That, glittering mile on mile,
Flow'd through my imagination,
As through Egypt flows the Nile.
Was it absolute truth, or a dreaming
That the wakeful day disowns,
That I heard something more in the stream, as it ran,
Than water breaking on stones?
Now the hoofs of a flying mosstrooper,
Now a bloodhound's bay, half caught,
The sudden blast of a hunting horn,
The burr of Walter Scott?
Who knows? But of this I am certain,
That but for the ballads and wails
That make passionate dead things, stocks and stones,
Make piteous woods and dales,
The Tweed were as poor as the Amazon,
That, for all the years it has roll'd,
Can tell but how fair was the morning red,
How sweet the evening gold.
JUBILATION OF SERGEANT M'TURK ON WITNESSING
THE HIGHLAND GAMES.
INVERNESS, 1864.
Hurrah for the Highland glory!
Hurrah for the Highland fame!
For the battles of the great Montrose,
And the pass of the gallant Graeme!
Hurrah for the knights and nobles
That rose up in their place,
And perill'd fame and fortune
For Charlie's bonny face!
Awa frae green Lochaber
He led his slender clans:
The rising skirl o' our bagpipes fley'd
Sir John at Prestonpans.
Ance mair we gather'd glory
In Falkirk's battle stoure,
Ere the tartans lay red-soak'd in bluid
On black Drumossie Moor.
An' when the weary time was owre,
When the head fell frae the neck,
Wolfe heard the cry, "They run, they run!"
On the heights aboon Quebec.
At Ticonderoga's fortress
We fell on sword and targe:
Hurt Moore was lifted up to see
"His Forty-second" charge.
An' aye the pipe was loudest,
An' aye the tartans flew,
The first frae bluidy Maida
To bluidier Waterloo.
We have sail'd owre many a sea, my lads,
We have fought 'neath many a sky,
And it's where the fight has hottest raged
That the tartans thickest lie.
We landed, lads, in India,
When in our bosom's core
One bitter memory burn'd like hell--
The shambles at Cawnpore.
Weel ye mind our march through the furnace-heats,
Weel ye mind the heaps of slain,
As we follow'd through his score of fights
Brave "Havelock the Dane."
Hurrah for the Highland glory!
Hurrah for the Highland names!
God bless you, noble gentlemen!
God love you, bonny dames!
And sneer not at the brawny limbs,
And the strength of our Highland men--
When the bayonets next are levell'd,
They may all be needed then.
These verses I had no sooner copied out in my best hand than, looking
up, I found that the rain had ceased from sheer fatigue, and that
great white vapours were rising up from the damp valleys. Here was
release at last--the beleaguering army had raised the siege; and,
better than all, pleasant as the sound of Blucher's cannon on the
evening of Waterloo, I heard the sound of wheels on the boggy ground:
and just when the stanched rain-clouds were burning into a sullen red
at sunset, I had the Brians, father and son, in my bothy, and
pleasant human intercourse. They came to carry me off with them.
[Sidenote: Blaavin.]
I am to stay with Mr M'Ian to-night. A wedding has taken place up
among the hills, and the whole party have been asked to make a night
of it. The mighty kitchen has been cleared for the occasion; torches
are stuck up, ready to be lighted; and I already hear the first
mutterings of the bagpipes' storm of sound. The old gentleman wears
a look of brightness and hilarity, and vows that he will lead off the
first reel with the bride. Everything is prepared; and even now the
bridal party are coming down the steep hill-road. I must go out to
meet them. To-morrow I return to my bothy to watch; for the weather
has become fine now, the sunny mists congregating on the crests of
Blaavin--Blaavin on which the level heaven seems to lean.
END OF VOLUME I.