Many a heart that news made glad,
Hearts that for years scant gladness had,
But him it gladdened more than all,
The Patriarch of Glen Dessaray,
Dwelling where sunny Sheneval
From the green braeside fronts noon-day,
My grandsire, Ewan Cameron, then
Numbering three score years and ten.
Of all our clansmen still alive,
None in the gallant Forty-five
Had borne a larger, nobler part,
Had seen or suffered more;
Thenceforward on no living heart
Was graven richer store
Of mournful memories and sublime
Gleaned from that wild adventurous time.
For when the Prince's summons called,
Answered to that brave appeal
No nobler heart than Archibald,
Brother worthy of Lochiel.
Him following fain, my grandsire flew
To the gathering by Loch Shiel,
Thence a foster-brother true
Followed him through woe and weal.
Nothing could these two divide,
Marching forward side by side,
Two friends, each of the other sure,-
Through Prestonpans and Falkirk Muir.
But when on dark Culloden day
A wounded man Gillespic lay,
My grandsire bore him to the shore
And helped him over seas away.
Seven years went by; less fiercely burned The conqueror's vengeance 'gainst the GaelGillespic Cameron fain returned
To see his native vale.
Waylaid and captured on his road
By the basest souls alive,
His blood upon the scaffold flowed,
Last victim of the Forty-five.
Thenceforth wrapt in speechless gloom
Ewan mourned that lovely head;
His heart become a living tomb
Haunted by memory of the dead.
Never more from his lips fell
Name of him he loved so well,
But the less he spake, the more his heart 'Mid these sad memories dwelt apart.
But when on lone Glen Dessaray broke
The first flash of that joyous cry,
From his long dream old Ewan woke-
I wot his heart leapt high.
No news like that had fallen on him,
Within his cabin smoky dim
For forty summers long and more.
Straightway beyond his cottage door
He sprang and gazed, the white hair o'er
His shoulders streaming, and the last
Wild sunset gleam on his worn cheek cast:
He looked and saw his Marion turn
Home from the well beside the burn,
And cried, 'Good tidings! Thou and I
Will see our Chief before we die.'
That night they talked, how many a year
Had gone, since the last Lochiel was here,
How gentle hearts and brave had been
The old Lochiels their youth had seen;
And aye as they spake, more hotly burned
The fire within them-back returned
Old days seemed ready to revive
That perished in the Forty-five.
That night ere Ewan laid his head
On pillow, to his wife he said:
"Yule-time is near, for many a year
Mirth-making through the glens hath ceased,
But the clan once more, as in days of yore,
This Yule shall hold with game and feast."
Next morning, long ere screech o' day,
Old Ewan roused hath ta'en the brae
With gun on shoulder, and the boy,
Companion of his toils and joy,
The dark-haired Angus by his side-
O'er the black braes o' Glen Kinzie, on
Among the mists with slinging stride
They fare, nor stayed till they had won
Corrie-na-Gaul, the cauldron deep
Which the Lochiels were used to keep
A sanctuary where the deer might hide,
And undisturbed all year abide.
Not a cranny, rock, or stone
In that corrie but was known
To my grandsire's weird grey eye;
All the lairs where large stags lie
Well he knew, but passed them by,
For stags were lean ere yule-time grown.
Crawling on, he saw appear
O'er withered fern one twinkling ear—
His gun is up-the crags resound-
Startled, a hundred antlers bound
Up the passes fast away;
Lifeless stretched along the ground,
Large and sleek, one old hind lay.
Straight they laid her on their backs,
And o'er the hills between them bore,
Up and down by rugged tracks,
Sore-wearied, ere beside their door
They laid her down-' A bonny beast
To crown our coming yule-time feast
As night came down on scour and glen,
From rough Scour-hoshi-brachcalen.
That night they slept the slumber sound
That waits on labour long and sore;
Next day he sent the message round
The glen from door to door,
On to the neighbouring glens-Glen Pean
The summons hears, and all that be in
Glen Kinzie's bounds-Loch Arkaig, stirred
From shore to shore the call has heard;
To Clunes it passed, from toun to toun,
That all the people make them boun
Against the coming New-Year's-Day,
To gather for a shinty fray
Within the long Glen Dessaray,
And meet at night round Ewan's board,
In honour of Lochiel restored.
Blue, frosty, bright, the morning rose
That New Year's day above the snows,
Veiling the range of Scour and Ben,
That either side wall in the glen.
But down on the Strath the night frost keen
Had only crisped the long grass green,
When the men of Loch Arkaig, boat and oar
At Kinloch leaving, sprang to shore.
Crisp was the sward beneath their tread
As they westward marched, and at their head
The Piper of Achmacarry blew
The thrilling pibroch of Donald Dhu.
That challenge the Piper of the Glen
As proudly sounded back again
From his biggest pipe, till far off rang
The tingling crags to the wild war-clang
Of the pibroch that loud to battle blown
The Cameron clan had for ages known.
To-day, as other, yet the same,
It summons to the peaceful game,
From the braeside homes down trooping come
The champions of Glen Dessaray, some
In tartan philabegs arrayed
The garb which tyrant laws forbade,
But still they clung to, unafraid;
Some in home-woven tartan trews,
Rough spun, and dyed with various hues,
By mother's hands or maiden's wrought,
In hues by native fancy taught;
But all with hazel camags* slung
Their shoulders o'er, men old and young,
With mountaineer's long slinging pace,
Move cheerily down to the trysting-place.
It was a level space of ground
Two miles and more from west to east,
Where from rough Màm-Clach-Ard released
In loopt on loop the river wound,
Through many a slow and lazy round,
Ere plunging downward to the lake.
On that long flat of green they take
Their stations; on the west the men
Of Dessaray, Kinzie, Pean Glen,
Ranged 'gainst the stalwart lads who bide
Down long Loch Arkaig, either side.
The ground was tae'n, and the clock struck ten,
As Ewan, patriarch of the glen,
Struck off, and sent the foremost ball
Down the Strath flying, with a cry:
'Fye, lads, set on,' and one and all
To work they fell right heartily.
Now fast and furious on they drive,-
Here youngsters scud with feet of wind,
The English word "loop" is used as, perhaps, the best to represent the far more expressive Gaelic word luib, which is applied to windings or bends of rivers,
There in a melee dunch and strive ;
The veterans outlook keep behind.
Now up, now down, the ball they toss ;
Now this, now that side of the Strath;
And many a leaper, brave to cross
The river, finds a chilling bath ;
And many a fearless driver bold,
To win renown, was sudden rolled
Headlong in hid quagmire;
And many a stroke of stinging pain
In the close press was given and ta'en
Without or guile or ire.
So all the day the clansmen played,
And to and fro their tulzie swayed,
Untired, along the hollow vale,
And neither side could win the hail;
But high the clamour, upward flung,
Along the precipices rung,
And smote the snowy peaks, and went
Far up the azure firmament.
All day, too, watching from the knowes,
Stood maidens fair, with snooded brows,
And bonny blithe wee bairns;
Those watching whom I need na' say,
These eyeing now their daddies play,
Now jinking round the cairns.
The loud game fell with sunset still, And echo died on strath and hill, As gloamin' deepened, each side the glen, High above the homes of men, 'Blinks of kindling fires were seen, Such as shine out upon Hallowe'en ; Single fires on rocky shelf,
Each several farm-house for itself
Has lighted-there in wavering line
Either side the vale they shine
From dusk to dawn, to blaze and burn
In welcome of their Chief's return.
But broader, brighter than the rest,
Down beside Loch-Arkaig-head,
From a knoll's commanding crest
One great beacon flaring red,
As with a wedge of splendour clove
The blackness of the vault above.
And far down the quivering waters flung
Forward its steady pillar of light,
To tell, more clear than trumpet tongue,
Glen Dessaray hails her Chief to-night.
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