XXVI
"And soon a score of fires, I ween,
From height, and hill, and cliff, were seen;
·········
Each after each they glanced to sight,
As stars arise upon the night.
They gleamed on many a dusky tarn,
Haunted by the lonely earn;
On many a cairn's grey pyramid,
Where urns of mighty chiefs lie hid."
The rain continued at intervals throughout the day, but as the afternoon wore on the skies looked a trifle more hopeful. It would be "saft," no doubt, climbing the Law, but the bonfire must be lighted. Would Pettybaw be behind London? Would Pettybaw desert the Queen in her hour of need? Not though the rain were bursting the well-heads on Cawda; not though the swollen mountain burns drowned us to the knee! So off we started as the short midsummer night descended.
We were to climb the Law, wait for the signal from Cawda's lonely height, and then fire Pettybaw's torch of loyalty to the little lady in black; not a blaze flaming out war and rumors of war, as was the beacon-fire on the old gray battlements of Edinburgh Castle in the days of yore, but a
