Through the villages on their route these brawny
fellows march with their pipers to the proud lilt of "The Barren Rocks
of Aden" and "The Cock o' the North," fine marching tunes that in turn
give place to the regimental voices while the pipers are recovering
their breath. "It's a long way to Inveraray" is the Scotch variant of
the new army song, but the Scots have not altogether abandoned their own
marching airs, and it is a stirring thing to hear the chorus of "The
Nut-Brown Maiden," for instance, sung in the Gaelic tongue as these
kilted soldiers swing forward on the long white roads of France.
A charming little letter published in _The Times_ tells how the
Highlanders and their pipers turned Melun into a "little Scotland" for
a week, and the enthusiastic writer contributes some verses for a
suggested new reel, of which the following have a sly allusion to the
Kaiser's order for the extermination of General French's "contemptible
little army":
"What! Wad ye stop the pipers?
Nay, 'tis ower soon!
Dance, since ye're dancing, William,
Dance, ye puir loon!
Dance till ye're dizzy, William,
Dance till ye swoon!
Dance till ye're deid, my laddie!
We play the tune!"
This is all quite in the spirit of the Highland soldiers. A Frenchman,
writing to a friend in London goes into ecstasies over the behavior of
the Scots in France, and says that at one railway station he saw two
wounded Highlanders "dancing a Scotch reel which made the crowd fairly
shriek with admiration.
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