* Psalm cxxxvii.
On Gallia's shore we sat and wept,
When Scotland we thought on.
Robbed of her bravest sons, and all
Her ancient spirit gone!
"Revenge!" the sons of Gallia said,
"Revenge your wasted land;
Already your insulting foes
Crowd the Batavian strand!
"How shall the sons of Freedom e'er
For foreign conquest fight?
For power how wield the sword, deprived
Of liberty and right?
"If thee, O Scotland! we forget,
Even to our latest breath,
May foul dishonour stain our name,
And bring a coward's death.
"May sad remorse for fancied guilt
Our future days employ,
If all thy sacred rights are not
Above our ohiefest joy.
"And thou, proud Gaul, O faithless friend,
Thy ruin is not far;
May God, on thy devoted head,
Pour all the woes of war!
"When thou, thy slaughtered little ones,
And outraged dames shalt see;
Such help, such pity mayest thou have,
As Scotland had from thee!"
* * * *
As Mary sang, many loiterers of the Black Watch had joined the little group around her, and listened as if turned to stone. The veteran colonel of the Royal Americans, who had been long, long from the land of his birth, felt his grave iron nature melted. He sat on the parapet of the gun-battery, with his chin placed in his right hand, and his left nervously grasping the hilt of his sword. His keen grey eyes, which roved uneasily from one object to another, began at last to moisten and fill, and then tears ran down the furrows of his cheeks—old dry channels worn by war and time, but all unused to such visitors.