CANTO FIRST

THE CHIEF RESTORED

I

Eighty years have come and gone
Since on the dark December night,
East and west Glen Desseray shone
With fires illuminating holm and height -
A sudden and a marvellous sight!
Never since dread Culloden days
The Bens had seen such beacons blaze;
But those were lurid, boding bale
And vengeance on the prostrate Gael,
These on the tranquil night benign,
As with a festal gladness, shine
One from the knoll that shuts the glen
Flings down the loch a beard of fire;
Up on the braesides, homes of men
Answer each other, high and higher,
Across the valley with a voice
Of light that shouts, Rejoice, Rejoice.
Nor less, within, the red torch-pine
And peat-fires piled on hearth combine
To brighten rafters glossy-clear
With lustre strange for many a year.
And blithe sounds since the Forty-five
Unheard within these homes revive,
Now with the pibroch, now with song,
Driving the night in joy along.
What means it all?  how can it be
Such sights and sounds of revelry
From a secluded silent race
Break on the solitary place?
That music sounds, these beacons burn
- In honour of a Chief's return.

II

Long had our people sat in gloom
Within their own Glen Desseray,
O'er-shadowed by the cloud of doom
That gathered on that doleful day,
When ruin from Culloden moor
The hills of Albyn darkened o'er,
From east to west, from shore to shore.
No loyal home in glen or strath
But felt the red-coats' vengeful wrath;
Yet most on these our glens it fell,
They that had served the Prince so well;
Who first the friendless Prince had hailed,
When his foot touched the Moidart strand,
And last had sheltered, ere he sailed
Forever from his Father's land.

III

No home in all this glen but mourned
Some loved one laid in battle low;
Who from the headlong rout returned
Reserved for heavier woe,
From their own hills with helpless gaze
Beheld their flocks by spoilers driven,
Their roofs with ruthless fires ablaze,
Reddening the dark night heaven.
Some on the mountains hunted down
With their blood stained the heather brown,
And many more were drive forth
Lorn exiles from their native earth;
While he, the gentle and brave
Lochiel, who led them, doomed to bide
A life-long exile, found a grave
Far from his own Loch Arkaig side.
And when at last war guns were hushed,
And back to wasted farms they fared,
With bitter memories, spirits crushed,
The few, whom sword and famine spared,
Saw the old order banished, saw
The old clan-ties asunder torn,
For their chief's care a factor's scorn,
And iron rule of Saxon law.
One rent to him constrained to bring,
"The German lairdie," called a king;
They o'er the sea in secret sent
To their own Chief another rent
In his far place of banishment.

IV

When forty years had come and gone,
At length on lone Glen Desseray shone
A day like sudden spring new-born
From the womb of winter dark and lorn,
The day for which all hearts had yearned,
With tidings of their Chief returned.
Yea, spring-like on that wintry time,
The tidings came from southron clime,
That he their leal long-exiled lord
Ere long would meet their hearts' desires,
Their chieftain to his own restored
Another home would re-instate,
Would build the home long desolate -
The ruined home where dwelt his sires:
Not he who led the fateful war,
No!  nor his son - they sleep afar,
But sprung from the old heroic tree
An offshoot in the third degree.

V

It wakened mountain, loch, and glen,
That cry - "Lochiel comes back again;"
Loch Leven and Loch Linnhe's shore
Shout to the head of Nevis Ben,
The crags and corries of Mamore
Rang to that word, "He comes again."
High up along Lochaber Braes
Fleeter than fiery cross it sped,
The Great Glen heard with glad amaze
And rolled it on to Loch Arkaig-head.
From loch to hill the tidings spread,
And smote with joy each dwelling place
Of Camerons - clachan, farm, and shiel,
And the long glens that interlace
The mountains piled benorth Lochiel.
Glen-Mallie and Glen-Camgarie
Resounded to the joyful cry,
Westward with the sunset fleeing,
It roused the homes of green Glenpean;
Glen Kinzie tossed it on - unbarred
It swept o'er rugged Màm-Clach-Ard,
Start at these sounds the rugged bounds
Of Arisaig, Moidart, Morar, and Knoydart,
Down to the ocean's misty bourn
By dark Loch Nevish and Lochourn.

VI

Many a heart that news made glad,
Hearts that for years scant gladness had.
But him it gladdened more than all,
The Patriarch of Glen Desseray,
Dwelling where sunny Sheneval
From the green braeside fronts noon-day.
My grandsire, Ewen Cameron, then
Numbering three score years and ten.
Of all our clansmen still alive,
None in the gallant Forty-five
Had bourn a larger, nobler part,
Had seen or suffered more;
Thenceforward on no living heart
Was graven richer store
Of mournful memories and sublime,
Gleaned from that wild adventurous time.

VII

For when the Prince's summons called,
Answered to that brave appeal
No nobler heart than Archibald,
Brother worthy of Lochiel.
Him following fain, my grandsire flew
To the gathering by Loch Shiel,
Thence a foster-brother true
Followed him through woe and weal.
Nothing could these two divide,
Marching forward side by side,
Two friends, each of the other sure, -
Through Prestonpans and Falkirk Muir.
But when on dark Culloden day
A wounded man Gillespic lay,
My grandsire bore him to the shore
And helped him over seas away.
Seven years went by; less fiercely burned
The conqueror's vengeance 'gainst the Gael -
Gillespic Cameron fain returned
To see his native vale.
Waylaid and captured on the road
By the basest souls alive,
His blood upon the scaffold flowed,
Last victim of the Forty-five.
Thenceforth wrapt in speechless gloom
Ewen mourned that lovely head;
His heart became a living tomb
Haunted by memory of the dead.
Never more from his lips fell
Name of him he loved so well,
But the less he spake, the more his heart
'Mid these sad memories dwelt apart.

VIII

But when on lone Glen Desseray broke
The first flash of that joyous cry,
From his long dream old Ewen woke -
I wot his heart leapt high.
No news like that had fallen on him,
Within his cabin smoky dim
For forty summers long and more.
Straighway beyond his cottage door
He sprang and gazed, the white hair o'er
His shoulders streaming, and the last
Wild sunset gleam on his worn cheek cast:
He looked and saw his Marion turn
Home from the well beside the burn,
And cried, "Good tidings!  Thou and I
Will see our Chief before we die."
That night they talked, how many a year
Had gone, since the last Lochiel was here,
How gentle hearts and brave had been
The old Lochiels their youth had seen;
Aye as they spake, more hotly burned
The fire within them - back returned
Old days seemed ready to revive
That perished in the Forty-five.
That night ere Ewen laid his head
On pillow, to his wife he said:
"Yule-time is near, for many a year
Mirth-making through the glens hath ceased,
But the clan once more, as in days of yore,
Shall hold this Yule with game and feast."

IX

Next morning, long ere screech o' day,
Old Ewen roused hath ta'en the brae
With gun on shoulder, and the boy,
Companion of his toils and joy,
The dark-haired Angus by his side -
O'er the black braes o' Glen Kinzie, on
Among the mist with slinging stride
They fare, nor stayed till they had won
Corrie-na-Gael, the cauldron deep
Which the Lochiels were used to keep
A sanctuary where the deer might hide,
And undisturbed all year abide.
Not a cranny, rock, or stone
In that corrie but was known
To my grandsire's weird grey eye;
All the lairs where large stags lie
Well he knew, but passed them by,
For stags were lean ere yule-time grown.
Crawling on, he saw appear
O'er withered fern one twinkling ear -
His gun is up - the crags resound -
Startled, a hundred antlers bound
Up the passes fast away;
Lifeless stretched along the ground,
Large and sleek, one old hind lay.
Straight they laid her on their backs,
And o'er the hills between them bore,
Up and down by rugged tracks,
Sore-wearied, ere beside their door
They laid her down - "A bonny beast
To crown our coming yule-time feast" -
As night came down on scour and glen,
From rough Scour-hoshi-brachcalen.

X

That night they slept the slumber sound
That waits on labour long and sore;
Next day he sent the message round
The glen from door to door,
On to the neighbouring glens - Glenpean
The summons hears, and all that be in
Glen Kinzie's bounds - Loch Arkaig, stirred
From shore to shore the call has heard;
To Clunes it passed, from toun to toun,
That all the people make them boun
Against the coming New-Year's-Day,
To gather for a shinty fray
Within the long Glen Desseray,
And meet at night round Ewen's board,
In honour of Lochiel restored.

XI

Blue, frosty, bright, the morning rose
That New Year's day above the snows,
Veiling the range of Scour and Ben,
That either side wall in the glen.
But down on the Strath the night frost keen
Had only crisped the long grass green,
When the men of Loch Arkaig, boat and oar
At Kinloch leaving, sprang to shore.
Crisp was the sward beneath their tread
As they westward marched, and at their head
The Piper of Achnacarry blew
The thrilling pibroch of Donald Dhu.
That challenge the Piper of the Glen
As proudly sounded back again
From his biggest pipe, till far off rang
The tingling crags to the wild war-clang
Of the pibroch that loud to battle blown
The Cameron Clan had for ages known.
To-day, as other, yet the same,
It summons to the peaceful game;
From the braeside homes down trooping come
The champions of Glen Desseray, some
In tartan philabegs arrayed -
The garb which tyrant laws forbade,
But still they clung to, unafraid;
Some in home-woven tartan trews,
Rough spun, and dyed with various hues,
By mother's hands or maiden's wrought,
In hues by native fancy taught;
But all with hazel camags slung
Their shoulders o'er, men old and young
With mountaineer's long slinging pace,
Move cheerily down to the trysting-place.

XII

Yonder a level space of ground -
Two miles and more from west to east,
Where from rough Màm-Clach-Ard released
In loop on loop the river wound,
Through many a slow and lazy round,
Ere plunging downward to the lake.
On that long flat of green they take
Their stations; on the west the men
Of Desseray, Kinzie, Pean Glen,
Ranged 'gainst the stalwart lads who bide
Down long Loch Arkaig, either side.
The ground was ta'en, the clock struck ten,
As Ewen, patriarch of the glen,
Struck off, and sent the foremost ball
Down the Strath flying, with a cry;
"Fye, lads, set on," and one and all
To work they fell right heartily.  

XIII

Now fast and furious on the drive, -
Here youngsters scud with feet of wind,
There in a melee dunch and strive;
The veterans outlook keep behind.
Now up, now down, the ball they toss;
Now this, now that side of the Strath;
And many a leaper, brave to cross
The river, finds a chilling bath;
And many a fearless driver bold,
To win renown, was sudden rolled
Headlong in hid quagmire;
And many a stroke of stinging pain
In the close press was given and ta'en
Without or guile or ire.
So all the day the clansmen played,
And to and fro their tulzie swayed,
Untired, along the hollow vale,
And neither side could win the hail;
But high the clamour, upward flung,
Along the precipices rung,
And smote the snowy peaks, and went
Far up the azure firmament.
All day, too, watching from the knowes,
Stood maidens fair, with snooded brows,
And bonny blithe wee bairns;
Those watching whom I need na say,
These eyeing now their daddies play,
Now jinking round the cairns.  

XIV

The loud game fell with sunset still,
And echo died on strath and hill;
As gloamin' deepened, each side of the glen,
High above the homes of men,
Blinks of kindling fires were seen,
Such as shine out upon Hallowe'en;
Single fires on rocky shelf
Each several farm-house for itself
Has lighted - there in wavering line
Either side the vale they shine
From dusk to dawn, to blaze and burn
In welcome of their Chief's return.
But broader, brighter than the rest,
Down beside Loch-Arkaig-head,
From a knoll's commanding crest
One great beacon flaring red,
As with a wedge of splendour clove
The blackness of the vault above.
And far down the quivering waters flung
Forward its steady pillar of light,
To tell, more clear than trumpet tongue,
Glen Desseray hails her Chief to-night.  

XV

The while the bonfires blazed without,
With logs and peats by keen hands fed -
Children and men - a merry rout;
In every home the board was spread.
On ev'ry hearth the fires burned clear,
And round and round abundant cheer
Passed freely for the men who came
From distant glens to join the game.
Freely that feast flowed - most of all
In the old home at Sheneval;
There Ewen Cameron, seated high,
Welcomed a various company.
Flower of the glens - old men, his peers,
White with the snows of seventy years;
And clansmen, strong in middle age,
And sprightly youths in life's first stage -
Down to his own bright dark-haired boy,
Who, seated in a chimney nook,
To his inmost bosom took
The impress of that night of joy.

XVI

He feasted them with the venison fine
Himself had brought from Corrie-na-Gaul,
And sent around the ruddy wine,
High spiced, in antique bowl -
Rare wine, which to the Western Isles
Ships of France in secret bore,
Thence through Skye and o'er the Kyles,
Brought to the mainland shore.
Far back that night their converse ran
To the old gloried of the clan;
The battles, where in mortal feud
Clan Cameron 'gainst Clan Chattan stood;
And great Sir Ewen, huge of frame,
'Mid loyal hearts the foremost name,
How, yet a boy, he gave his heart
To the King's cause and great Montrose;
How hand to hand, in tangled den
He closed with Cromwell's staunchest men,
And conqueror from the death-grips rose:
How the war-summons of Dundee
In hoary age he sprang to meet -
Dashed with his clan in headlong charge
Down Killiecrankie's cloven gorge
To victory deadlier than defeat.
As these old histories inly burned
The heart of Ewen - back returned
The vigour of long-vanished years,
A youth he stood 'mid hoary peers.
Even as in autumn you have seen
Some ancient pine alone look green
'Mid all the wasted wood's decay;
Some pine, that having summer long
Repaired its verdure, fresh and strong
Waits the bleak winter day.

XVII

As Ewen's spirit caught the glow
Cast from the heights of long ago,
His own old memories became
Within his heart a living flame;
And, busting the reserve that long
Had kept them down, broke forth in song.

1

"What an August morn that was!
Think na' ye our hearts were fain,
Branking down the Cuernan Pass, 
To Glenfinnan's trysting-plain;

2

"Where the glen lies open, - where
Spread the blue waves of Loch Shiel -
Lealest hearts alone were there,
Keppoch, Moidart, brave Lochiel;

3

"There was young Clanranald true -
Crowding all round Scotland's Heir -
Him, the Lad with bonnet blue
And the long bright yellow hair.

4

"Kingly look that morn he wore
In our Highland garb arrayed,
By his side the broad claymore,
O'er his brow the white cockade,

5

Well I ween, he looked with pride
On that gathering by Loch Shiel,
As while the veteran, old and tried,
Tullibardine, true as steel,

6

"On the winds with dauntless hand
Flung the crimson flag unfurled,
Pledge that we to death would stand
For the Stuarts 'gainst the world.

7

"Jeanie Cameron gazed apart,
Where our people crowned the brae,
Proudly beat her gallant heart
At the sight of that brave day.

8

"Loud the shouting shakes the earth,
Far away the mountains boom,
As the Chiefs and Clansmen forth
March to victory and to doom."

The while he sang, in fervent dream
The old man's eye beheld the gleam
Of yet another Forty-five
Along those western shores revive,
And Moidart mountains re-illume -
The glory, but no more the gloom.  

When from copse, and craig, and summit
Comes the cuckoo's lonely cry
Down the glen from morn to midnight
Sounding, warm June days are nigh.
At that cry, the heart of Allan
Turns towards the shealings green,
Where for ages every summer
Men of Sheaniebhal have been.
Bonny shealings, green and bielded,
Where there meet two corrie burns,
Ault-na-noo and Ault-a-bhealaich,
Pouring from high mountain urns.
Small green knolls of pasture fringing
Skirts of darksome Màm-clach-ard,
Scour-na-naat and Scour-na-ciecha
Westward keeping aweful guard.
Allan then, one grave glance round him
East and west the long glen cast,
Saw the clouds were high and steady,
Knew the wintry weather was past;
Then spake loud to all his people -
"Mak' ye for the shealings boun:"
On the morrow every door was
Closed within the old farm-toun.

II

When the light lay on the mountains
Of a morning calm and mild,
From their homes the people going
Set their faces to the wild.
Then were seen whole families climbing
Up among the hoary cairns,
Grandsires, grandames, fathers, mothers,
Lads and lasses, winsome bairns,
Driving calves, and kye for milking,
Goats and small sheep on before,
Two white ponies trudging after
With their all of household store.
Here the blackcock, all his rivals
Driven aloof, on yonder mound
Sits and spreads his snowy pinion,
Drumming to his mates around.
There the redcock, new in plumage,
Scarlet crest in fresh May-glow,
From the distant heights replying,
Calls aloud with cheery crow.
Yonder Alpine hare before them
Canters lazily away,
With her coat snow-white in winter.
Now returned to dark-blue grey:
Then aloof, on hind legs rising,
Perking ears in curious mood,
Listens, "whence have these intruders
Come to scare my solitude?"
Downward the hen-harrier stooping,
To and fro doth flit and wheel,
Stealthily along the heather,
Hunting for his morning meal.

III

Westward sloped the sun, ere reaching
Hillocks by the meeting burns,
Men begin last summer's bothies
Thatching, with dry heath and ferns.
Wives the while, small ingles kindle,
Spread fresh heather beds on floor:
For the milk and cheese make ready
Roomy sconce in ben-most bore.
Angus and his kilted comrades
In the hill-burn plash and shout,
All about the granite boulders
Guddling for the speckled trout.
Well-a-day!  but life was bonny
With out folk in those old days;
Children barefoot, morn and even,
Wandering high on brackeny braes;
Lips and faces purpled over
With the rich abundant fill
Of blae, wortle and crow-berries,
Gathered wide from craig and hill;
Nature's own free gladness sharing
Through the sweetest of the year,
With the red grouse crowning round them,
And far-heard the belling deer;
From behind, the mountain quiet
Blending with the lilting cry
Of the women homeward calling
Down their goats and daunted kye.

IV

It befell one time of shealings
Allan with his youngest boy,
Angus, high above the bothies
Wandered on some hill-employ;
When from top of Ault-a-bhealaich
Looking, they beheld the bowl,
Caldron-shaped and dark in shadow,
Far beneath, of Corrie-na-Gaul.
"Was not that the hiding-place," cried
Angus, starting at the name,
"Where ye refuged, when Prince Charlie
Guiding, through these hills ye came?"
"Many a place we had for hiding,"
Answered Allan, "first and last:"
"Tell me all the way ye travelled,
Whence the Prince came, whither passed."
"Well, dear laddie!  sith ye will it,
I will teach thee what befell
After that the Prince bade Flora,
And the shores of Skye farewell.  

V

"As he steered up dark Loch Nevish,
And set foot on mainland shore,
Deadly foes were close behind him,
Deadly, keeping watch before.
Seaward, every frith and islet,
Girt and swept by hostile sail;
Landward, one long line of sentries,
Post on post, kept hill and dale.
High and low, on glen and summit,
From Glenfinnan to Lochourn,
All the day saw guards patrolling,
All the night red watch-fires burn.
Fast across the hills of Morar
Sped the Prince to Borrodale -
That leal House, where first he landed,
Welcomed him with glad 'all hail.'
There before his eyes the bonny
Homestead lay - a blackened heap -
Mid the craigs and woods o'erhanging,
The old Laird in hiding deep
With his sons kept.  Thither guided,
Lay the Prince in safety there
For three days, till foemen prowling
Closer and closer girt their lair
Then these leal Macdonalds longer
Could not their loved Prince conceal,
He must leave Clanranald's country
For the mountains of Lochiel.
Soon to Cameron of Glenpean
Came the word that he must wait
For the Prince, on one lone hill, and
Guide him through that desperate strait.
To our toun, came Donald crying,
'Up and help the Prince with me,'
For he knew of these hill-passes
I had better skill than he.  

VI

"Long we kept the cairn of trysting,
But none living came that way;
Then to seek them through the mountains
Far we wandered: summer day
Into midnight deep was darkening,
When low down faint forms appear,
Through a slack between the mountains
Moving dim like straggling deer.
Who they might be, all unknowing,
Down we hurried to the vale;
Forward one then stept to meet us -
Who but brave Glenaladale?
Glad was he to find no stranger,
But Glenpean, whom he knew;
Glad the Prince to greet a Cameron
Long since proven leal and true.
Two days after dark Culloden,
A night 'neath Donald's roof he lay,
When in haste for Moidart making
Came he by Loch Arkaig way.

VII

"'Come, thrice welcome! fain are we to
Place our lives within thy hand,
Through these fires, where'er you lead us,
We will follow thy command,'
Low the Prince to Donald whispered,
For the watch-fires blazed anear,
And the sentry-voices answering,
Each to other, smote our ear.
'Trust us, Prince!  our best endeavour
We will give to bring you through,
But the paths are rough and rocky,
And the hours of darkness few.'
Then, as leaders, I and Donald
On thro' darkness groped and crawled,
Down black moss-hags gashed and miry,
Up great corries, torrent-scrawled;
Till all faint with toil and travel,
As around the watch-fires wane,
In the first grey of the dawning
Yonder summit we attain, -
Southern wall of long Glen Desseray,
Mamnyn-Callum - that round hill -
There, like hares far-hunted, squatting
Close we kept all day and still;
Eyeing the red-coats beneath us,
How like wasps they swarm and spread
From their camp within the meadow,
Pitched beside Loch-Arkaig-head.
Though so near, Glenpean bade the
Prince take rest, and nothing dread,
For yestreen all Mamnyn-Callum
They had searched from base to head.  

VIII

"Sundown over Scour-na-ciecha,
Forth we crept from out our lair,
Just as the watch-fires rekindling
Leap up through the gloamin' air.
On the face of Meal-na-Sparden,
'Neath the sentries close, we keep
Westward, down yon cliff descending
To Glen-Lochan-Anach deep.
At the darkest of the night, we
Crossed our own Glen-head, and heard
Eerie voices of the howlets
Hooting from dim Màm-clach-ard.
Crawling then, up Ault-a-bhealaich,
Just at this spot - waning dim
O'er the mountains of Glengarry -
Ghost-like hung the crescent's rim.
When we turned the bealach, downward
By yon rocky rough burn-head;
With this right hand, through the darkness
Him, our darling Prince, I led.
O!  to think that such as I should
Grasp within this hand of mine
Him, the heir of all these islands,
Last of Albyn's kingly line!
Think that he was fain to refuge
In yon grim and dripping hold;
He whose home should hae been a palace,
And his bed a couch of gold!

IX

"All these gnanl'd black-corried mountains
Hold no den like Corrie-na-Gael -
Womb of blackest rain-storms - cradle
Of the winds, that fiercest howl.
See ye yon grey rocky screetan
Down from that dark precipice strown,
There I led them to a cavern
Under yon huge shelter-stone.
All the day we heard the gun-shots
On the mountains overhead,
Well we knew red-coats were busy
Shooting our poor people dead.
Two days we had all but fasted,
Now were growing hunger-faint,
All the while the Prince would cheer us,
Not one murmur or complaint;
Though for many days, the choicest
Fare he had his want to fill
Was scant oatmeal, cold spring water,
And wild berries from the hill.
So in search of food I ventured
Down to where some shealings were,
But I found them all abandoned,
And the bothies empty and bare.
Baffled, I returned and brought them
Forth from our dark cavern-bed,
And, though full the daylight, led them
Warily to a mountain head,
That o'erlooked Glen-quoich's dark waters:
There, what saw we close below
But a camp with red-coats swarming,
And a troop in haste to go
Up the very hill we lodged in?
All about they searched that day,
Close we cowered, and heaven so guided
That they came not where we lay.
Then the Prince said, 'Not another
Sun shall rise ere we shall make
Trial to pass the chain of sentries -
Life upon that hazard stake.'

X

"Gloamin' fell, we rose and started
From our lair, a stealthy race
O'er that stream and flat Lön-meadow,
Up yon wrinkled mountain face, -
Druim-a-chosi, - from that summit
Seen, a watch-fire wildly burned
In the glen, across our pathway -
Westward to the side we turned:
And so close we passed it, voices
Of the sentinels reached our ear -
Low we crouched, and round the hillocks
Crawled, like stalkers of the deer.
Up a hill flank - (Druim-a-chosi
Will not let us now discern)
Scrambling up a torrent's bed, we
Won the ridge of Leach-na-fearn.
There, in our descending pathway
Down before us, full in view
Watch-fires twain in grey dawn flickered,
That way we must venture through.
The I said, 'Prince!  ere you venture,
Let me first the passage prove;'
And, with that, few steps to westward
Crept adown a torrent's groove,
There I watched till warders pacing
Passed each other, back to back;
Swift, but mute, I passed between them,
Safe returned the self-same track.
And we all kept close in shelter,
Till again they face to face
Met and passed each other, leaving,
Back to back, an empty space.
Quick I darted forward, whispering,
'Now's our time, Prince!  follow me.
Few brief breathless moments crawling
Down the corrie - we were free.
Out beyond the chain of sentries,
Down by Lochan-doire-dhu,
'Neath the bield of birks and alders,
Past the mouth of Corrie-hoo,
Up the rock of Innis-craikie -
Just as the last star grew pale
On the brow of Scour-a-vorrar,
Reached we Corrie-scorridale.

XI

"There, in rocky den safe-sheltered,
O the welcome blest repose!
Time at last for food and slumber.
Respite from relentless foes.
When a day and night were over,
We arose and wandered on,
Northward to the Seaforth country,
West from long Glenmorriston.
Then, I knew my work was ended,
For those hills to me were strange,
And a clansman of Glengarry's
Bred amid that mountain range -
One who had shar'd Culloden battle -
Was at hand a guide to be.
Then the Prince turned round, and gazing
On my face, spake words to me:
'Allan!  what can I repay thee
For thy service done so well?
Naught but thanks are mine to render,
Heart-deep thanks, and long farewell.'
In his own he grasped this right hand,
The Prince grasped it - never since -
Never while I breath shall mortal
Grasp this hand which touched the Prince.
Think na ye my heart came fa'ing,
Think na ye my heart was sair,
Watching him depart, and knowing
I should see his face nae mair."  

CANTO THIRD

"ON THE TRACK OF THE PRINCE"

I

Down to Loch Nevish went the day,
And all that night young Angus lay
'Tween dream and waking, - heart on fire
With inextinguishable desire
To trace each step the Prince had gone
From Morar to Glengarry, - on,
O'er rifted peak, and cove profound,
Exploring each inch of ground,
Until he reached the famed ravine
Through which he passed the guards between;
For every spot the Prince had trode
To him with sacred radiance glowed.  

II

When the first streaks of morning broke
Above Glengarry mountains, woke
Young Angus from his heather bed,
Stole through the bothy door, and said
No word to any of the way
Him listed take that summer day.
Up by the Ault-a-bhealaich burn
Lightly he went, and at the turn
Of waters, plunged down Corrie-na-Gaul, -
That dark cavernous cauldron-bowl,
O'er-canopied, morn and eve, with mist, -
Therein he sought the cave he wist
His father pointed out yestreen
Where he erewhile with the Prince had been.
Thence down the corrie-burn he bore,
And up on precipiced Scour-a-vhor
Sought where they refuged.  Then in haste
He hurried o'er the low wide waste, -
The Lön, o'er which the wanderers ran
That night, when their last march began
To pass the sentries; then he hied
Up Druimahoshi's rugged side;
But on his spirit solemn awe
Fell when, the summit won, he saw
To westward Knoydart peaks up-crowd,
Scarred, jagg'd, black-corried-some in cloud,
Some by slant sunbursts glory-kissed, -
Beyond - through fleeces broad of mist
Like splintered spears weird peaks of Skye,
And many an isle he could not name,
That looming into vision came
From ocean's outer mystery.

III

Long Angus stood and gazed, and when,
Downward, he searched the farther glen,
The westering sun toward ocean bending
From the hill edge slant rays was sending
Backward o'er gnarled Scour-a-chlive,
And greener flanks of Leach-na-fern.
Well Angus knew the Prince had passed
The guards up there, and keenly cast
His eyes all over them to discern
Some crevice in their mountain wall
Up which the wanderer's feet could crawl.

IV

Three burns there are, as I have seen,
Poured from that hill-side - one between
Scour-a-chlive and Leach-na-fern,
Called of the people of March-burn,
Because its channel doth divide
Rough Knoydart from Glengarry side:
And one, Ault-Scouapich, that doth leap -
The Besom burn - down the middle steep:
Westmost of all a stream that drains
The severed peaks of Scour-a-chlive,
Called from old time the Burn of brains,
Through the rough hill-flank down doth drive
A deep indented furrow, till,
The level reached, within a still
Small meadowy spot, that greenly gleams
Amid the waste, made glad with streams,
That hill-burn, loop on loop, entwined
Goes wandering gently down, to find
The great Glen-river.  Of these three
Which might the very channel be
By which the Prince passed upward, no
Foot-print or sign remains to show.
So to himself young Angus said,
As o'er and o'er with eager ken
From left to right his eyes surveyed
The northern steep that walls the glen.

V

Wearied and baffled with the quest
All day pursued in vain,
His eyes went wandering east and west
To corrie and scaur, in black unrest,
Again and yet again.
O'er earth our mightiest movements pass,
And leave no deeper impress than
Cloud-shadows on the mountain grass,
So fleeting and so frail is man.
The Princely feet that mountain wall
Passed over, but have left no scrawl;
This desert saw what here befell
But hath no voice or sign to tell,
And the rocks keep their secret well.
As thoughts like these athwart him swept
Fain had he sat him down and wept.

VI

But day was westering, and the cloud
Down on the glooming summits bowed
Brought o'er his heart a sudden fear
Of night in that lone place austere.
Then he arose in haste, and clomb
The steep in panting hope to win
On the other side some human home,
Or even some cave to shelter in.
Soon as he crossed the highest cope,
He saw, cleaving the northern slope,
A birchen corrie with its burn
Now bare, now hidden.  "Thou my turn
Wilt serve," he cried; "with thee for guide,
I'll go where'er thy waters glide."
Soon as his eager footstep trode
Beside it, on the grassy sod,
The pleasant murmur in his ear
Was like a voice of human cheer,
And seemed to lift away the load
That all day long had overawed
And weighted his spirit down with stress
Of too prevailing loneliness:
Lightly he trode down Corriebeigh,
The burn companion of his way,
Now by the greensward winding, gliding,
Now in the birchen coppice hiding,
Then plunging forward and chafing far
Underneath some crumbling scaur,
Anon in daylight re-appearing
To greet him with a sound of cheering,
Till it reached far down in a glimmering pass
A little lochan, marged with grass:
He watched the small burn steal therein
And rest for its wandering water win,
And the thought arose within his breast,
"Haply I too may here find rest."

VII

Then turning round, small space aloof,
Under a bield of the birchen wood,
He saw a bothy of wicker woof
With bracken and heather for its roof,
Like lair of wild beast, rough and rude.
A moment's space, he paused before
The opening dark that seemed a door,
And gazed around, - indistinct and dim
The black crags vague in vapour swim:
Naught clear in all the glimmering pass
But the lochan-gleam with its marge of grass,
And the flash of the great white waterfall
Down thundering from the northern wall.
And filling with o'eraweing roar
The solemn pass forevermore.
No time to look or listen long,
Ere forth there stept from the bothy door
An old man, tall, erect, and strong -
Threescore years he had seen or more. -
Survivor of the Forty-five,
One of the old Glengarry clan,
Who wont not from his lair to drive
Any wandering man;
He kindly welcomed Angus in,
Unquestioning of his home or kin.

VIII

But when the lad, with bashful face,
Told how he came to that lone place,
That he had wandered since break of day
From the shealings of Glen Desseray,
One of Lochiel's own people - son
Of veteran Ewen Cameron -
At hearing of that well-known name
Murdoch Macdonnell's cheek like flame
Brightened, and in his hand he took
The lad's, and to the ingle-nook
Of the bothy led him, saying aloud,
"Son of my battle friend, how proud
Am I to bid thee welcome here;
For him thy Sire, true man sincere.
Years have gone by, since we two met,
Like me, he must be touched with eld,
But till the Gael their Prince forget
In honour will his name be held."

IX

Upon the settle seated, o'er
That ancient tale they went once more,
And Murdoch told the very place -
The burn that grooves the southern face
Of Leach-na-fern - where Angus led
The Prince across the watershed,
Thence through the sentinels crept their way,
Down the clefts of this same Corriebeigh.
Anon his board the old man piled
With the best increase of the wild -
Red-spotted trout, fresh from the stream,
Hill-berries, stored in autumn hours,
And goat-milk cheese, and yellow cream
Rich with the juice of mountain flowers:
And oatmeal cake and barley scone, -
Sweet viands for a hungry guest
To break his day-long fast upon,
Before he sought his couch of rest.
That couch old Murdoch's hands had spread
With the fresh crop of heather green
Turned upward - never prince, I ween,
On easier pillow laid his head.
Though soft the bed, and the rough way
Had wearied him, yet Angus lay
Far into night, through the still gloom
Listening the sleepless cataract through
The lonely places, strange and new,
That day had to his sight revealed,
Ere slumber soft his eyelids sealed.

CANTO FOURTH

THE HOME BY LOCHOURN

I

Early young Angus rose to meet
The morning.  Glimmering at his feet -
There lay the lochan, clear as glass,
The margin green with reeds and grass,
Within the lap of the awesome pass,
That from Glengarry's westmost bourne
Breaks headlong down on lone Lochourn.
Over the shoulder of the world
The sun looked, and the pale mists curled
On black crag-faces, smit to gold,
And rose and lingered, crept and rolled
Up the ravines and splintered heights,
All beautiful with the dawning lights.
A pleasant morn it was of June,
The time of year that most awakes
The mountain melodists to tune
Their sweetest songs from heaths and brakes:
The mavis' voice rang from the copse,
Upon the knoll the blackcock crowed,
And up toward the bare hill-tops
The cuckoo shouted loud.
Across the deep gorge, under all
Kept sounding on the torrent fall,
That thundering down with sleepless wave
We Gael call Essan-corrie-Graive.

II

Soon as the early meal was o'er,
Murdoch looked from the bothy door,
And said, "I go to Lochourn's lone side,
Where my bairns in our winter home delay:
Wilt thither go with me, and bide
Beneath my roof one other day?
To-morrow, my Ronald shall be thy guide
Over the hills to Glen Desseray."
Westward they went with morning joy,
That old man and light-hearted boy:
Ah!  beautiful the mountain road
As ever foot of mortal trode,
Winding west through the cloven defile
Of crags fantastic, pile on pile,
Towering rock, huge boulder stone,
Heather-crowned and lichen-grown,
And crumpled mountain walls, ravined
With birchen-corries, sunlight-sheened,
Where the torrent plunged and flashed in spray
Down to the little lochans that lay
Gleaming in the lap of the Pass
Fringed with reeds, and marged with grass.
As they the early day beguile
Sauntering through the long defile,
Upon young Angus' wondering sense
With new-born beauty, power intense,
Of craig and scaur, of copse and dell
And far-off peaks the vision fell;
All seemed endued, he knew not how,
With glory never seen till now.

III

At length old Murdoch silence broke,
And Angus from his dream awoke, -
"Ye see that slack on the water-shed;
That was the way your Father led
Our noble Prince the sentinels through;
Then down by this same Corrie-hoo
They came, and crossed our path just here,
And round the end of yon small mere,
Up through that hazel wood they went,
Over yon rocky sheer ascent,
And reached, as the last star grew pale,
The Cave of Corrie-scorridale;
And there - I've heard your Father tell -
He bade the Prince a long farewell."

VI

Then round a rock a sudden turn
Showed far below deep-walled Lochourn -
Blue inlet from the distant seas
Piercing far up the mountain world;
In the calm noon no breath or breeze
Along the azure waters curled.
At sight thereof their sense was smote
With fresh sea-savour; though remote
From the main ocean many a mile
Inflooded past cape, creek, and kyle,
The sea-loch, flanked by precipice walls,
With ever-lessening murmur crawls,
Till 'neath the Pass he lies subdued
By the o'eraweing solitude;
And yet some vigour doth retain,
Some freshness of the parent main.

V

So have I seen it: many a day
Is gone since last I passed that way,
Yet still in memory lives impressed
The image of its aweful rest.
The winds there wont to work their will
That day were quiet - all was still,
Save that one headlong cataract hoar
From steep Glenelg's opposing shore
Sent o'er the loch a lulling sound,
That made the hush but more profound.
There in clear mirror imaged lay
The lichened cliffs tall, silver-grey,
Their ledges interlaced with green;
The cataract of white-sheeted spray
Down flashing through the dark ravine,
The birches clambering up midway
The sea-marge and hill-tops between;
Each herb, each floweret, tiny leaved,
Into that lucid depth received,
Therein repeated, hue and line,
With more than their own beauty shine,
Embedded in a nether sky,
More fairy-fleeced than that on high:
A scene it seemed of beauty and peace,
So deep it could not change or cease.

VI

Through such a scene, on such a day,
They wandered down that lovely noon,
Now 'neath high headlands making way
Among huge blocks at random strewn;
Now round some gentle bay they wind,
Green nook, with golden shingle lined,
Wither the weary fisher oars
His boat for mooring; then by doors
They went, of kindly crofter-folk,
Whence many a gladsome greeting broke;
And Murdoch told them, now was time
To the high shealings they should climb;
Himself there with his goats had been
And seen the pastures growing green.
To-morrow he and his would drive
Their ponies and sheep, and bonny kine,
Up to the back of Scour-a-chlaive,
Where the springs ran clear and the grass was fine:
And there the clansmen would forgather
All in the pleasant bright June weather;
So he warned the Lochside, toun by toun,
To make them for the shealings bourn.

VII

The day had westered far, and on
The yellow pines the sunset shone,
Streamed back from Lurvein, kindling them
To redder lustre, branch and stem,
Ere they reached the pine-tree on the crown
Sole-standing of the promontory,
Whence they beheld far-gazing down
The loch inlaid with sunset glory.
Long time beside that sole pine-tree
They stood and gazed in ecstasy,
For the face of heaven was all a-glow
With molten splendour backward streamed
From the sunken sun, and the loch below,
Flushed with an answering glory, gleamed.
Each purple cloud aloft that burned
In the depth below was back returned.
There headlands, each o'erlapping each,
Projecting down the long loch's reach,
With point of rock and plume of pine,
All glorious in the sunset shine:
And far down on the verge of sight
Rock-islets interlacing lie,
That lapt in floor of molten light
Seemed natives less of each than sky.
From height of heaven to ocean bed
One living splendour penetrated,
And made that moment seem to be
Bridal of each and sky and sea.

VIII

As died away the glorious glow,
They wandered down to a home below;
A little home, where the mountain burn,
Thrown from the pine-crags, touched the shore:
There waiting for their Sire's return
His family meet him at the door;
His own wife, Marion, hail and leal,
Just risen from her humming wheel,
Their eldest - Donald, - nearing now
The verge of manhood, hunter keen;
And Ronald, with the open brow
And bright eye-glance of blithe sixteen.
And his one daughter, loved so well,
The dark-haired, blue-eyed Muriel.
These all were waiting, fain to know
How soon they might to the shealing go;
And while much-wondering whence the boy,
To whom their Sire had been convoy,
They made him welcome with their best
Beneath their roof that night to rest.
There in that beautiful retreat
Companions young and converse sweet
Woke Angus to another mood
Than he had nursed in solitude.
No more by cave and mountain-slack
He dreamed o'er the lorn Prince's track;
Those weary wanderings all forgot
Were charged for fields of happier thought,
And fairer visions, fresh with dew
Of a dream-land not old but new.  

CANTO FIFTH

THE WAR SUMMONS

I

Soon as the kindling dawn had tipt
With gold Scour-vorrar's lonely head,
Before a single ray had dipt
Down to the loch's deep-shadowed bed,
Betimes old Marion was astir,
Thinking of that young wanderer,
And eident fitly to prepare
For all the household morning fare.
That over, Murdoch rose and went
Up through the pines, the steep ascent,
His two lads with him, to convoy
Homeward the wandering Cameron boy.
From the high peaks soon they showed a track,
That followed on would lead him back
To where his people's shealings lay,
On heights above Glen Desseray;
Then bade farewell - but ere they part
The three lads vowed with eager heart
That they, ere long, with willing feet,
Would hasten o'er the hills to meet.

II

Many a going and return
Down to lone, beautiful Lochourn,
That pathway witnessed - many a time
These young lads crossed it, fain to climb
Each to the other's shealings, there
The pastimes of the hills to share -
To fish together the high mere,
Track to his lair the straggling deer,
From refuge in the cairn of rocks
Unearth the lamb-destroying fox;
Or creep, with balanced footing nice,
Where o'er some awful chasm hung,
On ledge of dripping precipice
The brooding eagle rears her young.
So from that wild, free nurture grew
'Tween these three lads firm friendship true.
But most the soul of Ronald clave
To Angus, his own chosen friend -
To Angus more than brother gave
Tender affection without end -
Such as young hearts give in their prime -
A weight of love, no lesser than
The love wherewith, in that old time,
David was loved by Jonathan.

III

At length the loud war-thunder broke
O'er Europe, and the land awoke,
Even to the innermost recess
Of this far-western wilderness.
And the best councillors of the Crown -
They who erewhile had hunted down
Our sires on their own mountains, now,
Led by a wiser man, 'gan trow
'Twere better and more safe to use
Our good claymores and hardy thews
'Gainst Britain's foes, than shoot us dead,
Food for the hill-fox and the glead.
To all the Chieftains of the North
An edict from the King went forth,
That who should to his standard bring
From his own hills a stalwart band
Of clansmen in his following,
Himself should lead them and command.
He could not hear - our own Lochiel -
With heart unmoved that strong appeal,
To rouse once more the ancient breed
Of warriors, as his sires had done,
And help his country in her need
With the flower of brave Clan Cameron.

IV

Then every morning Achnacarry
Saw clansmen mustering in hot hurry -
Saw every glen that owns Lochiel,
Lochaber Braes, and all Màm-more,
Glenluy, west to fair Loch Shiel,
Their bravest to the trysting pour.
Westward the summons passed, as flame
By shepherds lit, some dry March day,
Sweeps over heathery braes - so came
The tidings to Glen Desseray;
And found the men of Shenebhal
Down in the meadow, busy all
Their stacks of barley set to bind,
Against the winter's rain and wind:
All the flower of the Glen -
Grown, or nearly grown to men -
Heard that summons, all between
Thirty years and bright eighteen,
Loth or willing, slow or fleet,
Rose their Chieftain's call to meet;
Angus, youngest, eager most
To join the quickly mustering host.
Though sad his sire, he could but feel
His boy must follow young Lochiel,
And his mother's heart, tho' wae,
Did not dare to say him nay.
When the following morn appeared,
Down the loch their boat they steered
To Achnacarry, there to enrol
Their names upon the muster-scroll,
And receive their Chief's command,
To gather when a month was gone,
And follow to a foreign land
The young heir of Clan Cameron.

V

What were they doing by Lochourn,
At the Farm of Rounieval,
When there came that sudden turn
To Angus' fortunes, changing all?
The tidings found, at close of day,
Ronald and Muriel on their way
Homeward, by the winding shore,
Driving the cattle on before.
At hearing of that startling word
The heart of Ronald, deeply stirred,
Wrought to and fro - Must I then part
From him, the brother of my heart;
Let him go forth, on some far shore,
To perish, seen of me no more?
It must not be, shall not be so,
Where Angus goeth, I will go.
Soon to his sister's ear he brought
The secret thing that in him wrought -
"I will go with Angus - side by side
We'll meet, whatever fate betide."

VI

Who, that hath ever known the power
Of home, but to life's latest hour,
Will bear in mind the deathly kneel,
That on his infant spirit fell,
When first some voice, low-whispering said,
"One lamb in the home-fold lies dead;"
Or that drear hour, scarce less forlorn,
When tidings to his ear was borne,
That the first brother needs must part
From the home-circle, heart to heart
Fast bound, - must leave the well-loved place,
Alone the world's bleak road to face.
Then as their hearts strain after him,
With many a prayer and yearning dim,
The old home, they feel, erst so serene,
No more can be as it has been.
Upon the heart of Muriel,
Even like a sudden funeral bell -
An iron kneel of deathly doom
To wither all her young life's bloom.

VII

Few words of dool that night they spake,
Though their two hearts were nigh to break,
But with the morrow's purpling dawn
Ronald and Muriel they are gone
Up through the pine trees, till they clomb
The highest ridge upon the way
That strikes o'er Knoydart mountains from
Lochourn-side to Glen Desseray;
And there they parted.  Not, I ween,
Was that their latest parting morn;
Yet seldom have those mountains seen
Two sadder creatures, more forlorn,
Than these two moving, each apart,
To commune with their own lone heart,
To Achnacarry, one to share
The muster of the clansmen there,
And one, all lonely, to return
Back to the desolate, dark Lochourn.
And yet no wild and wayward wail
Went up from bonny Rounieval,
But Muriel set her to prepare
Against the final parting day,
A tartan plaid for Ronald's wear,
When he was far away.
She took the has-wool, lock by lock,
The choicest wool, she in summers old,
What time her father sheared his flock,
Had gathered by the mountain fold.
She washed and carded it clean and fine,
Then, sitting by the birling wheel,
She span it out, a slender twine,
And hanked it on the larger reel,
Singing a low, sad chaunt the while,
That might her heavy heart beguil.

VIII

The hanks she stepped in diverse grains -
Rich grains, last autumn time distilled
By her own hands, with curious pains,
Learnt from old folk in colours skilled.
Deep dyes of orange, which she drew
From crotal dark on mountain top,
And purples of the finest hue
Pressed from fresh heather crop.
Black hues which she had brewed from bark
Of the alders, green and dark,
Which overshadow streams that go,
After they have won the vale,
Seaward winding still and slow,
Down by gloomy Barisdale.
Thereto she added diverse juices,
Taken for their colouring uses,
From the lily flowers that float
High on mountain lochs remote;
And yellow tints the tanzy yields,
Growing in forsaken fields -
All these various hues she found
On her native Highland ground.

IX

But besides she fused and wrought
In her chalice tinctures brought
From far-off countries - blue of Ind,
From plants that by the Ganges grew,
And brilliant scarlets, well refined,
From cochineal, the cactus rind
Yields on warm hills of Mexico.
When in these tinctures long had lain
The several hanks, and drank the grain,
She sunned them on the homeside grass,
Before the door, above the burn,
Then to the weaver's home did pass,
Who lived to westward, down Lochourn.
She watched the webster while he tried
Her hanks, and put the dyes to proof,
Then to the loom her fingers tied,
Just as he bade her, warp and woof,
The threads of bonny haslock woo' -
Her haslock woo' well dyed and fine,
And she matched the colours, hue with hue,
Laid them together, line on line.
And as the treddles rattling went,
And the swift shuttle whistled through,
It seemed as though her heart-strings blent
With every thread that shuttle drew.

X

When two moons had waxed and waned,
And the third was part the full,
And the weary cup was all but drained
Of long suspense, and naught remained,
But the one day of parting dool,
From Achnacarry Ronald passed
Down to Lochourn, to bid farewell
To father, mother, brother dear,
And his sole sister Muriel.
For word has come the new-raised band,
Ere two days pass must leave their land,
To march on foreign service - where,
Not even their chief could yet declare.
Far had the autumn waned that morn,
When Ronald left his home forlorn,
And all his family rose and went
Forth by his side to cheer his way,
To the tryst whither he was bent,
At foot of long Glen Desseray.
And as they went was Muriel wearing
Around her breast the new-woven plaid,
And Ronald tall, with gallant bearing,
Walked in clan tartan garb arrayed.
A while they kept the winding shores
Of wan Lochourn - from friendly doors
Many a heartily breathed farewell
On the ears of the passing family fell.
The up through dark Glen Barrisdale lay
Their path the morning chill and grey,
And drearily the fitful blast
Moaned down the corries, as they passed,
And floated in troops around their head
From withered birks the wan leaves dead;
And the swathes of mist, in the black gulphs curled,
On the gusty breezes swayed and swirled,
Up to the cloud that in solid mass
Roofed the Màm above and the lonely Pass.
Into that cloud the travellers bore -
Lochourn and his islands were seen no more.

XI

As they passed from the Màm and its cloudy cowl,
Beneath lay Loch Nevish with grim, black scowl -
The blackest, sullenest loch that fills
The ocean-rents of these gnarled hills;
Those flanking hills, where evermore
Dank vapours swim, wild rain-floods pour.
Where ends the loch the way is barred
By the awesome pass of Màm-clach-ard,
By some great throes of nature rent
Between two mountains imminent;
Scour-na-naat with sharp wedge soaring,
Scour-na-ciche, cataracts pouring
From precipice to precipice,
Headlong down many a blind abyss.
A place it was, e'en at noon or morn,
Of dim, weird sights, and sounds forlorn,
But after nightfall, lad nor lass
In all Lochiel would face that pass.
Now as these travellers climb the Mam,
They were aware of a stern, grim calm -
The calm of the autumn afternoon,
When night and storm will be roaring soon.
But little time, I ween, had they
To watch strange shapes, weird sounds to hear,
For they must hasten on their way -
Not feed on phantasies of fear,
Lest night should fall on them before
They reached Loch Arkaig's distant shore.

XII

Down to that trysting place they fare,
Many people were gathered there -
Father, mother, sister, friend,
From all the glens, deep-hearted Gael,
Each for some parting brother, blend
Manhood's tears with woman's wail.
Beneath them on the water's marge,
Lay floating ready the eight-oared barge,
To Achnacarry soon to bear
His clansmen to their young Chief there.
When the Knoydart family reached that crowd,
And heard their lamentations loud,
Behind a green knoll, out of view,
With their young warrior all withdrew -
That knoll which sent, in by-gone days,
Down the long loch the beacon's blaze.
There Angus and his people all
Were waiting them of Rounieval,
And while the old folk, in sorrow peers,
Mingle their common grief and tears,
And Angus, home and parents leaving,
Is set to bear with manly grieving,
Yet one peculiar pang was there,
Which only he and Muriel share -
A pang deep-hid in either breast,
Nor once to alien ear confessed.

XIII

Then Muriel suddenly unbound
The plaid wherewith herself was drest,
Threw it her brother's shoulders round,
And wrapt it o'er his manly breast.
"This plaid my own hands dyed and wove,
Memorial of our true home love;
Let its fast colours symbol be
Of thoughts and prayers that cling to thee."
Then from her breast his mother took
A little Gaelic Bible book -
"For my sake read, and o'er it pray,
We here shall meet when you're far away."
With that, impatient cries waxed loud -
"Unmoor the barge" - one swift embrace,
One clinging kiss to each dear face,
And rushing blindly through the crowd,
Angus and Ronald take their place
Within the boat.  The piper blew
The thrilling pibroch of Donald Dhu;
But the sound on the Knoydart weepers fell,
And on many more, like a funeral kneel;
And the further down the loch they sail,
In deeper sadness died the wail,
And their eyes grew dimmer, and yet more dim,
Down the wan water following him -
Watching so fleetly disappear
All that on earth they hold most dear,
Till round the farthest jutting Rhu
The barge, oar-driven, swept from view.
Then from the knoll they turned away,
And tears no more they cared repress,
But set their face through gloamin' grey,
Back to the western wilderness.

Seven Summers long had fired the glens
With flush of heather glow;
Seven Winters robed the sheeted Bens
From head to foot With snow,
And brought their human denizens
Alternate joy and woe.
When all those years Were come and gone,
One calm October day
The dwellers of Glenmorriston
Forth-looking from their huts at dawn,
Beheld a traveller wandering on
The long glen west away.
Young he seemed, but travel-worm,
More weak of gait than youth should be-
A philabeg, but soiled and torn,
Was round him-on his shoulder borne
A tartan plaid hung carelessly.
"Whence comes yon stranger? whither goes?
They each to other wondering cry-
"Is he some wanderer from Kintail?
Macdonald's land of Armadale?
Or Macleod's country, far in Skye?
Or haply some Clanranald man
From southern market makes his way
Back, where his home by hungry shore
Hears the Atlantic breakers roar
On Barra and Benbecula."

II

Unasked, unanswering, he passed on,
None spake to him, he spake to none;
But while they questioned whence, and who,
Among themselves, they little knew
That this was Angus Cameron.
Southward he turned, and noonday found
Him high upon the mountain-ground,
Whence he beheld Glengarry's strath,
With its long winding river path
Streaming beneath him; and discerned
Loch Quoich, amid dark Scours inurned.
And all around it, east and west,
His eye wide-wandering went in quest
Of the old homesteads that he knew,
But the blue smoke from very few
Could he discover; yet he wist
The rest were lost in haze and mist.
So west he turned through mountain doors
That open downward on the shores
Of lone Lochourn. In that deep pass
Still lay the little loch, reed-fringed,
With upper marge of greenest grass,
And birks beyond it, autumn-tinged.
He looked-the summer bothies bare,
All ruinous sank in disrepair;
From them the voice of milking song
And laughter had been absent long.
He paused and listened, but no sound,
Save of the many rills that come
Down corrie-beds through the desert dumb;
And over all the voice profound
Of the great cataract, high aloof,
Down flashing from the rock-wall roof.

III

The solemn Pass he erst had known
Seemed still as lovely, but more lone,
As westward on with weary pace
He travelled, and no human face
Looked on him, no sound met his ear
That told of man or far or near.
Late had waned the afternoon
Ere he reached Lochourn's rough shore,
No gleam by random breezes strewn
Flitted its dark face o'er;
'Neath leaden sky, the waters roll'd
More drear and sullen than of old,
And the silence of all human sounds,
Since he had passed Glengarry bounds,-
Lay heavy on his loaded breast
With something of a dim unrest.
But one bright gleam of western day
On the scarr'd forehead of Lurvein lay;
And like an outstretched hand of hope
Seemed beckoning toward yonder cope
Of headland, that projects above
The sheltered home beside the burn,
Where first he met that young friend's love,
Who thither will no more return.  

IV

But ere he reached the well-known spot,
This way and that he turned in thought-
How 'neath that roof he should declare
The burden of the tale he bare;
How show to those poor hearts forlorn
The frail memorials he had borne
From the far field by Ebro's wave,
Where Ronald fills a soldier's grave;
The plaid, whose every thread was spun
By Muriel's fingers-the holy book,
Which from his mother's hands the son
Even at their last leave-taking took-
The plaid, which Ronald oft had wound
'Neath cold night-heavens his breast around,
Discoloured, by the grape-shot torn,
In Angus' hands now homeward borne;
That book he oft with reverent heed
By flickering camp-fires woke to read,
That tattered plaid, that treasured book,
Soiled with his latest life-blood's stains,
On these his loved ones' eyes must look-
Their all of him that now remains.
Then rose his inward sight before
Those faces-not as long ago-
But the mother's high brow furrowed o'er
Deep with the charact'ry of woe,
Which suffering years must have graven there-
And Muriel's cheek, though pale still fair,
Her large blue eyes, thro' weeping dim,
Gazing on these last wrecks of him.

V

But when he reached that headland's crown,
And stood beside the sole pine-tree,
O'er the sheer precipice gazing down,
Ah! what a sight was there to see!
Two roofless gables, gaping blank,
In the damp sea-winds moss-o'ergrown,
And choaked with growth of nettles rank
The home-floor, and once warm hearth-stone.
One look sufficed-at once the whole
Sad history flashed upon his soul;
He saw that household's ruined fate,
He knew that all was desolate.
With face to earth he cast him down,
As in a stupor long he lay,
And when he woke as from a swoon,
And looked abroad, last gleams of day
Even from the highest peaks were gone,
And the lone Loch lay shimmering wan;
From that waste desolated shore
He turned away and looked no more.  

VI

From that home, now no more a home,
Up through the dusky pines he clomb;
Up and on, without let or bound,
On-clambering to the high lone ground
Where Knoydart, cloven by sheer defiles,
Yawns with torrent-roaring chasms,
Huddled screetan, and rent rock-piles,
Nature's work in her wildest spasms:
There, as the darkness deeper fell
And going grew impossible,
Beneath a rock he laid his length,
As one bereft of hope and strength,
And if no further step he passed,
Content that this should be his last.
The hope, that had his heart sustained
Through years of toil, to ruin hurled-
What shelter any more remained
In this forsaken world?
What but to share with this poor home
The desolation of its doom?
But they the true, the gentle-hearted,
To what strange bourne had they departed?
Dwell they in noisome city pent?
Or are they tenants now, where rent
None ask, in that drear place of graves,
Which Nevish-Loch at full-tide laves?
Or dwell they far o'er ocean-thrown
Like sea-waifs on some land unknown?

VII

All through that night, I heard him tell,
Strange sounds upon his hearing fell,
Weirdlier sounds than shriek of owl,
Wild cats' scream, hill-foxes' howl,
As though the ancient mountains, rent
To their deep foundations, sent
On the midnight moan on moan, 
Ghostly language of their own,
Converse terrible, austere,
Seldom heard by mortal ear.
Then in hurried blinks o' the moon
Cliff and crag dim-seen appeared
Haggard forms, like eldrich croon,
Or shapeless beings, vast and weird,
Formless passed before his face
Dwellers of that awesome place.
Angus had been used to bide
Foeman's shot and shell unmoved-
Badajos-Busaco tried,
And found his mettle unreproved.
Never before face of man
Had he quailed, but now there ran
Creepings cold thro' all his frame,
O'er his limbs strange trembling came,
And the hair upon his head
Rose erect with very dread
Of this place-this awesome hour,
When the nether world had power.
All he had listened to, as a child,
Of mountain glamourie dark and wild,
To harrow up the soul with fear,
Now palpable to eye and ear,
Seemed gathered to confront him here.  

VIII

Never stood he so aghast,
Never through such night had passed,
But the dawning came at last:
And when earliest streaks of light
The eastern peaks had silver-barred,
Behold! his tarrying place all night
None other was than Màm-clach-ard.
Forward then, 'mid the glimmer of dawn,
Through the rough Pass he wandered on,
And one by one stars faded on high,
As the tide of light washed up the sky:
But when he reached the eastern door,
Where that high cloven Pass looks o'er
Lochiel's broad mountains, grisly and hoar,
The sun, new-ris'n from the under-world,
Had all the glens beneath outrolled,
Up the braes the mists had furled,
And touched their snowy fleeces with gold.
There far below, inlaid between
Steep mountain walls, lay calm and green
Glen Desseray, bright in morning sheen.
As down the rough track Angus trade
The path that led to his old abode,
Calm as of old the lone green glen
Lay stretched before him long miles ten;
He looked, the braes as erst were fair,
But smoke none rose on the morning air;
He listened, came no blithe cock-crowing
From wakening farms, no cattle-lowing,
No voice of man, no cry of child,
Blent with the loneness of the wild;
Only the wind thro' the bent and ferns,
Only the moan of the corrie-burns.  

IX

Can it be? doth this silence tell
The same sad tale as yester-eve?
My clansmen here who wont to dwell
Have they too ta'en their last long leave?
Adown this glen too, hath there been
The besom of destruction keen
Sweeping it of its people clean?
That anxious tremour in his breast
One half-hour onward set at rest:
Where once his home had been, now stare
Two gables, roofless, gaunt, and bare;
Two gables, and a broken wall,
Are all now left of Sheniebhal.
The huts around of the old farm-toun,
Wherein the poorer tenants dwelt,
Moss-covered stone-heaps, crumbling down,
Into the wilderness slowly melt.
The slopes below, where had gardens been,
Lay thick with rushes darkly green,
The furrows on the braes above
Where erst the flax and the barley throve,
With ferns and heather covered o'er,
To Nature had gone back once more.
And there beneath, the meadow lay,
The long smooth reach of meadowy ground,
Where intertwining east away
In loop on loop the river wound:
There, where he heard a former day
The blithe, loud shouting, shinty play,
Was silence now as the grave profound.
A few steps led to the Mound of the Cave,
A hillock strewn with many a grave,-
Lone place, to which some far and faint
Remembrance of Columban Saint
Come, ages gone, from the Isle of Y,
Gave immemorial sanctity.
There children lost in life's first day
Whom to Kilmallie (that long way),
They did not bear, were laid to sleep,
That o'er them kindred watch might keep,
And mothers thither steal to weep.
There he himself in childhood's morn
Had seen two infants, younger-born,
His own sweet brothers, laid to rest;
And now he came in loving quest
To see their little graves, but they
From sight had melted quite away,-
'Neath touch of time's obscure effacing
Had passed unto the waste around,
And now no eye could mark the tracing
'Twixt holy earth, and common ground.  

X

Then looking back with one wide ken,
Where stood the Farms, each side the glen-
Tom-na-hua, Cuil, Glach-fern,
Each he clearly could discern;
Once groups of homes, wherein did dwell
The people he had known so well,
These stood blank skeletons, one and all,
Like his own home, Sheniebhal;
And he sighed as he gazed on the pathways untrodden,
"These be the homes of the men of Culloden!"
"This desolation! whence hath come?
What power hath hushed this living glen
Once blithe with happy sounds of men
Into a wilderness blank and dumb?
Alas for them! leal souls and true!
Kindred and clansmen whom I knew!
Their homes stand roofless on the brae,
And the hearts that loved them, where are they?
Ah me! what days with them I've seen
On the summer braes at the shealings green!
What nights of winter dark and long
Made brief and bright by the joy of song!
The men in peace so gentle and mild,
In battle onset lion-wild,
When the pibroch of Donald Dhu
Sounded the summons of Lochiel,
From these homes to his standard flew,
By him stood through woe and weal,
Against Clan-Chattan, age by age
Held his ancient heritage:
And when the Stuart cause was down,
And Lochiel rose for King and Crown,
Who like these same Cameron men
Gave their gallant heart-blood pure
At Inverlochy, Killiecrankie,
Preston-pans, Culloden Muir?
And when red vengeance on the Gael
Fell bloody, did their fealty fail?
Did they not screen with lives of men
Their outlawed Prince in desert and den?
And when their Chief fled far away,
Who were his sole support but they?
Alas for them! those faithful men!
And this is all reward they have!
These unroofed homes, this emptied glen
A forlorn exile, then the grave."

XI

That night, as October winds were tirling
The birchen woods down Lochiel's long shore,
The wan, dead leaves on the rain-blast whirling,
A low knock came to our cottage door.
"Lift the latch, bid him welcome," cried my sire.
Straight a plaided stranger entered in,
And we saw by the light of the red peat fire,
A long, lank form, and a visage thin.
We children stared-as tho' a ghost
Had crossed the door-on that face unknown;
But my father cried-"O loved and lost!
That voice, my brother, is thine own."
Then each on the other's neck they fell,
And long embraced, and wept aloud;
We children stood-I remember well-
Our heads in wondering silence bowed.
But when our uncle raised his head,
Gazing around the house, he said-
"I've travelled down Glen Desseray bare,
Looked on our desolate home to-day,
But those my heart most longed for, where?
Father and mother, where are they?
For them has their own country found
No home, save underneath the ground? "
"Too truly has your heart divined,"
My father answered him, "for they
Came hither but not long to stay-
With the fall o' the year away they dwined,
Not loth another home to find,
Where none could say them nay.
Above their heads to-night the sward
Is green in Kilmallie's old kirkyard."  

XII

In vain for him the board we strewed,
He little cared for rest or food-
On this alone intent-to know,
Whence had come the ruin and woe.
"Tell me, O tell me whence," he cried,
"Hath spread this desolation wide;
What ministers of dark despair-
From nether pit or upper air-
On the poor country of the Gael,
Have breathed this blasting blight and bale.
By lone Lochourn, too, I have been,
And Runieval in ruin seen;
I know that home is desolate-
Tell me the dwellers' earthly fate."
"Ah, these are gone, with many more,"
My father said, "to a far-off shore,
By some great lake, whereof we know
Only the name-Ontario.
They tell us there are broad lands there,
Whereof whoever will may share,
Great forests-trees of giant stem-
Glen-mallie pines are naught to them.
But of all that we nothing know,
Save the great name, Ontario."
"But whence came all this ruin? Tell
From whom the cruel outrage fell,
On our poor people." With a sigh
My father fain had put him by;
"A tale so full of sorrow and wrong,
To-night to tell were all too long,
Weary and hungry thou need'st must be-
Sit down at the board we have spread for thee!"
I wot we had spread it of our best.
But for him our dainties had little zest;
Nor would he eat or drink, until
Of that dark tale he had heard his fill.  

XIII

Not many days my father's roof
That soldier-brother could retain;
To wander to far lands aloof
His heart was on the strain.
But while within our home he stayed,
He turned him every day,
To where, in sombre beech-trees' shade
His parents both are lowly laid,
'Neath mountain flag-stone grey.
The last time that he lingered there,
Some moss he gathered from the grave,
The one memorial he could bear,
Where'er his wandering feet might fare,
Beyond the western wave.
And then he left my father's door,
And bidding farewell evermore
To dwellers on this mountain shore,
He set his face to that world afar,
On which descends the evening star.
We never knew what there befell-
Some said that he found Muriel,
With her old parents yet alive,
Where still Glengarry clansmen thrive,
And there, on great Ontario's side,
He led her home, his wedded bride.
But others whispered 'twas not so-
That ere he came her head was low,
And nothing left him but to keep,
Far in primeval forest deep,
Watch o'er his loved one's lonely sleep,
And her poor parents' age to tend,
Till they should to the grave descend.
Authentic voice none o'er the sea
Came, telling how these things might be-
His fate in that far land was dumb,
And silent as the world to come.
We only know such fervent thought
Of all the past within him wrought,
That, ere he sailed, he turned aside,
That dreary moor to wander o'er,
Where the last gleam of Albyn's pride
In blood went down to rise no more;
And while the bark on Moray Firth,
That bore him from his native earth,
Waited the breeze to fill her sail,
This coronach, this woful wail,
He breathed for the down-trodden Gael.