He may tread on the heather no more,
But boldly he follows his chief to the field,
Where his laurels were gathered before.
“I hear the pibroch, sounding, sounding,
Deep o’er the mountain and glen,
While light springing footsteps are trampling the heath,
’Tis the march of the Cameron men.”
A good instance of the power of the pipes to rally men is told of the fateful battle of Magersfontein, during the present war in South Africa. When, at one stage, it seemed as if “retreat” had been sounded, a piper tried to tune his pipes, but his lips were too dry. A major handed him his own water bottle, and immediately afterwards, “Hey, Johnnie Cope” rang out. The men gathered round the piper as he stood there playing, marking time with his foot, and the tide was turned. The soldiers were sifted back into regiments and companies, and something like order was evolved out of chaos.
Foreigners do not understand how a certain kind of music can have such a powerful effect on men, and even our friends south of the Cheviots have been known to sneer at it, but the facts are too stubborn to ding, and they are acknowledged by men of the highest military experience. Perhaps there is no nobler tribute to their power and military beauty than that of Lord Byron, himself an Englishman:—
“And wild and high ‘The Cameron’s Gathering’ rose,