Scotland float defiance to the breeze!"
(So I heard my newborn imaginary spirit say to my real one.) "Yes, and
let the Deacon Convener unfurl the sacred Blue Blanket, under which
every liege burgher of the kingdom is bound to answer summons! The
bale-fires are gleaming, giving alarm to Hume, Haddington, Dunbar,
Dalkeith, and Eggerhope. Rise, Stirling, Fife, and the North! All
Scotland will be under arms in two hours. One bale-fire: the English
are in motion! Two: they are advancing! Four in a row: they are of
great strength! All men in arms west of Edinburgh muster there! All
eastward, at Haddington! And every Englishman caught in Scotland is
lawfully the prisoner of whoever takes him!" (What am I saying? I love
Englishmen, but the spell is upon me!) "Come on, Macduff!" (The only
suitable and familiar challenge my warlike tenant can summon at the
moment.) "I am the son of a Gael! My dagger is in my belt, and with
the guid broadsword at my side I can with one blow cut a man in twain!
My bow is cut from the wood of the yews of Glenure; the shaft is from
the wood of Lochetive, the feathers from the great golden eagles of
Lochtreigside! My arrowhead was made by the smiths of the race of
Macphedran! Come on, Macduff!"

And now a shopkeeper has filled his window with Royal Stuart tartans,
and I am instantly a Jacobite.

"The Highland clans wi' sword in hand,
Frae John o' Groat's to Airly,
Hae to a man declar'd to stand
Or fa' wi' Royal Charlie.
Come through the heather, around him gather,
Come Ronald, come Donald, come a' thegither,
And crown your rightfu', lawfu' king,
For wha'll be king but Charlie?"

It is the eve of the battle of Prestonpans. Is it not under the Rock
of Dunsappie on yonder Arthur's Seat that our Highland army will
encamp to-night? At dusk the prince will hold a council of his chiefs
and nobles (I am a chief and a noble), and at daybreak we shall march
through the old hedgerows and woods of Duddingston, pipes playing and
colors flying, bonnie Charlie at the head, his claymore drawn and the
scabbard flung away! (I mean awa'!)

"Then here's a health to Charlie's cause,
And be 't complete an' early;
His very name my heart's blood warms
To arms for Royal Charlie!

"Come through the heather, around him gather,
Come Ronald, come Donald, come a' thegither,
And crown your rightfu', lawfu' king,
For wha'll be king but Charlie?"

I ho