Many’s the house-head that rests without waking.
Carles in trewses clad, etc.
We made that morning start, morning start, morning start,
We made that morning start, when watching failed you.
Wives, mothers, in this glen, in this glen, in this glen,
Wives, mothers, in this glen, it’s time you were waking.
Carles in trewses clad, etc.”
Glenorchy, however, did not obtain a very firm hold in the county, and the Sinclairs held the great bulk of the lands until within the lifetime of the present generation, when it seems to be drifting into other hands because of the want of heirs male in the direct line. Neither did the contempt expressed by the piper do much to make the trews unpopular, for the late Caithness Fencibles, raised and commanded by Sir John Sinclair, were dressed pretty much as were their ancestors at Altimarlach. Caithness, of course, was, and still is, not very Highland, except in the matter of latitude, and it is very noticeable that the only pipe tune associated with the county was played by a Perthshire piper on a warlike excursion, fighting against the natives. Caithness has no pipe music of its own.
Again, the tune is known in Argyllshire as “Wives of this Glen.” Tradition says it was played by Breadalbane’s piper just previous to the massacre of Glencoe, in 1692, in the hope of warning the Mac Ians of their danger, and that one Mac Ian wife heeded the warning and fled to the hills with her child, saving his life. Glencoe is one of the wildest places in the Highlands, gloomy and desolate, ten miles from any other inhabited district, and through it the Cona, a wild, rugged stream, on the banks of which Ossian is believed to have first seen the light, tumbles its way to the sea. Towards the north-west end the terrible tragedy, which left an ineradicable stain on Scottish history, took place, and there the piper is supposed to have stood when he played:—
“Wives of wild Cona glen, Cona glen, Cona glen,