The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

6o 7he Highland Monthly.
We had no opportunity to attempt any amende. The
schoolmaster's whistle was already sounding, our play-hour
had come to an end, and we ran away to resume our tasks
more willingly than usual, for we felt strangely scared and
remorseful on account of the scene we had just witnessed.
It must have been about Hallowe'en of the same year
that the distant sound of pipes broke faintly but unmis-
takeably on our ears as we raced across the play-ground.
The most absorbing game always yielded in point of
fascination to the awful solemnities of a funeral ; and we
knew that this would be no ordinary one, for it was that of
the Pensioner, and the kind Chief was certainly present, as
the music of his piper attested.
We had already, according to use and wont, inspected
the grave that was being opened in the forenoon, counted
the number of skulls that were turned up, and listened with
interest to the usual surmises as to the identity of those
gruesome relics. And now, warned of the approach of the
cortege, the predatory hordes of Scotch and English, into
which we were divided, hastily proclaimed a truce, the
wardens allowed their two respective heaps of much-prized
aichils to lie unprotected, and all ran to the gateway that
faced the road.
As, headed by the gallant patrician who thought it not
beneath him to conduct the humblest of his clansmen to
their last resting-place, the funeral procession passed
through our midst, with measured restlessness of tread,
and the sound of many voices, like lonely waves that break
on a rocky shore, and then slowly ascended the rising
ground that led to the church-yard, I shall never forget
how the wailing notes of the lament seemed to form them-
selves into words in my ear. It was a foolish whim, for
methought I heard again, in the wild, mournful strain,
those sonorous names of the Peninsula and of Flanders,
which would never more be heard as of old on the Pen-
sioners' Day, but which will still continue, from the page of
history, to send a thrill of patriotic enthusiasm through
every loyal-hearted son of the Gael.