iming the credit of
any high degree of accuracy for this ballad. Even in the time of famine,
it is probable that Marquesan life went far more gaily than is here
represented. But the melancholy of to-day lies on the writer's mind.

NOTES TO TICONDEROGA

INTRODUCTION.--I first heard this legend of my own country from that
friend of men of letters, Mr. Alfred Nutt, "there in roaring London's
central stream," and since the ballad first saw the light of day in
_Scribner's Magazine_, Mr. Nutt and Lord Archibald Campbell have been in
public controversy on the facts. Two clans, the Camerons and the
Campbells, lay claim to this bracing story; and they do well: the man
who preferred his plighted troth to the commands and menaces of the dead
is an ancestor worth disputing. But the Campbells must rest content:
they have the broad lands and the broad page of history; this appanage
must be denied them; for between the name of _Cameron_ and that of
_Campbell_ the muse will never hesitate.

Note 1, page 191. Mr. Nutt reminds me it was "by my sword and Ben
Cruachan" the Cameron swore.

Note 2, page 194. "_A periwig'd lord of London._" The first Pitt.

Note 3, page 195. "_Cathay._" There must be some omission in General
Stewart's charming "History of the Highland Regiments," a book that
might well be republished and continued; or it scarce appears how our
friend could have got to China.

NOTE TO HEATHER ALE

Among the curiosities of human nature this legend claims a high place.
It is needless to remind the reader that the Picts were never
exterminated, and form to this day a large proportion of the folk of
Scotland, occupying the eastern and the central parts, from the Firth of
Forth, or perhaps the Lammermoors, upon the south, to the Ord of
Caithness on the north. That the blundering guess of a dull chronicler
should have inspired men with imaginary loathing for their own ancestors
is already strange; that it should have begotten this wild legend seems
incredible. Is it possible the chronicler's error was merely nominal?
that what he told, and what the people proved themselves so ready to
receive, about the Picts, was true or partly true of some anterior and
perhaps Lappish savages, small of stature, black of hue, dwelling
underground--possibly also the distillers of some forgotten spirit? See
Mr. Campbell's "Tales of the West Highlands."

SONGS OF TRAVEL

AND OTHER VERSES

SONGS OF TRAVEL

I

THE VAGABOND