Meanwhile the picket pass and find his post deserted, and, of course, his life forfeited. He is condemned to die, and Colonel Campbell is appointed to superintend his execution. The circumstances transpire. A reprieve is sent by the commanding officer with secret orders, however, that the sentence be pushed on to all but the last, and not till the prisoner's prayers are over, and the death fillet bound, is the pardon to be produced.
The morrow came, the evening sun
Was sinking red and cold,
When Ronald Blair a league from camp
Was led erect and bold,
To die a soldier's death, while low
The funeral drum was rolled.
The musketeers advance to ask the signal when they are to shoot, Campbell tells them, "Reserve your fire till I produce this blue handkerchief." The prayer is said, the eyes are bound, the doomed soldier kneels. There is such a silence that a tear might have been heard falling to the ground. Campbell's heart beats high with joy and fear to think that by drawing out the pardon in his pocket he is to turn despair into delight. He keeps his hand a moment longer on the reprieve, and then draws it forth, but with it drew—O God, the handkerchief; the soldiers fire, Ronald Blair falls, and his Indian maid is found clasping his dead body to her breast and dying by his side, and the frenzied Colonel exclaims—"The Curse of Heaven and of Glencoe is here."
The troops left the glen with a vast booty—900 kine, 200 ponies, and many sheep and goats. When they had departed the Macdonalds crept from their lurking places, went back to the spot, collected the scorched carcasses from among the ruins, and buried them there. It is said that the Bard of the Clan took his place on a rock opposite the scene of the massacre and poured out a lament over his slaughtered kinsmen and their desolate dwellings. The subject had been worthy of an Ossian. The scene there is now changed. A house or two only remains where smoked hundreds of happy hearths. The thistle and the wild myrtle shake their heads in the winds, and utter their low monody which mingles with, and is swelled by the voice of the Cona, all seeming to mourn over crime, and to pronounce for doom. Yet let our conclusion be that of the Judge of the earth Himself when he says vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord, and who mixes mercy with judgment, and makes the wrath of man to praise him in pardon as well as by punishment. Yet this stupendous crime was not to pass wholly unpunished. It was a considerable time ere its particulars and aggravations were fully known. Conceive such an atrocious massacre perpetrated now! In less than seven days there would be a cry of vengeance from the Land's End to Caithness. Within a fortnight demands for the blood of the murderers would be coming in from every part of the British dominions. In a month the ringleaders would have been tried, condemned, and hanged, and even Mr Bruce, the late lenient Secretary of State, would not venture to reprieve one of them. It was different then. Not a word of it appeared in the meagre newspapers of that day. Floating rumours there were, but they were all, in many particular points, wide of the mark, and it was long ere the particulars condensed into the tragic and terrible tale which is certainly stranger than fiction. Very little interest was then felt in Highlands feuds, and as Macaulay truly says, "To the Londoner of those days Appin was what Caffrarra or Borneo is to us. He was not more moved by hearing that some Highland thieves had been surprised and killed, than we are by hearing that a band of Amakosah cattle-stealers had been cut off, or that a barkful of Malay pirates had been sunk." Gradually, however, the dark truth came out, and orbed itself into that blood-red unity of horror, which has since made the firmest nerves to tremble, and the stoutest knees to shake, which has haunted dreams, inspired poetry, created new and ghastly shapes of superstition, and which, even yet, as the solitary traveller is plodding his way amidst the shadows of an autumn evening, or under the shivering stars of a winter night, can drench the skin and curdle the blood. No wonder though the actors in the tragedy felt, in their dire experience afterwards, that the infatuation of crime dissolves the moment it is perpetrated; that Breadalbane sought the sons of the murdered MacIan to gain impunity for himself by signing a document declaring him guiltless; that Glencoe haunted the couch and clouded the countenance, and shortened the days of Glenlyon. Hamilton apparently felt no remorse, and his only regret was that any had escaped, and that a colossal crime had been truncated by some colossal blunders. He might have said like the Templar in the Talisman, when some one tells him to tremble, "I cannot if I would." And yet as God comes often to men without bell, so there might be some secret passage through which, on noiseless footsteps, remorse might reach even the sullen chamber of his hardened heart.
Many lessons might be derived from the whole story, none, after all, more obvious and none more useful than the old old story of the desperate wickedness of human nature when unpenetrated by brotherly and Christian feeling; and that he who has sounded the ocean, the grave, the deepest and the darkest mountain cavern has yet a deeper deep to fathom in the abyss of his own heart; and that the moral of the subject may be yet more briefly condensed in the one grand line which Shelley has borrowed from Burke:—
"To fear ourselves and love all human kind."
GEO. GILFILLAN.
Professorship of Celtic at Oxford.—In a congregation held on Tuesday, March 7th, a form of statute was promulgated to provide for the establishment of a Professor of the Celtic languages and literature in this University. The Principal and Fellows of Jesus College have offered the sum of £500 annually, to be applied by the University for the foundation of the professorship, and a further sum of £100 is to be paid from the University chest, until an equivalent provision is made from some other source. The statute also provides for the constitution of a board for electing the professor. Such professor will be required to reside within the precincts of the University for six months at least, in each year, between the tenth day of October and the first of July next following. The professor must apply himself to the study of the Celtic languages, literature, and antiquities, and give lectures on those subjects, and also give instruction on the same subject to members of the University. He is not to hold any other professorship or public readership in the University. Matters are looking up for the Celtic languages at last; thanks to the redoubted Professor Blackie. Two Celtic Professorships are now practically established. We understand that Charles Mackay, LL.D., F.S.A., the well-known poet, and Celtic scholar, is a candidate for the Chair.
The Prophecies of Coinneach Odhar Fiosaiche—The Brahan Seer.—John Noble, bookseller, Inverness, is about to publish those "Prophecies" in small book form, collected and edited by Alex. Mackenzie of the Celtic Magazine. Some very remarkable instances of second sight by others than Coinneach Odhar will also be given. Parties forwarding any prophecies in their possession, or known in their district, to Mr Noble, or to Mr Mackenzie, will be conferring a favour, and will receive due acknowledgment. It is desirable to make the work as complete as possible.