"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.
"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;And that place of the lashing full quiet became; [51]
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, 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.
Not a breath's time for asking; an eye-glance reveals all the tale untold.[61]
They follow mad Hamish afar up the crag toward the sea, And the lady cries: "Clansmen, run for a fee! --Yon castle and lands to the two first hands that shall hook him and holdFast Hamish back from the brink!" -- and ever she flies up the steep, 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, Crying: "Hamish! O Hamish! but please, but please [71]
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, 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?
"Say yea! -- Let them lash ME, Hamish?" -- "Nay!" --"Husband, the lashing will heal;[81]
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 kneelWith never a word, till presently downward he jerked to the earth.
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, And he held forth the child in the heartaching sight [91]
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 --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 --And gazed hungrily o'er, and the blood from his back drip-dripped in the brine, [101]
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.
____
Baltimore, 1878.
Notes: The Revenge of Hamish For an appreciation of this fine poem see `Introduction', pp.xlv, xlvii [Part IV], Mr.J.R.Tait, a friend with whom Mr.Lanier discussed `The Revenge of Hamish', kindly writes me that the author took the plot from William Black's novel, `Macleod of Dare'.
In chapter iii.Macleod, of Castle Dare, Mull, tells the story to his London entertainer; but, as the story of the novel is identical with that of the poem, it need not be given here.
The novel, I should add, gives the name of the chieftain only, though, as it has a Hamish in another connection, it doubtless gave Lanier this name for the henchman.Previous to the reception of Mr.Tait's letter I supposed that Lanier had borrowed his plot from a poem by Charles Mackay, `Maclaine's Child, A Legend of Lochbuy, Mull', which in plot is identical with Lanier's poem, except that the former begins with the speech of the flogged henchman, here named Evan, and ends by telling us that the bodies were found and that of Evan was hanged on a gallows-tree.The poem is too long for quotation, but may be found in any edition of Mackay or in Garrett's `One Hundred Choice Selections:
Number Nine' (Phila., 1887).
17.The Macleans, for centuries one of the most powerful of Scottish clans, have since the fourteenth century lived in Mull, one of the largest of the Hebrides Islands.The two leading branches of the clan were the Macleans of Dowart and the Macleans of Lochbuy, both taking their names from the seats of their castles.The Lochbuy family now spells its name MacLAINE.For a detailed history of the clan see Keltie's `History of the Scottish Highlands, Highland Clans', etc.
(London, 1885).Interesting books about Mull and the Hebrides are:
Johnson's `A Journey to the Hebrides' and Robert Buchanan's `The Hebrid Isles'
(London, 1883).Instructive, too, is Cummin's `Around Mull'
(`The Atlantic Monthly', 16.11-19, 167-176, July, August, 1865).
The Marshes of GlynnGlooms of the live-oaks, beautiful-braided and woven [1]
