Before the heath had lost the dew, This morn, a couch was pull'd for you; Now, by the rood, my lovely maid, XXIII. "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; Old Allan-bane foretold your plight,- 1 [MS.-"Till on the lake's enchanting strand."j 2 [MS." Is often on the future bent."] [See Appendix, Note A.] He saw your steed, a dappled grey, And deem'd it was my father's horn, XXIV. The stranger smiled:- "Since to your home Announced by prophet sooth and old, 1 [MS.-" This gentle hand had grasp'd an oar': D Yet with main strength his strokes he drew, Nor frequent does the bright oar break And moor their shallop on the beach. XXV. The stranger view'd the shore around 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. "Itwas situated in the face of a very rough, high, and rocky XXVI. It was a lodge of ample size, But strange of structure and device; The workman's hand had readiest found. Lopp'd of 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 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 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. The lighter pine-trees, over-head, Their slender length for rafters spread, Due westward, fronting to the green, Aloft on native pillars borne, Of mountain fir with bark unshorn, The clematis, the favour'd flower XXVII. แ "My hope, my heaven, my trust must be, My gentle guide, in following thee.". He cross'd the threshold-and a clang |