Meanwhile, th’ old choleric shepherd of Glencoe Spurned all advice, and girt himself to go. What was’t to him that foes would poind their fold, Their lease, their very beds beneath them sold! And firmly to his text he would have kept, Though Ronald argued and his daughter wept. But ’midst the impotence of tears and prayer, Chance snatched them from proscription and despair Old Norman’s blood was headward wont to mount Too rapid from his heart’s impetuous fount; And one day, whilst the German rats he cursed, An artery in his wise sensorium burst. The lancet saved him: but how changed, alas, From him who fought at Killiecrankie’s pass! Tame as a spaniel, timid as a child, He muttered incoherent words and smiled; He wept at kindness, rolled a vacant eye, And laughed full often when he meant to cry. Poor man! whilst in this lamentable state, Came Allan back one morning to his gate, Hale and unburdened by the woes of eild, And fresh with credit from Culloden’s field. ’Twas feared at first, the sight of him might touch The old Macdonald’s morbid mind too much; But no! though Norman knew him and disclosed, Ev’n rallying memory, he was still composed; Asked all particulars of the fatal fight, And only heaved a sigh for Charles’s flight; Then said, with but one moment’s pride of air, “_It might not have been so had I been there!_” Few days elapsed till he reposed beneath His grey cairn, on the wild and lonely heath; Son, friends, and kindred of his dust took leave, And Allan, with the crape bound round his sleeve. Old Allan now hung up his sergeant’s sword, And sat, a guest for life, at Ronald’s board. He waked no longer at the barrack’s drum, Yet still you’d see, when peep of day was come, Th’ erect tall red-coat, walking pastures round, Or delving with his spade the garden ground, Of cheerful temper, habits strict and sage, He reached, enjoyed a patriarchal age— Loved to the last by the Macdonalds. Near Their house, his stone was placed with many a tear; And Ronald’s self, in stoic virtue brave, Scorned not to weep at Allan Campbell’s grave. [99] I received the substance of the tradition on which this poem is founded, in the first instance, from a friend in London, who wrote to Matthew N. Macdonald, Esq., of Edinburgh. He had the kindness to send me a circumstantial account of the tradition; and that gentleman’s knowledge of the Highlands, as well as his particular acquaintance with the district of Glencoe, leave me no doubt of the incident having really happened. I have not departed from the main facts of the tradition as reported to me by Mr. Macdonald; only I have endeavoured to colour the personages of the story, and to make them as distinctive as possible. [100] God and the Devil—a favourite ejaculation of Highland saints. [101] Snuff-horn.