Hark how the wind from Cruet’s icy peak

Wails through the corries to the glen below,

The while within a cave a fugitive

Shivers and shrinks to see the swirling snow.

Through the long week the redcoats, a grim band,

Glenbogle and Glenbristle for their prey,

Had searched, and eke Strathdiddle and Strathdun,

To reach the slopes of Cruet yesterday.

The fugitive had heard their fierce halloos,

But hidden in a dark and friendly cave,

Had hitherto escaped their vigilance

And laughed to think how wildly they would rave,

Did they but guess how near he was to them

And to their brutal and relentless grip.

But ah, they knew it not, and so the band

Passed by and brought a prayer to his lip.

But why, when now the redcoats are away,

Shivers and shrinks he in the swirling snow?

Why doth he hearken to the wild wind’s howl

As if it were the howling of the foe?

Alas! it is because his Mary dear,

Mary Macdonald of the nutbrown hair,

Had promised him to come this very night,

And bring provisions to his secret lair.

He gazes from the entrance of the cave

Into the fearsome night of storm without,

And when he cries in anguish, ‘Mary mine!’

He fancies he can hear an answering shout.

Into that fearsome night the fugitive

Rushes to seek her, but when she is found,

His Mary’s lying in a shroud of snow,

A corpse upon Ben Cruet’s cruel ground.

The chaplain closed the volume.

“Is that all?” Myrtle asked.

“That is all.”

“My, I think that’s the saddest poem I ever heard. I don’t think I could visit the cave this afternoon, could you, Carrie?”

“No, I wouldn’t want to visit it right now. But I thought it was called the Cave of the Calf.”

“So it is, Mrs Royde. It was already called the Cave of the Calf when this young Jacobite fugitive had the sad experience which I have tried to express in poetic form.”

“It’s a true story?” Carrie asked.

“Perfectly true,” the clergyman replied. “His name was Alan Macdonald.”

“Alan what?”

“Alan Macdonald.”

“And her name was Mary?”

“Yes, Mary Macdonald. They both came from Glenbristle.”

“And my great-great-great-great-grandfather would likely enough have known them both,” Carrie exclaimed in awe. “Do you believe in reincarnation, Mr Fletcher?”

“I’m afraid that is not an accepted Christian doctrine.”

“Isn’t that too bad? We’re very very interested in reincarnation over in the States. Several of my friends are just crazy about reincarnation. A classmate of mine had a revelation after she left college and found she was Catherine de’ Medici, or was it Catherine of Aragon? Myrtle, do you remember Katie Van Stiltzkin—Catherine Arkwright that was?”

Myrtle nodded.

“Was it Catherine de’ Medici or Catherine of Aragon she was the reincarnation of?”

“I think it was both.”