"Ah! well the gallant brute I knew! The choicest of the prey we had, When swept our merry men Gallangad.[226] His hide was snow, his horns were dark, His red eye glow'd like fiery spark; So fierce, so tameless, and so fleet, Sore did he cumber our retreat, And kept our stoutest kernes[227] in awe, Even at the pass of Beal 'maha. But steep and flinty was the road, And sharp the hurrying pikeman's goad, And when we came to Dennan's Row, A child might scathless[228] stroke his brow." [225] An old Highland mode of "reading the future." "A person was wrapped up in the skin of a newly slain bullock, and deposited beside a waterfall, or at the bottom of a precipice, or in some other strange, wild, and unusual situation. In this situation he revolved in his mind the question proposed, and whatever was impressed upon him by his exalted imagination passed for the inspiration of the disembodied spirits who haunt the desolate recesses."--_Scott._ [226] South of Loch Lomond. [227] Foot soldiers. [228] Without injury. V. NORMAN. "That bull was slain: his reeking hide They stretch'd the cataract beside, Whose waters their wild tumult toss Adown the black and craggy boss Of that huge cliff, whose ample verge Tradition calls the Hero's Targe. Couch'd on a shelve beneath its brink, Close where the thundering torrents sink, Rocking beneath their headlong sway, And drizzled by the ceaseless spray, Midst groan of rock, and roar of stream, The wizard waits prophetic dream. Nor distant rests the Chief;--but hush! See, gliding slow through mist and bush, The Hermit gains yon rock, and stands To gaze upon our slumbering bands. Seems he not, Malise, like a ghost, That hovers o'er a slaughter'd host? Or raven on the blasted oak, That, watching while the deer is broke,[229] His morsel claims with sullen croak?" MALISE. --"Peace! peace! to other than to me, Thy words were evil augury; But still I hold Sir Roderick's blade Clan-Alpine's omen and her aid, Not aught that, glean'd from heaven or hell, Yon fiend-begotten monk can tell. The Chieftain joins him, see--and now, Together they descend the brow." [229] Cut up. VI.