On the loch-sides of Appin,

   When the mist blew from the sea,

A Stewart stood with a Cameron:

   An angry man was he.

The blood beat in his ears,

   The blood ran hot to his head,

The mist blew from the sea,

   And there was the Cameron dead.

“O, what have I done to my friend,

   O, what have I done to mysel’,

That he should be cold and dead,

   And I in the danger of all?

Nothing but danger about me,

   Danger behind and before,

Death at wait in the heather

   In Appin and Mamore,

Hate at all of the ferries

   And death at each of the fords,

Camerons priming gunlocks

   And Camerons sharpening swords.”

But this was a man of counsel,

   This was a man of a score,

There dwelt no pawkier Stewart

   In Appin or Mamore.

He looked on the blowing mist,

   He looked on the awful dead,

And there came a smile on his face

   And there slipped a thought in his head.

Out over cairn and moss,

   Out over scrog and scaur,

He ran as runs the clansman

   That bears the cross of war.

His heart beat in his body,

   His hair clove to his face,

When he came at last in the gloaming

   To the dead man’s brother’s place.

The east was white with the moon,

   The west with the sun was red,

And there, in the house-doorway,

   Stood the brother of the dead.

“I have slain a man to my danger,

   I have slain a man to my death.

I put my soul in your hands,”

   The panting Stewart saith.

“I lay it bare in your hands,

   For I know your hands are leal;

And be you my targe and bulwark

   From the bullet and the steel.”

Then up and spoke the Cameron,

   And gave him his hand again:

“There shall never a man in Scotland

   Set faith in me in vain;

And whatever man you have slaughtered,

   Of whatever name or line,

By my sword and yonder mountain,

   I make your quarrel mine. [103]

I bid you in to my fireside,

   I share with you house and hall;

It stands upon my honour

   To see you safe from all.”

It fell in the time of midnight,

   When the fox barked in the den

And the plaids were over the faces

   In all the houses of men,

That as the living Cameron

   Lay sleepless on his bed,

Out of the night and the other world,

   Came in to him the dead.

“My blood is on the heather,

   My bones are on the hill;

There is joy in the home of ravens

   That the young shall eat their fill.

My blood is poured in the dust,

   My soul is spilled in the air;

And the man that has undone me

   Sleeps in my brother’s care.”

“I’m wae for your death, my brother,

   But if all of my house were dead,

I couldnae withdraw the plighted hand,

   Nor break the word once said.”

“O, what shall I say to our father,

   In the place to which I fare?

O, what shall I say to our mother,

   Who greets to see me there?

And to all the kindly Camerons

   That have lived and died long-syne—

Is this the word you send them,

   Fause-hearted brother mine?”

“It’s neither fear nor duty,

   It’s neither quick nor dead

Shall gar me withdraw the plighted hand,

   Or break the word once said.”

Thrice in the time of midnight,

   When the fox barked in the den,

And the plaids were over the faces

   In all the houses of men,

Thrice as the living Cameron

   Lay sleepless on his bed,

Out of the night and the other world

   Came in to him the dead,

And cried to him for vengeance

   On the man that laid him low;

And thrice the living Cameron

   Told the dead Cameron, no.

“Thrice have you seen me, brother,

   But now shall see me no more,

Till you meet your angry fathers

   Upon the farther shore.

Thrice have I spoken, and now,

   Before the cock be heard,

I take my leave for ever

   With the naming of a word.

It shall sing in your sleeping ears,

   It shall hum in your waking head,

The name—Ticonderoga,

   And the warning of the dead.”

Now when the night was over

   And the time of people’s fears,

The Cameron walked abroad,

   And the word was in his ears.

“Many a name I know,

   But never a name like this;

O, where shall I find a skilly man

   Shall tell me what it is?”

With many a man he counselled

   Of high and low degree,

With the herdsmen on the mountains

   And the fishers of the sea.

And he came and went unweary,

   And read the books of yore,

And the runes that were written of old

   On stones upon the moor.

And many a name he was told,

   But never the name of his fears—

Never, in east or west,

   The name that rang in his ears:

Names of men and of clans;

   Names for the grass and the tree,

For the smallest tarn in the mountains,

   The smallest reef in the sea:

Names for the high and low,

   The names of the craig and the flat;

But in all the land of Scotland,

   Never a name like that.