"Ballacholis, 12 February, 1692.
"Sir,—You are hereby ordered to fall upon the rebels, the M'Donalds of Glencoe, and putt all to the sword under seventy. You are to have special care that the old fox and his sons doe upon no account escape your hands. You are to secure all the avenues that no man escape. This you are to put in execution att five o'clock in the morning precisely, and by that time or very shortly after it I'll strive to be att you with a stronger party. If I doe not come to you at five, you are not to tarry for me but to fall on. This is by the king's speciall command, for the good and safety of the country, that these miscreants be cutt off root and branch. See that this be putt in execution without feud or favour, else you may expect to be treated as not true to the king's government, nor a man fitt to carry a commission in the king's service. Expecting you will not faill in the fulfilling hereof as you love yourself, I subscrive these with my hand.
"Robert Duncanson.
"For their Majesty's service. To Captain
Robert Campbell of Glenlyon."
This order was too literally obeyed. At the appointed hour, when the whole inhabitants of the glen were asleep, the work of murder began. M'Ian was one of the first who fell. Drummond's narrative fills up the remainder of the dreadful story.
"They then served all within the family in the same manner, without distinction of age or person. In a word, for the horror of that execrable butchery must give pain to the reader, they left none alive but a young child, who being frighted with the noise of the guns, and the dismal shrieks and cries of its dying parents, whom they were a-murdering, got hold of Captain Campbell's knees and wrapt itself within his cloak; by which, chancing to move compassion, the captain inclined to have saved it, but one Drummond, an officer, arriving about the break of day with more troops, commanded it to be shot by a file of musqueteers. Nothing could be more shocking and horrible than the prospect of these houses bestrewed with mangled bodies of the dead, covered with blood, and resounding with the groans of wretches in the last agonies of life.
"Two sons of Glencoe's were the only persons that escaped in that quarter of the country; for, growing jealous of some ill designs from the behaviour of the soldiers, they stole from their beds a few minutes before the tragedy began, and chancing to overhear two of them discoursing plainly of the matter, they endeavoured to have advertised their father, but finding that impracticable, they ran to the other end of the country and alarmed the inhabitants. There was another accident that contributed much to their safety; for the night was so excessively stormy and tempestuous, that four hundred soldiers, who were appointed to murder these people, were stopped in their march from Inverlochy, and could not get up till they had time to save themselves. To cover the deformity of so dreadful a sight, the soldiers burned all the houses to the ground, after having rifled them, carried away nine hundred cows, two hundred horses, numberless herds of sheep and goats, and every thing else that belonged to these miserable people. Lamentable was the case of the women and children that escaped the butchery. The mountains were covered with a deep snow, the rivers impassable, storm and tempest filled the air, and added to the horrors and darkness of the night, and there were no houses to shelter them within many miles."[2]
Such was the awful massacre of Glencoe, an event which has left an indelible and execrable stain upon the memory of William of Orange. The records of Indian warfare can hardly afford a parallel instance of atrocity; and this deed, coupled with his deliberate treachery in the Darien business, whereby Scotland was for a time absolutely ruined, is sufficient to account for the little estimation in which the name of the "great Whig deliverer" is still regarded in the valleys of the North.
Do not lift him from the bracken,
Leave him lying where he fell—
Better bier ye cannot fashion:
None beseems him half so well,
As the bare and broken heather,
And the hard and trampled sod,
Whence his angry soul ascended
To the judgment seat of God!
Winding-sheet we cannot give him—
Seek no mantle for the dead,
Save the cold and spotless covering,
Showered from heaven upon his head.
Leave his broadsword, as we found it,
Bent and broken with the blow,
That, before he died, avenged him
On the foremost of the foe.
Leave the blood upon his bosom—
Wash not off that sacred stain:
Let it stiffen on the tartan,
Let his wounds unclosed remain,
Till the day when he shall show them
At the throne of God on high,
When the murderer and the murdered
Meet before their Judge's eye!
Nay—ye should not weep, my children!
Leave it to the faint and weak;
Sobs are but a woman's weapon—
Tears befit a maiden's cheek.
Weep not, children of Macdonald!
Weep not thou, his orphan heir—
Not in shame, but stainless honour,
Lies thy slaughtered father there.
Weep not—but when years are over,
And thine arm is strong and sure,
And thy foot is swift and steady
On the mountain and the muir—
Let thy heart be hard as iron,
And thy wrath as fierce as fire,
Till the hour when vengeance cometh
For the race that slew thy sire!
Till in deep and dark Glenlyon
Rise a louder shriek of wo,
Than at midnight, from their eyrie,
Scared the eagles of Glencoe.
Louder than the screams that mingled
With the howling of the blast,
When the murderer's steel was clashing,
And the fires were rising fast.
When thy noble father bounded
To the rescue of his men,
And the slogan of our kindred
Pealed throughout the startled glen.
When the herd of frantic women
Stumbled through the midnight snow,
With their fathers' houses blazing,
And their dearest dead below!
Oh, the horror of the tempest,
As the flashing drift was blown,
Crimsoned with the conflagration,
And the roofs went thundering down!
Oh, the prayers—the prayers and curses
That together winged their flight
From the maddened hearts of many
Through that long and woful night!
Till the fires began to dwindle,
And the shots grew faint and few,
And we heard the foeman's challenge,
Only in a far halloo.
Till the silence once more settled
O'er the gorges of the glen,
Broken only by the Cona
Plunging through its naked den.
Slowly from the mountain summit
Was the drifting veil withdrawn,
And the ghastly valley glimmered
In the gray December dawn.
Better had the morning never
Dawned upon our dark despair!
Black amidst the common whiteness
Rose the spectral ruins there:
But the sight of these was nothing,
More than wrings the wild dove's breast,
When she searches for her offspring
Round the relics of her nest.
For, in many a spot, the tartan
Peered above the wintry heap,
Marking where a dead Macdonald
Lay within his frozen sleep.
Tremblingly we scooped the covering
From each kindred victim's head,
And the living lips were burning
On the cold ones of the dead.
And I left them with their dearest—
Dearest charge had every one—
Left the maiden with her lover,
Left the mother with her son.
I alone of all was mateless,
Far more wretched I than they,
For the snow would not discover
Where my lord and husband lay.
But I wandered up the valley,
Till I found him lying low,
With the gash upon his bosom
And the frown upon his brow—
Till I found him lying murdered,
Where he wooed me long ago!
Woman's weakness shall not shame me!
Why should I have tears to shed?
Could I rain them down like water,
O my hero, on thy head—
Could the cry of lamentation
Wake thee from thy silent sleep,
Could it set thy heart a throbbing,
It were mine to wail and weep!
But I will not waste my sorrow,
Lest the Campbell women say,
That the daughters of Clanranald
Are as weak and frail as they.
I had wept thee, hadst thou fallen,
Like our fathers, on thy shield,
When a host of English foemen
Camped upon a Scottish field—
I had mourned thee, hadst thou perished
With the foremost of his name,
When the valiant and the noble
Died around the dauntless Græme!
But I will not wrong thee, husband,
With my unavailing cries,
Whilst thy cold and mangled body,
Stricken by the traitor, lies;
Whilst he counts the gold and glory
That this hideous night has won,
And his heart is big with triumph
At the murder he has done.
Other eyes than mine shall glisten,
Other hearts be rent in twain,
Ere the heathbells on thy hillock
Wither in the autumn rain.
Then I'll seek thee where thou sleepest,
And I'll veil my weary head,
Praying for a place beside thee,
Dearer than my bridal bed.
And I'll give thee tears, my husband,
If the tears remain to me,
When the widows of the foemen,
Cry the coronach for thee!
W. E. A.