“Whoever Removes this Stone
Or causes it to be
Removed
May he die the last of
All his Friends.”
The stone lies flat, above the grave, and our guide declared,
“I had an unco hard time to get a photo of it for my book, for I did na fancy moving it, to be sure.”
“Your book? And have you written a book?” He was off in a moment and with almost boyish enthusiasm brought forth a neat volume, “Poetry and Prose of Walter Laidlaw, F. S. A.,” and we found on later perusal that it has not a little of true poetic fire, of which an example or two may not be amiss. It is not strange that one so full of patriotism and admiration for his native Scotland should deprecate the tendency of her people to emigrate to foreign lands, and he expostulates as follows:
“What ails the folk? they’ve a’ gane gyte!
They rush across the sea,
In hope to gather gear galore,
’Way in some far countree.
“But let them gang where’er they may,
There’s no’ a spot on earth
Like ancient Caledonia yet,
The land that ga’e them birth.
“They ha’e nae grand auld Abbeys there,
Or battered castles hoary,
Or heather hills, or gow’ny glens,
That teem wi’ sang and story.
“Nae doot they’ve bigger rivers there,
An’ broad an’ shinin’ lakes;
I wadna leave oor classic streams
Or burnies, for their sake.
“The lonely cot, the bracken brae,
The bonnie milk-white thorn;
The bent frae where the lav’rock springs
To hail the dawn o’ morn.