The stranger smiled:--"Since to your home A destined errant[61] knight I come, Announced by prophet sooth[62] and old, Doom'd, doubtless, for achievement bold, I'll lightly front each high emprise[63] For one kind glance of those bright eyes. Permit me, first, the task to guide Your fairy frigate o'er the tide." The maid, with smile suppress'd and sly, The toil unwonted saw him try; For seldom sure, if e'er before, His noble hand had grasp'd an oar: Yet with main strength his strokes he drew, And o'er the lake the shallop flew; With heads erect, and whimpering cry, The hounds behind their passage ply. Nor frequent does the bright oar break The dark'ning mirror of the lake, Until the rocky isle they reach, And moor their shallop on the beach. [61] Wandering. [62] True. [63] "High emprise," i.e., dangerous adventures. XXV. The stranger view'd the shore around; 'Twas all so close with copsewood bound, Nor track nor pathway might declare That human foot frequented there, Until the mountain maiden show'd A clambering unsuspected road That winded through the tangled screen, And open'd on a narrow green, Where weeping birch and willow round With their long fibers swept the ground. Here, for retreat in dangerous hour, Some chief had framed a rustic bower. XXVI. It was a lodge of ample size, But strange of structure and device; Of such materials, as around The workman's hand had readiest found; Lopp'd off their boughs, their hoar trunks bared, And by the hatchet rudely squared. To give the walls their destined height, The sturdy oak and ash unite; While moss and clay and leaves combined To fence each crevice from the wind. The lighter pine trees, overhead, Their slender length for rafters spread, And wither'd heath and rushes dry Supplied a russet canopy. Due westward, fronting to the green, A rural portico was seen, Aloft on native pillars borne, Of mountain fir, with bark unshorn, Where Ellen's hand had taught to twine The ivy and Idæan vine,[64] The clematis, the favor'd flower Which boasts the name of virgin bower, And every hardy plant could[65] bear Loch Katrine's keen and searching air. An instant in this porch she staid, And gayly to the stranger said, "On Heaven and on thy Lady call, And enter the enchanted hall!" [64] "Idæan vine," i.e., a translation of the Latin name of the red whortleberry, _Vitis Idæa_; but this is a shrub, and could not be "taught to twine." [65] Which could. XXVII.