LITMIR.BIZ

      “I well believe,” the maid replied,

      As her light skiff approach’d the side, —

      “I well believe, that ne’er before

      Your foot has trod Loch Katrine’s shore;

      But yet, as far as yesternight,

      Old Allan-Bane foretold your plight, —

      A gray-hair’d sire, whose eye intent

      Was on the vision’d future58 bent.

      He saw your steed, a dappled gray,

      Lie dead beneath the birchen way;

      Painted exact your form and mien,

      Your hunting suit of Lincoln green,59

      That tassel’d horn so gayly gilt,

      That falchion’s crooked blade and hilt,

      That cap with heron plumage trim,

      And yon two hounds so dark and grim.

      He bade that all should ready be

      To grace a guest of fair degree;60

      But light I held his prophecy,

      And deem’d it was my father’s horn

      Whose echoes o’er the lake were borne.”

      The stranger smiled: – “Since to your home

      A destined errant61 knight I come,

      Announced by prophet sooth62 and old,

      Doom’d, doubtless, for achievement bold,

      I’ll lightly front each high emprise63

      For one kind glance of those bright eyes.

      Permit me, first, the task to guide

      Your fairy frigate o’er the tide.”

      The maid, with smile suppress’d and sly,

      The toil unwonted saw him try;

      For seldom sure, if e’er before,

      His noble hand had grasp’d an oar:

      Yet with main strength his strokes he drew,

      And o’er the lake the shallop flew;

      With heads erect, and whimpering cry,

      The hounds behind their passage ply.

      Nor frequent does the bright oar break

      The dark’ning mirror of the lake,

      Until the rocky isle they reach,

      And moor their shallop on the beach.

      The stranger view’d the shore around;

      ’Twas all so close with copsewood bound,

      Nor track nor pathway might declare

      That human foot frequented there,

      Until the mountain maiden show’d

      A clambering unsuspected road

      That winded through the tangled screen,

      And open’d on a narrow green,

      Where weeping birch and willow round

      With their long fibers swept the ground.

      Here, for retreat in dangerous hour,

      Some chief had framed a rustic bower.

      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 off their boughs, their hoar trunks bared,

      And by the hatchet rudely squared.

      To give the walls their destined height,

      The sturdy oak and ash unite;

      While moss and clay and leaves combined

      To fence each crevice from the wind.

      The lighter pine trees, overhead,

      Their slender length for rafters spread,

      And wither’d heath and rushes dry

      Supplied a russet canopy.

      Due westward, fronting to the green,

      A rural portico was seen,

      Aloft on native pillars borne,

      Of mountain fir, with bark unshorn,

      Where Ellen’s hand had taught to twine

      The ivy and Idæan vine,64

      The clematis, the favor’d flower

      Which boasts the name of virgin bower,

      And every hardy plant could65 bear

      Loch Katrine’s keen and searching air.

      An instant in this porch she staid,

      And gayly to the stranger said,

      “On Heaven and on thy Lady call,

      And enter the enchanted hall!”

      “My hope, my heaven, my trust must be,

      My gentle guide, in following thee.”

      He cross’d the threshold – and a clang

      Of angry steel that instant rang.

      To his bold brow his spirit rush’d,

      But soon for vain alarm he blush’d,

      When on the floor he saw display’d,

      Cause of the din, a naked blade

      Dropp’d from the sheath, that careless flung,

      Upon a stag’s huge antlers swung;

      For all around, the walls to grace,

      Hung trophies of the fight or chase:

      A target66 there, a bugle here,

      A battle-ax, a hunting spear,

      And broadswords, bows, and arrows store,

      With the tusk’d trophies of the boar.

      Here grins the wolf as when he died,

      And there the wild cat’s brindled hide

      The frontlet of the elk adorns,

      Or mantles o’er the bison’s horns;

      Pennons and flags defaced and stain’d,

      That blackening streaks of blood retain’d,

      And

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