What deem ye of my path waylaid?

My life given o’er to ambuscade?”—

“As of a meed to rashness due:

Hadst thou sent warning fair and true,—

I seek my hound, or falcon stray’d,

I seek, good faith,[284] a Highland maid,—

Free hadst thou been to come and go;

But secret path marks secret foe.

Nor yet, for this, even as a spy,

Hadst thou, unheard, been doom’d to die,