The cabin’s patriarch lent impatient ear;

Wroth that, beneath his roof, a living man

Should boast the swine-blood of the Campbell clan,

He hastened to the door—called out his son

To follow; walked a space, and thus begun:—

“You have not, Ronald, at this day to learn

The oath I took beside my father’s cairn,

When you were but a babe a twelvemonth born;

Sworn on my dirk—by all that’s sacred, sworn

To be revenged for blood that cries to Heaven—