“How do you find life in these parts?” I inquired.

“Indeefferent, sir—­vera indeefferent!  Tae be sure, at fairs an’ sic-like I’ve often had as much as ten shillin’ in ’ma bonnet at a time; but it’s juist the kilties that draw em; they hae no real love for the pipes, whateffer!  A rantin’ reel pleases ’em well eneugh, but eh! they hae no hankerin’ for the gude music.”

“That is a question open to argument, Donald,” said I; “can any one play real music on a bagpipe, think you?”

“Sir,” returned the Scot, setting down the empty flask and frowning darkly at the fire, “the pipes is the king of a’ instruments, ’tis the sweetest, the truest, the oldest, whateffer!”

“True, it is very old,” said I thoughtfully; “it was known, I believe, to the Greeks, and we find mention of it in the Latin as ‘tibia utricularia;’ Suetonius tells us that Nero promised to appear publicly as a bagpiper.  Then, too, Chaucer’s Miller played a bagpipe, and Shakespeare frequently mentions the ’drone of a Lincolnshire Bagpipe.’  Yes, it is certainly a very old, and, I think, a very barbarous instrument.”

“Hoot toot! the man talks like a muckle fule,” said Donald, nodding to the fire.

“For instance,” I continued, “there can be no comparison between a bagpipe and a—­fiddle, say.”

“A fiddle!” exclaimed Donald in accents of withering scorn, and still addressing the fire.  “Ye can juist tell him tae gang tae the de’il wi’ his fiddle.”

“Music is, I take it, the expression of one’s mood or thought, a dream translated into sound,” said I thoughtfully, “therefore—­”

“Hae ye ever heard the pipes?”

“Why, yes, but long ago.”

“Then,” said Donald, “ye shall juist hear ’em again.”  So saying, he wiped his mouth, took up his instrument, and began slowly inflating it.

Then, all at once, from drones and chanter there rushed forth such a flood of melody as seemed to sweep me away upon its tide.

First I seemed to hear a roar of wind through desolate glens, a moan of trees, and a rush of sounding waters; yet softly, softly there rises above the flood of sound a little rippling melody which comes, and goes, and comes again, growing ever sweeter with repetition.  And now the roar of wind is changed to the swing of marching feet, the tread of a mighty host whose step is strong and free; and lo! they are singing, as they march, and the song is bold and wild, wild, wild.  Again and again, beneath the song, beneath the rhythm of marching feet, the melody rises, very sweet but infinitely sad, like a silver pipe or an angel’s voice tremulous with tears.  Once again the theme changes, and it is battle, and death, sudden, and sharp; there is the rush and shock of charging ranks, and the surge and tumult of conflict, above whose thunder, loud and clear and shrill, like some battle-cry, the melody swells, one moment triumphant, and the next lost again.