In their day, what bustling men were these doughty Douglases—full of sturt and strife—the very ideal representatives of the warrior bold, who made their way and held their own by the strength of their good right arms.
"A steede, a steede of matchless speede,
A sword of metal keene,
All else to noble minds is dross,
All else on earth is meane;
And O the thundering press of knights,
When loud their war cries swell,
Might serve to call a saint from heaven
Or rouse a fiend from helle."
This was their ideal—the very reverse, thank God, of the ideal of to-day—but note how peacefully they lie now in the little antiquated church in this obscure valley. What shadows we are! What shadows we pursue! This vein once started in the Scotch gloaming upon the hills, where the coloring of the scene is so sombre as to be not only seen but felt, must be indulged in sparingly, or some of the Charioteers might soon have to record a new experience—a fit of the blues. But this was prevented by comparing the advance made by the race upon this question of war within the past century. The "profession of arms" is very soon to be rated as it deserves. The apology for it will be the same as for any other of the butchering trades—it is necessary. Granted for the present, but what of the nature which selects such a profession!