Aileen MacNab surveyed the darkening landscape with a gleam in her stern grey eyes, and turned from time to time to observe her surly and athletic sons, who were grouped near the large fire that blazed on the hearth, and which cast from its deep archway, a lurid glow on their bare muscular limbs, and floating red tartans; and then the idea that an insult had been offered to her on the first anniversary of their great victory,—that she had been obliged to despatch messengers to her friends announcing that the banquet had been put off,—and that at that very time too, probably, the wild caterans on the islet were feasting on the good cheer which MacIndoir had procured in Crieff, and were pouring her rare French and Flemish wines down their brawny throats, made her tremble with wrath.
Repeatedly she addressed Ian Mion, her eldest son; but on this night, John the Smooth, was unusually gloomy and abstracted, and made no response.
It was averred that once, when hunting near the well of St. Fillan, he had met and loved a beautiful fairy woman, who presented him with a ruby ring, the rich colour of which would always remain deep and bright while his love lasted, but would fade as his love faded, and death come nigh the donor. The well where he received this strange gift, is still considered alike weird and holy in Strathfillan; and there, even at this late age of the world, rags and ribbands are tied to the twigs near it, and small propitiatory oblations in the form of coin, are dropped into its limpid waters by the superstitious Celts of the district. Ian Mion had long ceased to visit the well, for the love he had vowed was a passing one, and the ring had been growing paler and more pale. On this night, as he surveyed it by the red glow of the bog-wood fire, the ruby had become white as snow,—a token that the fairy was dead, and that danger was near himself. He shuddered, and then the sharp, stern, voice of his mother roused him, as she clenched her trembling and uplifted hands above her grey head, and exclaimed bitterly,—
"A Dhia! oh that my husband was here, instead of lying in the place of sleep at Innis Bui, for this night is the night for vengeance, if his lads were but the lads!"
This significant mode of communicating a sentiment,—a mode strongly characteristic of the genuine Celt, was immediately understood by the twelve sturdy warriors at the fire.
"Taunt us not, mother," said Ian Mion, starting as if stung by a serpent, "the night is the night for a terrible deed, and your sons are the lads to achieve it, or may their bones never lie by their father's side under the dark pines of Innis Bui."
He took his long claymore from the wall, and placed it in his broad leather belt; he slung his target on his left shoulder, and grimly felt the point of his sharp biodag, or Highland dagger; and his eleven brothers followed his example, arming themselves with gloomy alacrity, while Ian, with a smile of fierce exultation, surveyed their stature and equipment.
"Now mother," said he, "we go to Lochearn."
"Achial! achial, am bata!" muttered his brother Gillespie. (Alas—alas, a boat!)
"Why not take our birlinn from Loch Tay?" exclaimed Lady Aileen.