V.

As snarls the wolf at bay within the wood

On huntsmen and their hounds, so Garry stood

Raging before the women who had made

Secure retreat within the high stockade;

He cursed them all, and their loud laughter rang

More bitter to his heart than e'en the pang

Of his fierce wounds. Then while his streaming blood

Half-blinded him, he hastened to the wood,

And a small tree upon his shoulders bore,

And fixed it fast against the oaken door,

That none might issue forth.

Then once again

Towards the wood he turned, but all in vain

The women waited his return, till they

Grey weary.. for in pain and wrath he lay

In a close thicket, brooding o'er his shame,

And panting for revenge.

Then Finn's wife came

To set the women to the wheel and loom,

With angry chiding; and a heavy gloom

Fell on them all. “Who knoweth,” thus she spake,

“What evil may the Fian men o'ertake

This day of evil omens. Yester-night

I say the pale ghost of my sire with white

And trembling lips... At morn before my sight

A raven darted from the wood, and slew

A brooding dove... What fear is mine!... for who

Would us defend if our fierce foemen came —

When Garry is against us... Much I blame

Thy wanton deed.”... The women heard in shame,

Nor answer made.

The sun, with fiery gleam,

Scattered the feath'ry clouds, as in a dream

The spirits of the dead are softly swept

From severed visions sweet. A low wind crept

Around with falt'ring steps, and, pausing, sighed —

Then fled to murmur from the mountain side

Amid the pine-tree shade; while all aglow

Ben-Wyvis bared a crest of shining snow

In barren splendour o'er the slumbering strath;

While some sat trembling, fearing Garry's wrath,

Some feared the coming of the foe, and some

Had vague forebodings, and were brooding dumb,

And longed to greet the huntsmen. Mothers laid

Their babes to sleep, and many a gentle maid

Sighed for her lover in that lone stockade;

And one who sat apart, with pensive eye,

Thus sang to hear the peewee's plaintive cry —

Peewee, peewee, crying sweet,

Crying early, crying late —

Will your voice be never weary

Crying for your mate?

Other hearts than thine are lonely,

Other hearts must wait.

Peewee, peewee, I'd be flying

O'er the hills and o'er the sea,

Till I found the love I long for

Whereso'er he'd be —

Peewee crying, I'd be flying,

Could I fly like thee!

When Garry, who had stanched his wounds, arose,

He seized his axe, and‘ gan with rapid blows

To fell down fir trees. Through the silent strath

The hollow echoes rang. With fiendish wrath

He made resolve to heap the splintered wood

Against the door, and burn the hated brood

Of his tormentors one and all. He hewed

An ample pyre, then piled it thick and high,

While the sun, sloping to the western sky,

Proclaimed the closing of that fateful day.

But the doomed women little dreamed that they

Would have such fearsome end... As Garry lay

Rubbing the firesticks till they‘ gan to glow,

He heard a Fian mother singing low —

Sleep, O sleep, I'll sing to thee —

Moolachie, O moolachie.

Sleep, O sleep, like yon grey stone,

Moolachie, mine own.

Sleep, O sleep, nor sigh nor fret ye,

And the goblins will not get ye,

I will shield ye, I will pet ye —

Moolachie, mine own.

The mother sang, the gentle babe made moan —

And Garry heard them with a heart of stone...

With fiendish laugh, he saw the leaping flames

Possess the pyre; he heard the shrieking dames,

And maids and children, wailing in the gloom

Of smothering smoke, e'er they had met their doom.

Then when the high stockade was blazing red,

Ere yet their cries were silenced, Garry fled,

And westward o'er the shouldering hills he sped.