Series 1 > Grameid: an heroic poem descriptive of the campaign of Viscount Dundee in 1689, and other pieces

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PANURGI PHILOCABALLI [797-807
Uno1 eodemque die ter castris exuit hostem.
Jam juga transierat Balrynnidis alta nivosi,
Et post terga procul Balvenia rura relinquit.
Sol ruit interea et vesper processit Olympo.
Assurgit fremitusque virum, flatusque sequentum
Fervet equum ; resonatque ingens clamoribus aether,
Antra gemunt, tellusque gravi tremit icta pedum vi.
Hinc peditum legio ruit, bine ferrata trementem
Ungula cornipedum saltu secat alite campum.
Nec requies donee nox abstulit atra colorem
Rebus, et effusae terram texere tenebrae.
LIBItl QUARTI FINIS.
day, he thrice drove the enemy from his position. Already he had
crossed the high declivities of snowy Balrynnis,2 and left the fields
of Balveny3 far behind. The sun, meanwhile, is setting, and the
evening star coming forth on the heavens. Still rise the shouts
of men, still comes the panting of the pursuing horses; the air
resounds with loud clamour, the hollows groan, the earth trembles,
stricken with the force of their heavy tramp ; here, at the double,
comes a regiment of foot, there the iron hoof of the cavalry cuts the
quivering turf at the gallop. There is no rest till black night steals
colour from the scene, and outspread darkness covers the earth.
END OF BOOK IV.
1 Scan ‘ un’ eodemque. ’
2 Balrynnis, or Belrynnis, is the common pronunciation of this hill or moun¬
tain. I find Ben Rinnes is the spelling in the maps. Mackay’s account and
the Poet’s square on the whole, but the three halts of Mackay do not appear
in his Memoirs. Mackay notices the setting of the sun, and that the High¬
landers were preparing to pursue him.
3 The household at Balveny suffered much during these wars. Alexander
Duff of Braco, to whom Balveny belonged in 1695, presented a doleful petition
to the Committee for Security of the Kingdom, showing that Mackay had put a
garrison of two companies of foot, under Captain Gordon, into the house, and
because it was a convenient post between the Highlands and the Lowlands, he
had made it a magazine of victual. The petitioner had 500 bolls of meal in the
house of his own, which seem to have been made free with. After Killiecrankie,
the rebels, he says, entered the house an hour after the garrison left, and seized
on the whole meal, extending to 430 bolls. He claims repayment from the
county poll, more especially as he himself was attending the Meeting of Estates.
His father, too, an old man of seventy, was taken out of his own house, which
was plundered, and destroyed by them, and ‘ he himself keeped in a starving
condition, until he was necessitate to pay a ransom.’ The Committee con¬
sidered the meal a debt due by the country, and recommended the petitioner
himself to his Majesty. See of Pari. Scot., vol. ix. p. 447.