| |
| IT was three slim does and a ten-tined buck in the bracken lay; | |
| And all of a sudden the sinister smell of a man, | |
| Awaft on a wind-shift, wavered and ran | |
| Down the hillside and sifted along through the bracken and passed that way. | |
| |
| Then Nan got a-tremble at nostril; she was the daintiest doe; | 5 |
| In the print of her velvet flank on the velvet fern | |
| She reared, and rounded her ears in turn. | |
| Then the buck leapt up, and his head as a king’s to a crown did go | |
| |
| Full high in the breeze, and he stood as if Death had the form of a deer; | |
| And the two slim does long lazily stretching arose, | 10 |
| For their day-dream slowlier came to a close, | |
| Till they woke and were still, breath-bound with waiting and wonder and fear. | |
| |
| Then Alan the huntsman sprang over the hillock, the hounds shot by, | |
| The does and the ten-tined buck made a marvellous bound, | |
| The hounds swept after with never a sound, | 15 |
| But Alan loud winded his horn in sign that the quarry was nigh. | |
| |
| For at dawn of that day proud Maclean of Lochbuy to the hunt had waxed wild, | |
| And he cursed at old Alan till Alan fared off with the hounds | |
| For to drive him the deer to the lower glen-grounds: | |
| ‘I will kill a red deer,’ quoth Maclean, ‘in the sight of the wife and the child.’ | 20 |
| |
| So gayly he paced with the wife and the child to his chosen stand; | |
| But he hurried tall Hamish the henchman ahead: ‘Go turn,’— | |
| Cried Maclean,—‘if the deer seek to cross to the burn, | |
| Do thou turn them to me: nor fail, lest thy back be red as thy hand.’ | |
| |
| Now hard-fortuned Hamish, half blown of his breath with the height of the hill, | 25 |
| Was white in the face when the ten-tined buck and the does | |
| Drew leaping to burn-ward; huskily rose | |
| His shouts, and his nether lip twitched, and his legs were o’er-weak for his will. | |
| |
| So the deer darted lightly by Hamish and bounded away to the burn. | |
| But Maclean never bating his watch tarried waiting below; | 30 |
| Still Hamish hung heavy with fear for to go | |
| All the space of an hour, then he went, and his face was greenish and stern, | |
| |
| And his eye sat back in the socket, and shrunken the eyeballs shone, | |
| As withdrawn from a vision of deeds it were shame to see. | |
| ‘Now, now, grim henchman, what is’t with thee?’ | 35 |
| Brake Maclean, and his wrath rose red as a beacon the wind hath upblown. | |
| |
| ‘Three does and a ten-tined buck made out,’ spoke Hamish, full mild, | |
| ‘And I ran for to turn, but my breath it was blown, and they passed; | |
| I was weak, for ye called ere I broke me my fast.’ | |
| Cried Maclean: ‘Now a ten-tined buck in the sight of the wife and the child | 40 |
| |
| ‘I had killed if the gluttonous kern had not wrought me a snail’s own wrong!’ | |
| Then he sounded, and down came kinsmen and clansmen all: | |
| ‘Ten blows, for ten tine, on his back let fall, | |
| And reckon no stroke if the blood follow not at the bite of thong!’ | |
| |
| So Hamish made bare, and took him his strokes; at the last he smiled. | 45 |
| ‘Now I’ll to the burn,’ quoth Maclean, ‘for it still may be, | |
| If a slimmer-paunched henchman will hurry with me, | |
| I shall kill me the ten-tined buck for a gift to the wife and the child!’ | |
| |
| Then the clansmen departed, by this path and that; and over the hill | |
| Sped Maclean with an outward wrath for an inward shame; | 50 |
| And that place of the lashing full quiet became; | |
| And the wife and the child stood sad; and bloody-backed Hamish sat still. | |
| |
| But look! red Hamish has risen; quick about and about turns he. | |
| ‘There is none betwixt me and the crag-top!’ he screams under breath. | |
| Then, livid as Lazarus lately from death, | 55 |
| He snatches the child from the mother, and clambers the crag toward the sea. | |
| |
| Now the mother drops breath; she is dumb, and her heart goes dead for a space, | |
| Till the motherhood, mistress of death, shrieks, shrieks through the glen, | |
| And that place of the lashing is live with men, | |
| And Maclean, and the gillie that told him, dash up in a desperate race. | 60 |
| |
| Not a breath’s time for asking; an eye-glance reveals all the tale untold. | |
| They follow mad Hamish afar up the crag toward the sea, | |
| And the lady cries: ‘Clansmen, run for a fee! | |
| You castle and lands to the two first hands that shall hook him and hold | |
| |
| ‘Fast Hamish back from the brink!’—and ever she flies up the steep, | 65 |
| And the clansmen pant, and they sweat, and they jostle and strain. | |
| But, mother, ’tis vain; but, father, ’tis vain; | |
| Stern Hamish stands bold on the brink, and dangles the child o’er the deep. | |
| |
| Now a faintness falls on the men that run, and they all stand still. | |
| And the wife prays Hamish as if he were God, on her knees, | 70 |
| Crying: ‘Hamish! O Hamish! but please, but please | |
| For to spare him!’ and Hamish still dangles the child, with a wavering will. | |
| |
| On a sudden he turns; with a sea-hawk scream, and a gibe, and a song, | |
| Cries: ‘So; I will spare ye the child if, in sight of ye all, | |
| Ten blows on Maclean’s bare back shall fall, | 75 |
| And ye reckon no stroke if the blood follow not at the bite of the thong!” | |
| |
| Then Maclean he set hardly his tooth to his lip that his tooth was red, | |
| Breathed short for a space, said: ‘Nay, but it never shall be! | |
| Let me hurl off the damnable hound in the sea!’ | |
| But the wife: ‘Can Hamish go fish us the child from the sea, if dead? | 80 |
| |
| ‘Say yea!—Let them lash me, Hamish?’—‘Nay!’—‘Husband, the lashing will heal; | |
| But, oh, who will heal me the bonny sweet bairn in his grave? | |
| Could ye cure me my heart with the death of a knave? | |
| Quick! Love! I will bare thee—so—kneel!’ Then Maclean ’gan slowly to kneel | |
| |
| With never a word, till presently downward he jerked to the earth. | 85 |
| Then the henchman—he that smote Hamish—would tremble and lag; | |
| ‘Strike, hard!’ quoth Hamish, full stern, from the crag; | |
| Then he struck him, and ‘One!’ sang Hamish, and danced with the child in his mirth. | |
| |
| And no man spake beside Hamish; he counted each stroke with a song. | |
| When the last stroke fell, then he moved him a pace down the height, | 90 |
| And he held forth the child in the heart-aching sight | |
| Of the mother, and looked all pitiful grave, as repenting a wrong. | |
| |
| And there as the motherly arms stretched out with the thanksgiving prayer— | |
| And there as the mother crept up with a fearful swift pace, | |
| Till her finger nigh felt of the bairnie’s face— | 95 |
| In a flash fierce Hamish turned round and lifted the child in the air, | |
| |
| And sprang with the child in his arms from the horrible height in the sea, | |
| Shrill screeching, ‘Revenge!’ in the wind-rush; and pallid Maclean, | |
| Age-feeble with anger and impotent pain, | |
| Crawled up on the crag, and lay flat, and locked hold of dead roots of a tree, | 100 |
| |
| And gazed hungrily o’er, and the blood from his back drip-dripped in the brine, | |
| And a sea-hawk flung down a skeleton fish as he flew, | |
| And the mother stared white on the waste of blue, | |
| And the wind drove a cloud to seaward, and the sun began to shine. | |
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