ever the same;
In leaguer or sally, tattoo or revally,
The message on every pibroch that came,
Was "Cruachan, Cruachan, O son remember us,
Think o' your fathers and never be slack!"
Blade and buckler together, though far off the heather,
The Hielan's, the Hielan's were all at my back!

The ram to the gate-way, the torch to the tower,
We rifled the kist, and the cattle we maimed;
Our dirks stabbed at guess through the leaves o' the bower,
And crimes we committed that needna be named:
Moonlight or dawning grey, Lammas or Lady-day,
Donald maun dabble his plaid in the gore;
He maun hough and maun harry, or should he miscarry,
The Hielan's, the Hielan's will own him no more!

And still, O strange Providence! mirk is your mystery,
Whatever the country that chartered our steel
Because o' the valiant repute o' our history,
The love o' our ain land we maistly did feel;
Many a misty glen, many a sheiling pen,
Rose to our vision when slogans rang high;
And this was the solace bright came to our starkest fight,
A' for the Hielan's, the Hielan's we die!

A Sergeant o' Pikes, I have pushed and have parried O
(My heart still at tether in bonny Glenshee);
Weary the marches made, sad the towns harried O,
But in fancy the heather was aye at my knee:
The hill-berry mellowing, stag o' ten bellowing,
The song o' the fold and the tale by the hearth,
Bairns at the crying and auld folks a-dying,
The Hielan's sent wi' me to fight round the earth!

O the Hielan's, the Hielan's, praise God for His favour,
That ane sae unworthy should heir sic estate,
That gi'ed me the zest o the sword, and the savour
That lies in the loving as well as the hate.
Auld age may subdue me, a grim death be due me,
For even a Sergeant o' Pikes maun depart,
But I'll never complain o't, whatever the pain o't,
The Hielan's, the Hielan's were aye at my heart!

We closed in our night's diversion with the exercise of prayer, wherein
two clerics led our devotion, one Master Mungo Law, a Lowlander, and the
other his lordship's chaplain--Master Alexander Gordon, who had come on
this expedition with some fire of war in his face, and never so much as
a stiletto at his waist.

They prayed a trifle long and drearily the pair