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.