Places > Book of remembrance for Tweeddale > Landward Parishes

120
County of Peebles Book of Remembrance.
record, of which lus sorrowing relatives may
well be proud.
Blow out, you Bugles, over the rich Dead.
There's none of these so lonely and poor of
old
But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.
These laid the world away: poured out the
red
Sweet wine ot youth : gave up the years to be
Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,
That men call age: and those who would
have been.
Their sons, they gave, their immortality.
When kings and captains die, the world
regrets them :
My boy was proud to serve the self-same
State.
Proud though he died, and all but I forget
him,
I do not grudge him, for the Cause was
great.
WARRANT OFFICER JOHN GILLESPIE
(Eddleston)
1917. Decembeb 17 (Monday).
Died in hospital on December 17, 1917, of
Black water fever while on lacttive service.
Join Gillespie, C.E, aged 38 years, eldest
son of Mr and Mrs Gillespie, Eddleston
^choolhouse. He was of the Nyassaland
Volunteer Reserves. He was a native of
Eddleston and educated at tlie public school
there, and at Watson's College, Edinburgh.
He joined the Engineers' Staff of the N.B.
Railway as a draughtsman, and afterwards
proceeded to South Africa, where he waa
engaged on the Central South African Rail-
ways, and assisted in the construction of
tlie Port Sudan railway, and similar under-
takings in Rhodesia. Since the outbreak of
war, he was employed in Government work
in British Central Africa, and responding to
the call of his country, he joined t(he Vol-
unteer reserve in Nyassaland, and took part
in the campaign in German East Africa.
Ho was speedily promoted to the rank of
Warrant Officer, and though he escaped
the bullets of the enemy, and saw that colony
fall into the hands of the British, he was strick-
en with fever and removed to hospital. It
was hoped that his constitution would pull
him through, as he was a man of splendid
physique, but that hope was not realised.
for he succumbed to the disease on Decem-
ber 17. His brother is an officer in the
Scafortlh Highlanders, for whom and his
parents and two sisters, much sympathy is
felt.
" Tliie King commands m© 'to assure
you of the tnie sympathy of His Majesty
and the Queen in your sorrow." — Secretary
of State Colonial Office.
The Rev. R. H. Stevenson (locum tenens)
said :—
" He volunteered his services in a coun-
try where the soldier runs as much risk
from the climate as from the enemy, and
now, when the country has been cleared
of the enemy, and his parents were look-
ing forward to seeing their son after an
absence of ten years, he has fallen the
victim of an illness, which was probably
brought on by liis strenuous work as a
despatch-rider in so deadly a climate. He
has fallen in the service of his country;
he has fallen in the defence of those
Christian principles for which our country
is contending, and we know that his par-
ents could wisih for their son no nobler
death than this. They must be proud of
the part which he had taken in the Great
War ; of the work which he had accom-
plislied, and of the great sacrifice which
he has made, and yet we know that their
hearts must be broken at the thought of
the life which, has been cut off in its
prime, and at the thought that never again
will they see tlie face of him who was so
dear to them. Our thoughts are with them
to-day in their sorrow, and our hearts go
out in sympathy Avith them, and with
their family in the great loss which they
have sustained."
Beyond the flight of time,
Beyond tliis vale of death,
There surely is some blessed clime
Where life is not a breath ;
Nor life's affections, transient fire
Whose sparks fly upwards to expire.
This is thy hour, Soul, Uiy free flight into
the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, tlio day
erased, the lesson done.
Then fully forth emerging, silent, gazing,
pondering the themes thou lovest beat,
Night, sloop, death, and the stars.