Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson Part 6

Through Asiatic jungles The Tartans filed their way, And the neighing of the war-pipes Struck terror in Cathay. {111}

"Many a name have I heard," he thought, "In all the tongues of men, Full many a name both here and there.

Full many both now and then.

When I was at home in my father's house In the land of the naked knee, Between the eagles that fly in the lift And the herrings that swim in the sea, And now that I am a captain-man With a braw c.o.c.kade in my hat- Many a name have I heard," he thought, "But never a name like that."

III. THE PLACE OF THE NAME

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 a 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 kent 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 waterside 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 waterside.

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.

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.

{103} Note 1, page 103. Mr. Nutt reminds me it was "by my sword and Ben Cruachan" the Cameron swore.

{109} Note 2, page 109. "_A periwig'd lord of London_." The first Pitt.

{111} Note 3, page 111. "_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.

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.

Summer came in the country, Red was the heather bell; But the manner of the brewing Was none alive to tell.

In graves that were like children's On many a mountain head, The Brewsters of the Heather Lay numbered with the dead.

The king in the red moorland Rode on a summer's day; And the bees hummed, and the curlews Cried beside the way.

The king rode, and was angry, Black was his brow and pale, To rule in a land of heather And lack the Heather Ale.

It fortuned that his va.s.sals, Riding free on the heath, Came on a stone that was fallen And vermin hid beneath.

Rudely plucked from their hiding, Never a word they spoke: A son and his aged father- Last of the dwarfish folk.

The king sat high on his charger, He looked on the little men; And the dwarfish and swarthy couple Looked at the king again.

Down by the sh.o.r.e he had them; And there on the giddy brink- "I will give you life, ye vermin, For the secret of the drink."

There stood the son and father And they looked high and low; The heather was red around them, The sea rumbled below.

And up and spoke the father, Shrill was his voice to hear: "I have a word in private, A word for the royal ear.

"Life is dear to the aged, And honour a little thing; I would gladly sell the secret,"

Quoth the Pict to the King.

His voice was small as a sparrow's, And shrill and wonderful clear: "I would gladly sell my secret, Only my son I fear.

"For life is a little matter, And death is nought to the young; And I dare not sell my honour Under the eye of my son.

Take _him_, O king, and bind him, And cast him far in the deep; And it's I will tell the secret That I have sworn to keep."

They took the son and bound him, Neck and heels in a thong, And a lad took him and swung him, And flung him far and strong, And the sea swallowed his body, Like that of a child of ten;- And there on the cliff stood the father, Last of the dwarfish men.

"True was the word I told you: Only my son I feared; For I doubt the sapling courage That goes without the beard.

But now in vain is the torture, Fire shall never avail: Here dies in my bosom The secret of Heather Ale."

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_.

CHRISTMAS AT SEA