Highland Legends. Sir Thomas Dick Lauder
dared they abide the battle shock,
But fled away like some startled flock,
Or some scattered herd of timid deer,
When the howl of the gaunt mountain wolves they hear.
The slaughter was wide, and the vengeance deep,
That the Moray-men took of their Danish foes;
But yet deeper revenge did Findhorn reap
As high, in his anger, his billows rose.
For he had wailed that his wave before
The dye of his children’s life’s-blood bore;
But now, full glutted with hostile dead,
He reared him aloft, shook his oak-crowned head,
And, roaring with fearful revelry,
He swept off his spoils to his kindred sea.
Who sits her and sighs on the castled isle
That on Loch-an-Dorbe’s dark breast doth float?
And why lights her eye with a radiant smile
As the moonbeam falls soft on that little boat?
A fairy thing it seems to be,
It glides o’er the wave so silently;
And like such sprites of witching power
It vanished beneath a shadowy tower,
As its slender side lost the moonbeam’s ray,
Nor left it one trace of its liquid way.
That maiden who sat in the castled isle
Scanned that little boat with no idle gaze;
And I ween that her eyes with their radiant smile
Had hope blent with love in their glowing rays.
Malvina she was that maiden fair,
King Fergus’ daughter, who sat her there.
She’s gone!—and her pulse may hardly beat,
As in silence move her trembling feet
To the dungeon where lonely her lover lies,
And wastes the night in despairing sighs,
The son of King Sewyn in battle ta’en,
The gallant Prince Harrold, the brave young Dane.
She unlocked the bolts with a master key,
And Prince Harrold sprang forth to his lady’s side.
“Love favours our flight!” softly whispered she,
“At the postern stairs doth the boat abide.”
Then they stole away by the shadowy wall.
Yet she sighed to quit her father’s hall,
And her bosom heaved, and she dropped a tear,
Whilst her lover essayed to hush her fear,
And she clung to his arm as the little boat
Did o’er the wide lake in silence float.
’Twas a right trusty page that gave them way,
And he landed them ’neath the greenwood tree,
Where tied to the oak was a courser grey;
Prince Harrold to saddle sprang merrily.
The fair Malvina behind him placed,
With snow-white arms her lover embraced.
The sun rose to welcome the bonny bride,
As they fled them straight to the Findhorn’s side;
But its stream was swollen and barred their flight,
And drove them for refuge to Dulsie’s height.
“Go, bring me Prince Harrold,” King Fergus cried,
His royal eyes sparkling with beams of joy,
“My daughter Malvina shall be his bride,
And Moray be freed from the Dane’s annoy.
Envoy to me hath King Sewyn sent,
And peace shall their bridal knot cement.”
But Harrold was gone and Malvina fair!
Yet a sharp-witted page could teach him where,
And quick spoke the boy; for the King had told
Such glad tidings, I ween, as made him bold.
“To boat!” cried King Fergus, with eager haste,
And—“To horse!” when he touched the farther shore,
And furious he spurred through the forest waste,
As to Findhorn’s stream his swift course he bore.
The lovers from Dulsie’s wooded height
Saw Moray’s lord coming in kingly might.
’Twas better to tempt the swollen tide,
Than captive be torn from his bonny bride.
Harrold lifted Malvina to saddle again,
And down Dulsie’s slope urged his steed amain.
Oh, Findhorn shrieked loud to warn them away!
But louder yet did the water-fiends yell,
Rebellious they laughed at his empty sway,
As vainly he strove their wild rage to quell.
And the sire’s despairing cry was vain,
“Malvina! my child! oh, turn again!”
But the lovers, twined on the courser grey,
Were swept from his outstretchd eyes away,
And he smote his bosom and tore his hair
As adown the big stream he sought the pair.
Why tarries the knight in his lonely way
At yon cairn on flowery Ferness holm?
Why scans he yon pillar, so rough and grey,
That rises from out its rudely-heaped dome?
’Twas there the love-twined youth and maid,
Unsevered in death, were sadly laid;
And there did King Fergus and Sewyn weep
When they found them locked in death’s cold sleep,
And Findhorn still lingers around their grave,
And sighs for their fate with repentant wave.
HILL OF THE AITNOCH.
Author.—See now how innumerable the stumps of the trees are here. They are peeping up through the moss in every direction. Conceive what a thick pine wood this must have once been.
Grant.—You were certainly guilty of no great exaggeration when you said that a deer could hardly have penetrated it whilst it was standing in all its gloomy grandeur.
Clifford.—It is well for our comfort that we can now pass so easily over its fallen majesty; and methinks the sooner we escape from so dreary a scene the better.
Author.—Let us keep more this way, then. A short walk will now bring us to the southern brow of the hill, whence a new scene will