The Lady of the Lake | Page 7

her voice was borne:--?'Father!' she cried; the rocks around?Loved to prolong the gentle sound.?Awhile she paused, no answer came;--?'Malcolm, was shine the blast?' the name?Less resolutely uttered fell,?The echoes could not catch the swell.?'A stranger I,' the Huntsman said,?Advancing from the hazel shade.?The maid, alarmed, with hasty oar?Pushed her light shallop from the shore,?And when a space was gained between,?Closer she drew her bosom's screen;--?So forth the startled swan would swing,?So turn to prune his ruffled wing.?Then safe, though fluttered and amazed,?She paused, and on the stranger gazed.?Not his the form, nor his the eye,?That youthful maidens wont to fly.
XXI.
On his bold visage middle age?Had slightly pressed its signet sage,?Yet had not quenched the open truth?And fiery vehemence of youth;?Forward and frolic glee was there,?The will to do, the soul to dare,?The sparkling glance, soon blown to fire,?Of hasty love or headlong ire.?His limbs were cast in manly could?For hardy sports or contest bold;?And though in peaceful garb arrayed,?And weaponless except his blade,?His stately mien as well implied?A high-born heart, a martial pride,?As if a baron's crest he wore,?And sheathed in armor bode the shore.?Slighting the petty need he showed,?He told of his benighted road;?His ready speech flowed fair and free,?In phrase of gentlest courtesy,?Yet seemed that tone and gesture bland?Less used to sue than to command.
XXII.
Awhile the maid the stranger eyed,?And, reassured, at length replied,?That Highland halls were open still?To wildered wanderers of the hill.?'Nor think you unexpected come?To yon lone isle, our desert home;?Before the heath had lost the dew,?This morn, a couch was pulled for you;?On yonder mountain's purple head?Have ptarmigan and heath-cock bled,?And our broad nets have swept the mere,?To furnish forth your evening cheer.'--?'Now, by the rood, my lovely maid,?Your courtesy has erred,' he said;?'No right have I to claim, misplaced,?The welcome of expected guest.?A wanderer, here by fortune toss,?My way, my friends, my courser lost,?I ne'er before, believe me, fair,?Have ever drawn your mountain air,?Till on this lake's romantic strand?I found a fey in fairy land!'--
XXIII.
'I well believe,' the maid replied,?As her light skiff approached 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 -haired sire, whose eye intent?Was on the visioned future 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,?That tasselled 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;?But light I held his prophecy,?And deemed it was my father's horn?Whose echoes o'er the lake were borne.'
XXIV.
The stranger smiled: -- 'Since to your home?A destined errant-knight I come,?Announced by prophet sooth and old,?Doomed, doubtless, for achievement bold,?I 'll lightly front each high emprise?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 suppressed and sly,?The toil unwonted saw him try;?For seldom, sure, if e'er before,?His noble hand had grasped 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 darkening mirror of the lake,?Until the rocky isle they reach,?And moor their shallop on the beach.
XXV.
The stranger viewed the shore around;?'T was all so close with copsewood bound,?Nor track nor pathway might declare?That human foot frequented there,?Until the mountain maiden showed?A clambering unsuspected road,?That winded through the tangled screen,?And opened on a narrow green,?Where weeping birch and willow round?With their long fibres swept the ground.?Here, for retreat in dangerous hour,?Some chief had framed a rustic bower.
XXVI.
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.?Lopped 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?To fence each crevice from the wind.?The lighter pine-trees overhead?Their slender length for rafters spread,?And withered 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 Idaean vine,?The clematis, the favored flower?Which boasts the name of virgin-bower,?And every hardy plant could bear?Loch Katrine's keen and searching air.?An instant in this porch she stayed,?And gayly to the stranger said:?'On heaven and on thy lady call,?And enter the enchanted hall!'
XXVII.
'My hope, my heaven, my trust must be,?My gentle guide, in following thee!'--?He crossed the threshold,--and a clang?Of angry steel that instant rang.?To his bold brow his spirit rushed,?But soon for vain alarm he blushed?When on the floor he saw displayed,?Cause of the din, a naked