Author.—No, no. The lonely obelisk, and the cairn from which it rises, may indeed have stood on the green holm of Ferness, with the rapid Findhorn sweeping around them, for ages. They may have been there whilst the great forests still spread themselves thickly over the country, but you would judge wrong if you supposed them to have co-existed with my savages of the pemmican; for there must have been some considerable approach to civilisation amongst a people who could have cut and transported that great mass of rough-grained sandstone, of which the obelisk is formed, from the nearest quarries of the same rock, some fifteen or twenty miles off, to the spot where it has ever since stood, not to mention the beautiful hieroglyphical carvings with which it has been ornamented.
Clifford.—Is there no legend attached to the monument?
Grant.—There is; and our friend has woven it into a little poem, which he once repeated to me.
Clifford.—Poem! come, let’s have it! You need not fear to give it to me now, you know; for there is no birch at hand to punish you for your false quantities.
Author.—To tell you the truth, I am quite tired of repeating the story in prose; so, lame though my stanzas may be, I shall prefer risking your criticism. But you must remember, that it is one thing to climb a rugged heathery hill like this, and another thing to mount Parnassus.
THE CAIRN OF THE LOVERS.
The raven of Denmark stretched his broad wing,
And shot his dark flight o’er Moray’s fair fields;
And Findhorn’s wild echoes were heard to ring