 Chorus
Captain John MacPherson did you ever sell your soul?
Did you bargain with the Devil for your place upon the roll?
Did you seek for fame and fortune, did he promise them to you?
Did he follow you to Gaick when the reckoning was due?
Captain John MacPherson, I forever curse your name
For it’s many the Highland family you ruined by your game
Recruiting was your office and you scoured the country round
And you sent them to a shallow grave upon some foreign ground
In the year of eighteen hundred with four others he did ride
To Gaick Lodge in Badenoch beneath the mountainside
The snow lay deep and heavy, and above the Atholl braes
The Devil loosed an avalanche upon him as he lay
We found him in the morning in the ruins of that place
And those that died along with him with terror on their face
The dogs with frozen snarl and the guns with twisted bore
Black Officer MacPherson, may you rot for evermore!
"In God’s Name, let us go!" said we, but as we tried to stand
We could not lift MacPherson, though we called on every hand
Then, "Forward, in the Devil’s name!" with one accord we cried
And we raised him from the ground with but a man on either side |
