CHAPTER XIV.
“Many a banner spread, flutters above your head,
Many a crest that is famous in story;
Mount and make ready, then, sons of the mountain glen,
Fight for your king and the old Scottish glory.
March, march, forward in order,
A’ the blue bonnets are over the border.”
ORIGIN—KILLIECRANKIE—IRELAND—NETHERLANDS—SHERIFFMUIR—NETHERLANDS—CULLODEN—1688–1755.
It is recorded of Sir Walter Scott that he claimed descent from one of the most distinguished families of “the land-louping gentry” of the Scottish border. The title, “King’s Own Borderers,” borne by the Twenty-fifth, would induce the belief that the regiment had sprung from the same source; and however much we may excuse the military license of the times, or the marauding propensities of our border countrymen, and extol their martial achievements, so prolific with romantic incident and chivalric feats of daring, we cannot but question the respectability of such a parentage.