The colonel moved his hand, and Macvurich began to screw the pipes and sound a prelude on the reeds, whose notes, even in this harsh and discordant way, caused the eyes of the Highlander to flash and glare, as it roused the fierce northern spirit in his bosom.
"He ordered that strange old tune to be played from the first moment I declared his wound to be mortal," said the surgeon in a low voice. "It is one of the saddest and wildest I ever heard."
"Hold me up, Dugald; I would say something," muttered Cameron. "Ah! Stuart—I mean Ronald Stuart, I have much to say and to ask you; but my voice fails me, and my tongue falters,—and—and—" utterance failed him for a moment. "But tell me, gentlemen, what news from the front? Alas! I should have asked that before. But tell me, while I can hear your voices,—have the enemy been defeated?"
"They have been driven from the position at Les Quatre Bras," replied Doctor Stuart; "our troops are every where victorious."
"Then Cameron can die in happiness," said he firmly, as he sunk back. "Oh! I hope my dear country will think that I have served her faithfully!"[*]
[*] These were his dying words. In recompense for his great services a baronetcy was granted to his family. In 1815 his aged father received the title of Sir Evan Cameron, Bart., of Fassifern.
His lips quivered as if twitched by a spasm, and he muttered some imaginary order to keep shoulder to shoulder, to prepare to charge; and, drooping his head upon the shoulder of Dugald Mhor, expired at about one o'clock in the afternoon.
A cry of agony, sharp and shrill, like that of a girl rather than of an old man of eighty, burst from the lips of Dugald, who bent his wrinkled and sun-burnt visage over the face of the colonel until he touched it; and he wept and sobbed bitterly, uttering uncouth ejaculations and saying strange things, such as only an aged Highlander (whose mind was filled with all the deep impressions of mountain manners and past ages) would have said.
Anon he drew himself up erect, cast his disordered plaid about his towering figure, and gazed around him with eyes, in which there gleamed a strange light and unsettled expression. He seemed the very beau ideal of a Gaëlic seer, and Macvurich, who imagined that he beheld some dark vision of the second sight, drew back with respect and awe, not unmingled with a slight degree of fear.
What wild vision crossed the disordered brain of the aged vassal I know not, but he tossed his arms towards it, and a torrent of blood gushed forth from his mouth and nostrils; he tottered towards the corse of Cameron, and sunk on the floor beside it, a dying man. Ronald sprang forward and lifted him up, but he never spoke again, and expired, making several ineffectual signs to Macvurich to play; but the piper was kneeling on the floor near the corse of his leader, and beheld them not.