A Legend of Montrose by Sir Walter Scott
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page 19 of 312 (06%)
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poverty, which they were yet contented to face, for permission to live
and die on their native soil. Nor did Janet forget the portents which had announced the departure of the Celtic race, and the arrival of the strangers. For two years previous to the emigration, when the night wind howled dawn the pass of Balachra, its notes were distinctly modelled to the tune of "HA TIL MI TULIDH" (we return no more), with which the emigrants usually bid farewell to their native shores. The uncouth cries of the Southland shepherds, and the barking of their dogs, were often heard in the midst of the hills long before their actual arrival. A bard, the last of his race, had commemorated the expulsion of the natives of the glen in a tune, which brought tears into the aged eyes of the veteran, and of which the first stanza may be thus rendered:-- Woe, woe, son of the Lowlander, Why wilt thou leave thine own bonny Border? Why comes thou hither, disturbing the Highlander, Wasting the glen that was once in fair order? What added to Sergeant More M'Alpin's distress upon the occasion was, that the chief by whom this change had been effected, was, by tradition and common opinion, held to represent the ancient leaders and fathers of the expelled fugitives; and it had hitherto been one of Sergeant More's principal subjects of pride to prove, by genealogical deduction, in what degree of kindred he stood to this personage. A woful change was now wrought in his sentiments towards him. "I cannot curse him," he said, as he rose and strode through the room, when Janet's narrative was finished--"I will not curse him; he is the descendant and representative of my fathers. But never shall mortal man hear me name his name again." And he kept his word; for, until his dying |
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