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214 Gaelic Society of Inverness.
if he saw tlie prosaic nature of the head-gear that in the advance
of civilisation science has placed upon the locks in which the bod
of the stag was wont to be, and which the veil of clouds so frequently
enveloped in mystery and darkness. The Colonel referred
to must have lived at Torlundy, where—or near where —
Lord Abingor's house is now, for the waters of the small river
Lundy running near is brown and mossy when in flood.
When the Duke of Gordon raised the 92nd Regiment
—
then known as the 100th—the beautiful Duchess Jane got many
young men in Lochabcr to join it, through the sorcery of a kiss
from her own rosy lips, but such persuasive sweetness was not
the only power used by the house of Gordon to get men. Parents
were threatened with the loss of their crofts—or even farms
unless their sons enlisted under the Marquis of Iluntly, and
many young married men rather than leave their wives and children
uncai-ed for, left the crofts to their aged parents and took up
house for themselves in Fort-William rather than cause the old
home to be broken up. The following is a fragment of a song
composed by a sorrowing wife whose young husband seems to
have been drowned, when the regiment was on its way to Ireland,
shortly after its being raised. A wave .seems to have swept
him off the deck and she was left, alas ! to slee]) alone for evermore,
and she would give her blessing to every other regiment,
but not to the Duke of Gordon's that forced her beloved one
away from her and the fair tree of her happiness left witliout sap
and branchless. It is as follows :
—
Gur trbm, trom a tha mi
Gur trom a dh'fhkg an t-Earrach mi,
Gur truime 'n diugh na'n de mi,
Tha cumha an d6igh nam fear orm.
O 's diullich learn gun ghluais sibh,
'Nuair bha ghaoth tuath cho gailleanach,
'Se 'n tonn a rinn do bhualadh,
'S gur truagh learn gu'n do tliachair e.
Gur trom, trom, (fee.
O cha'n 'eil feachd 's an duthaich,
Nach diirachdain mo bheanuach air
Ach Reiseamaid Diuc Gordan,
'O 'n dh' flirtgair i mo leannan uam,
Gur trom, trom, ttc.