Volume Ii Part 42 (1/2)

When your racing speeds the chasing, Wide and far the clamours swell.

Hard blows whistle from the bristle Of the temples to the thigh, Heavy handed as the land-flood, Who will turn ye, or make fly?

Many a man has drunk an ocean Healths to Charlie, to the gorge, Broken many a gla.s.s proposing Weal to him and woe to George; But, 'tis feat of greater glory Far, than stoups of wine to trowl, One draught of vengeance deep and gory, Yea, than to drain the thousandth bowl!

Show ye, prove ye, ye are true all, Join ye to your clans your cheer!

Nor heed though wife and child pursue all, Bidding you to fight, forbear.

Sinew-l.u.s.ty, spirit-trusty, Gallant in your loyal pride, By your hacking, low as bracken Stretch the foe the turf beside.

Our stinging kerne of aspect stern That love the fatal game, That revel rife till drunk with strife, And dye their cheeks with flame, Are strange to fear;--their broadswords shear Their foemen's crested brows, The red-coats feel the barb of steel, And hot its venom glows.

The few have won fields, many a one, In grappling conflicts' play; Then let us march, nor let our hearts A start of fear betray.

Come gus.h.i.+ng forth, the trusty North, Macs.h.i.+mei,[145] loyal Gordon; And prances high their chivalry, And death-dew sits each sword on.

[138] Here Morag's musical performance on the flute, form the subject of a panegyric, in which Urlar, Siubhal, and Crunluath are imitated.

[139] ”Round as the s.h.i.+eld of my fathers.”--_Ossian_.

[140] The French military costume, distinguished by its white colour, was a.s.sumed by the Jacobites.

[141] ”Come, and I will give you flesh,” a Highland war-cry invoking the birds and beasts of prey to their b.l.o.o.d.y revel.

[142] Macdonald of Sleat, Macleod, and others, first hesitated, and finally withheld themselves from the party of the white c.o.c.kade.

[143] Flag.

[144] Warrior.

[145] Lovat and his clan.

JOHN ROY STUART.

John Roy Stuart was a distinguished officer in the Jacobite army of 1745. He was the son of a farmer in Strathspey, who gave him a good education, and procured him a commission in a Highland regiment, which at the period served in Flanders. His military experiences abroad proved serviceable in the cause to which he afterwards devoted himself. In the army of Prince Charles Edward, he was entrusted with important commands at Gladsmuir, Clifton, Falkirk, and Culloden; and he was deemed of sufficient consequence to be pursued by the government with an amount of vigilance which rendered his escape almost an approach to the miraculous. An able military commander, he was an excellent poet. His ”Lament for Lady Macintosh” has supplied one of the most beautiful airs in Highland music.[146] In the second of his pieces on the battle of Culloden, translated for the present work, the lamentation for the absence of the missing clans, and the night march to the field, are executed with the skill and address of a genuine bard, while the story of the battle is recited with the fervour of an honourable partisan.

Stuart died abroad in circ.u.mstances not differing from those of the best and bravest, who were engaged in the same unhappy enterprise.

[146] See the Rev. Patrick Macdonald's Collection, No. 106.

LAMENT FOR LADY MACINTOSH.

This is the celebrated heroine who defended her castle of Moy, in the absence of her husband, and, with other exploits, achieved the surprisal of Lord Loudon's party in their attempt to seize Prince Charles Edward, when he was her guest. Information had been conveyed by some friendly unknown party, of a kind so particular as to induce the lady to have recourse to the following stratagem. She sent the blacksmith on her estate, at the head of a party of other seven persons, with instructions to lie in ambush, and at a particular juncture to call out to the clans to come on and hew to pieces ”the scarlet soldiers,” as were termed the royalist troops. The feint succeeded, and is known in Jacobite story as the ”Route of Moy.” The exploit is pointedly alluded to in the Elegy, which is replete with beauty and pathos.

Does grief appeal to you, ye leal, Heaven's tears with ours to blend?

The halo's veil is on, and pale The beams of light descend.

The wife repines, the babe declines, The leaves prolong their bend, Above, below, all signs are woe, The heifer moans her friend.

The taper's glow of waxen snow, The ray when noon is nigh, Was far out-peer'd, till disappear'd Our star of morn, as high The southern west its blast released, And drown'd in floods the sky-- Ah woe! was gone the star that shone, Nor left a visage dry For her, who won as win could none The people's love so well.

O, welaway! the dirging lay That rung from Moy its knell; Alas, the hue, where orbs of blue, With roses wont to dwell!

How can we think, nor swooning sink, To earth them in the cell?