The brave chief of Cluny, after lingering long on the heights of Benalder, where he entertained his unfortunate prince during some of the last days of the adventurer's wandering, at length took shipping for France, amidst the tears and regrets of a clan that loved him with the fondest devotion. "Strathmassie" seems to have caught, in the following verses, some characteristic traits of his chief, in whom peaceful dispositions were remarkably blended with the highest courage in warfare.
Oh, many a true Highlander, many a liegeman,
Is blank on the roll of the brave in our land;
And bare as its heath is the dark mountain region,
Of its own and its prince's defenders unmann'd.
The hound's death abhorr'd, some have died by the cord,
And the axe with the best of our blood is defiled,
And e'en to the visions of hope unrestored,
Some have gone from among us, for ever exiled.
He is gone from among us, our chieftain of Cluny;
At the back of the steel, a more valiant ne'er stood;
Our father, our champion, bemoan we, bemoan we!
In battle, the brilliant; in friendship, the good.
When the sea shut him from us, then the cross of our trial
Was hung on the mast and was swung in the wind:
"Woe the worth we have sepulchred!" now is the cry all;
"Save the shade of a memory, is nothing behind."
What symbols may match our brave chief's animation?
When his wrath was awake, 'twas a furnace in glow;
As a surge on the rock struck his bold indignation,
As the breach to the wall was his arm to the foe.
So the tempest comes down, when it lends in its fury
To the frown of its darkness the rattling of hail;
So rushes the land-flood in turmoil and hurry,
So bickers the hill-flame when fed by the gale.
Yet gentle as Peace was the flower of his race,
Rare was shade on his face, as dismay in his heart;
The brawl and the scuffle he deem'd a disgrace,
But the hand to the brand was as ready to start.
Who could grapple with him in firmness of limb
And sureness of sinew? and—for the stout blow—
'Twas the scythe to the swathe in the meadows of death,
Where numbers were levell'd as fast and as low.
Ever loyal to reason, we 've seen him appeasing
With a wave of one hand the confusion of strife;
With the other unsheathing his sword, and, unbreathing,
Following on for the right in the havoc of life.
To the wants of the helpless, the wail of the weak,
His hand aye was open, his arm was aye strong;
And under yon sun, not a tongue can bespeak
His word or his deed that was blemish'd with wrong.
JAMES M'LAGGAN.
James M'Laggan was the son of a small farmer at Ballechin, in the parish of Logierait, Perthshire, where he was born in 1728. Educated at the University of St Andrews, he received license as a probationer of the Established Church. Through the influence of the Duke of Atholl, he was appointed to the Chapel of Ease, at Amulree, in Perthshire, and subsequently to the chaplainship of the 42d Regiment, his commission to the latter office bearing date the 15th of June 1764. His predecessor in the chaplainship was Dr Adam Ferguson, author of the "History of the Roman Republic," who was also a native of the parish of Logierait.
Than Mr M'Laggan, few could have been better qualified for the duties of chaplain to a Highland regiment. He was intimately conversant with the language, character, and partialities of the Gael, and was possessed of much military ardour, as well as Christian devotedness. He accompanied the regiment to America, and was present in several skirmishes during the War of Independence. Anecdotes are still recounted of the humour and spirit with which he maintained an influence over the minds of his flock; and Stewart, in his "History of the Highlands," has described him as having essentially contributed to form the character of the Highland soldier, then in the novitiate of his loyalty and efficiency in the national service. In 1776, while stationed with his regiment in Glasgow, he had the freedom of the city conferred on him by the corporation. After discharging the duties of military chaplain during a period of twenty-four years, he was in 1788 presented by the Duke of Atholl to the parish of Blair-Athole, Perthshire. He died in 1805, in the seventy-seventh year of his age.