There fell a war in a woody place, Lay far across the sea, A war of the march in the mirk midnight And the shot from behind the tree, The shaven head and the painted face, The silent foot in the wood, In the land of a strange, outlandish tongue That was hard to be understood. It fell about the gloaming, The general stood with his staff, He stood and he looked east and west With little mind to laugh. "Far have I been, and much have I seen, And kennt both gain and loss, But here we have woods on every hand And a kittle water to cross. Far have I been, and much have I seen, But never the beat of this; And there's one must go down to that water-side To see how deep it is." It fell in the dusk of the night When unco things betide, The skilly captain, the Cameron, Went down to that waterside. Canny and soft the captain went; And a man of the woody land, With the shaven head and the painted face, Went down at his right hand. It fell in the quiet night, There was never a sound to ken; But all of the woods to the right and the left Lay filled with the painted men. "Far have I been, and much have I seen, Both as a man and boy, But never have I set forth a foot, On so perilous an employ." It fell in the dusk of the night When unco things betide, That he was aware of a captain-man Drew near to the water-side. He was aware of his coming Down in the gloaming alone; And he looked in the face of the man, And lo! the face was his own. "This is my weird," he said, "And now I ken the worst; For many shall fall the morn, But I shall fall with the first. O, you of the outland tongue, You of the painted face, This is the place of my death; Can you tell me the name of the place?" "Since the Frenchmen have been here They have called it Sault-Marie; But that is a name for priests, And not for you and me. It went by another word," Quoth he of the shaven head: "It was called Ticonderoga In the days of the great dead." And it fell on the morrow's morning, In the fiercest of the fight, That the Cameron bit the dust As he foretold at night; And far from the hills of heather, Far from the isles of the sea, He sleeps in the place of the name As it was doomed to be. HEATHER ALE A GALLOWAY LEGEND HEATHER ALE From the bonny bells of heather They brewed a drink long-syne, Was sweeter far than honey, Was stronger far than wine. They brewed it and they drank it, And lay in a blessed swound For days and days together In their dwellings underground. There rose a king in Scotland, A fell man to his foes, He smote the Picts in battle, He hunted them like roes. Over miles of the red mountain He hunted as they fled, And strewed the dwarfish bodies Of the dying and the dead.