan-Alpine's grave,
And, answering Lomond's breezes deep,
Soothe many a chieftain's endless sleep.
The Cross, thus formed, he held on high,
With wasted hand and haggard eye;
And strange and mingled feelings woke,
While his anathema he spoke :
"Woe to the clansman who shall view
This symbol of sepulchral yew,5
And flings to shore his mustered force,
Burst, with loud roar, their answer hoarse, "Woe to the traitor! woe!"
The while he scathed the Cross with flame."
The crosslet's points of sparkling wood
He quenched among the bubbling blood;
And as again the sign he reared,
Hollow and hoarse his voice was heard:
"When flits this Cross from man to man,"
Vich-Alpine's summons to his clan,
Burst be the ear that fails to heed !11
Palsied the foot that shuns to speed!
May ravens tear the careless eyes!
Wolves make the coward heart their prize!
As sinks that blood-stream in the earth,
So may his heart's blood drench his hearth!
As dies in hissing gore the spark,
Quench thou his light, Destruction dark!
And be the grace to him denied,
Bought by this sign to all beside!"
He ceased: no echo gave agen
The murmur of the deep Amen.
Then Roderick, with impatient look,
From Brian's hand the symbol took:
Speed, Malise, speed!" he said, and gave The crosslet to his henchman brave.
"The muster-place be Lanrick mead-13 Instant the time! Speed, Malise, speed!"
Like heath-bird when the hawks pursue,
A barge across Loch Katrine flew;
High stood the henchman on the prow:
So rapidly the bargemen row,
The bubbles where they launched the boat 14
Were all unbroken and afloat,
Dancing in foam and ripple still,
When it had neared the mainland hill;
And from the silver beach's side
Still was the prow three fathoms wide,
When lightly bounded to the land
The messenger of blood and brand.-
Fast as the fatal symbol flies,
In arms the huts and hamlets rise; 15
From winding glen, from upland brown,
They poured each hardy tenant down.
Nor slacked the messenger his pace:
He showed the sign-he named the place-
And pressing forward like the wind,
Left clamour and surprise behind.
The fisherman forsook the strand;
The swarthy smith took dirk and brand;
With changed cheer, the mower blithe
Left in the half-cut swathe his scythe;
The herds without a keeper strayed;
The plough was in mid-furrow stayed;
The falconer tossed his hawk away;
The hunter left the stag at bay:
Prompt at the signal of alarms,
Each son of Alpine rushed to arms.
So swept the tumult and affray
Along the margin of Achray.16
Speed, Malise, speed! The lake is passed,
Duncraggan's huts appear at last: 17
There may'st thou rest, thy labour done-18
Their lord shall speed the signal on.---
What woful accents load the gale?
The funeral yell, the female wail!
A gallant hunter's sport is o'er;
A valiant warrior fights no more.
Within the hall, where torches' ray
Supplies the excluded beams of day,
Lies Duncan on his lowly bier,
And o'er him streams his widow's tear.
His stripling son stands mournful by;
His youngest weeps, but knows not why:
The village maids and matrons round
The dismal coronach resound.19.
All stand aghast. Unheeding all,
The henchman bursts into the hall;
Before the dead man's bier he stood,
Held forth the Cross besmeared with blood:
The muster-place is Lanrick mead !20
Speed forth the signal! clansmen, speed !"-
Angus, the heir of Duncan's line,
Sprung forth and seized the fatal sign.
In haste the stripling to his side
His father's dirk and broadsword tied;
But when he saw his mother's eye
Watch him in speechless agony,
Back to her opened arms he flew,
Pressed on her lips a fond adieu.
"Alas!" she sobbed-" and yet be gone,
And speed thee forth, like Duncan's son !" 21
One look he cast upon the bier,
Dashed from his eye the gathering tear,
Breathed deep, to clear his labouring breast,
And tossed aloft his bonnet crest;
Then, like the high-bred colt, when, freed,
First he essays his fire and speed,
He vanished, and o'er moor and moss
Sped forward with the Fiery Cross.
Benledi saw the Cross of Fire;
It glanced like lightning up Strath-Ire.22
O'er dale and hill the summons flew—
Nor rest nor pause young Angus knew;
The tear that gathered in his eye
He left the mountain breeze to dry,
Until, where Teith's young waters roll
Betwixt him and a wooded knoll
That graced the sable strath with green,
The chapel of Saint Bride was seen.
Swoln was the stream, remote the bridge,
But Angus paused not on the edge;
Though the dark waves danced dizzily,
Though reeled his sympathetic eye,
He dashed amid the torrent's roar:
His right hand high the crosslet bore,
His left the pole-axe grasped, to guide
And stay his footing in the tide.
He stumbled twice the foam splashed high,
With hoarser swell the stream raced by ;24
And had he fallen-for ever there,
Farewell Duncraggan's orphan heir!
But still, as if in parting life,
Firmer he grasped the Cross of strife,
Until the opposing bank he gained,
And up the chapel pathway strained.
A blithesome rout that morning tide
Had sought the chapel of Saint Bride.
Her troth Tombea's Mary gave 25
To Norman, heir of Armandave;
And, issuing from the Gothic arch,
The bridal now resumed their march.
Who meets them at the church-yard
gate?—
The messenger of fear and fate!
Haste in his hurried accent lies,
And grief is swimming in his eyes.
All dripping from the recent flood,26
Panting and travel-soiled he stood,
The fatal sign of fire and sword
Held forth, and spoke the appointed word:
"The muster-place is Lanrick mead!
Speed forth the signal! Norman, speed!"
And must he change so soon the hand
Just linked to his by holy band,
For the fell Cross of blood and brand?
And must the day so blithe that rose,
And promised rapture in the close,
Before its setting hour divide
The bridegroom from the plighted bride?
O fatal doom!-it must! it must!
Clan-Alpine's cause, her Chieftain's trust,27
Her summons dread, brook no delay:
Stretch to the race--away! away!
Yet slow he laid his plaid aside,
And, lingering, eyed his lovely bride,
Until he saw the starting tear
Speak woe he might not stop to cheer;
Then, trusting not a second look,
In haste he sped him up the brook,
Nor backward glanced till on the heath 28
Where Lubnaig's lake supplies the Teith.
Not faster o'er thy heathery braes,
Balquidder, speeds the midnight blaze,29
Rushing, in conflagration strong,
Thy deep ravines and dells along,
Wrapping thy cliffs in purple glow,
And reddening the dark lakes below;
Nor faster speeds it, nor so far,
As o'er thy heaths the voice of war.
The signal roused to martial coil 30
The sullen margin of Loch Voil;
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