We learned this from those wonderful singers-of-the-land, the MacArthur family of Marlboro, Vermont. Megan sang it at a concert I did with them in Putney, Vermont. Her version may be ,heard on their latest recording, MacArthur Road, from Front Hall Records, Voorheesville, New York. This story is still told in Scotland as well as in America. Duncan Campbell, of Inveraye, Argyll, Scotland, had sworn an oath to protect a man who turned out to be the murderer of his cousin, Donald Campbell. Donald appeared to Duncan later, in the flames of his fire, swearing to meet him again at Ticonderoga, a name unknown to any in Argyll. Eighteen years later, in 1758, Duncan, his son, and half of his regiment of the Black Watch were wiped out at Ticonderoga. Margaret MacArthur sings her own retelling of this story, an historically more complete version, on her new cassette, Vermont Ballads and Broadsides, on Whetstone Records. [GB]
I'll tell it to you as they told it to me
By the glow of the campfire burning.
By the banks of the water where we sported and played,
They once faced the fury of battle.
And up through the Champlain came the Highland Brigade;
The pipes and the drummer played "Scotland the Brave."
But when they sailed home the piper's refrain
Was "Oh, how cruel the volley. "
To one Duncan Campbell it came in a dream
That he'd meet his fate where he never had been;
Where the blue waters roll and the stickerbush tear,
It's "Travel well, Duncan, I'll wait for you there.
"For the French and the Indian have challenged our King."
(To a soldier like Duncan, no need to explain.)
"It's many the time I've travelled the waves
"To find my fate in the fire."
From Fort William Henry their boats have shoved off
To the North of Lake George in the morning;
To the place the Frenchmen call Carillon,
And the Indians: Ticonderoga.
And the word struck Duncan like a thunderbolt there;
Everyone knew of the warning.
"Oh, give us a tune to remember me by,
For tomorrow I'll not be returning."
When the gunpowder flashed, the Highlanders died,
Never again to walk the hillside.
In the wilderness green, in the sun and the rain,
It's here they' re forever remaining.
And I've told it to you as they told it to me,
Of one Duncan Campbell and the Highland Brigade.
When the campfires flicker in the summertime's wane,
Through the mist on the water comes the piper's refrain.