milk-white steeds,
They hae bridled a hundred black,
With a chafron of steel on each horse's head,
And a good knight upon his back. "--

"Chafron!" exclaimed the Antiquary,--"equivalent, perhaps, to
cheveron;--the word's worth a dollar,"--and down it went in his red book.

"They hadna ridden a mile, a mile,
A mile, but barely ten,
When Donald came branking down the brae
Wi' twenty thousand men.

"Their tartans they were waving wide,
Their glaives were glancing clear,
Their pibrochs rung frae side to side,
Would deafen ye to hear.

"The great Earl in his stirrups stood
That Highland host to see:
Now here a knight that's stout and good
May prove a jeopardie:

"What wouldst thou do, my squire so gay,
That rides beside my reyne,
Were ye Glenallan's Earl the day,
And I were Roland Cheyne?

"To turn the rein were sin and shame,
To fight were wondrous peril,
What would ye do now, Roland Cheyne,
Were ye Glenallan's Earl?'

Ye maun ken, hinnies, that this Roland Cheyne, for as poor and auld as
I sit in the chimney-neuk, was my forbear, and an awfu' man he was that
dayin the fight, but specially after the Earl had fa'en, for he blamed
himsell for the counsel he gave, to fight before Mar came up wi' Mearns,
and Aberdeen, and Angus."

Her voice rose and became more animated as she recited the warlike
counsel of her ancestor--

"Were I Glenallan's Earl this tide,
And ye were Roland Cheyne,
The spur should be in my horse's side,
And the bridle upon his mane.

"If they hae twenty thousand blades,
And we twice ten times ten,
Yet they hae but their tartan plaids,
And we are mail-clad men.

"My horse shall ride through ranks sae rude,
As through the moorland fern,
Then neer let the gentle Norman blude
Grow cauld for Highland kerne.'"