Forded the mountain rills, Vowing that they would vanquish Those robbers of the hills. The road was strange and dubious; Easy it was to stray; And of those English soldiers Eleven lost their way. Led by a trusty leader, They reached a fearful glen, And saw a mountain stronghold Guarded by forty men. Guarded by forty veterans Of that fierce robber band, In every face defiance, Weapons in every hand. "Back!" cried the trusty leader; The soldiers would not hear, But up the foe-crowned mountain Charged with their English cheer. With loud huzzas they stormed it, Nor thought to turn from death, But for old England's honour Yielded their latest breath. Short was the fight but deadly, For, when our last man fell, But sixteen of that forty Were left to tell the tale. But those sixteen were noble-- They loved a brave deed done; They knew a worthy foeman, And treated him as one. And when the English soldiers Sought for their comrades slain, They found their stiff stark corpses Prostrate upon the plain: They lay with blood-stained faces, Fixed eyes, and firm-clenched fists, But the Red Thread of Honour, Was twined around their wrists. ----J. A. Noble. TICONDEROGA |This is the tale of the man Who heard a word in the night In the land of the heathery hills, In the days of the feud and the fight. By the sides of the rainy sea, Where never a stranger came, On the awful lips of the dead, He heard the outlandish name. It sang in his sleeping ears, It hummed in his waking head: The name--Ticonderoga, The utterance of the dead. I. THE SAYING OF THE NAME. On the loch-sides of Appin, When the mist blew from the sea, A Stewart stood with a Cameron: An angry man was he. The blood beat in his ears, The blood ran hot to his head, The mist blew from the sea And there was the Cameron dead. "O, what have I done to my friend, O, what have I done to mysel', That he should be cold and dead, And I in the danger of all? "Nothing but danger about me, Danger behind and before, Death at wait in the heather In Appin and Mamore, Hate at all of the ferries And death at each of the fords, Camerons priming gunlocks And Camerons sharpening swords." But this was a man of counsel, This was a man of score, There dwelt no pawkier Stewart In Appin or Mamore. He looked on the blowing mist, He looked on the awful dead, And there came a smile on his face, And there slipped a thought in his head. Out over cairn and moss, Out over scrog and scaur, He ran as runs the clansman That bears the cross of war. His heart beat in his body, His hair clove to his face, When he came at last in the gloaming To the dead man's brother's place. The east was white with the moon, The west with the sun was red, And there, in the house-doorway,