They sat down, and, at a sign from his lordship, the servant placed
his charge in Duncan's hands, and retired. The piper received the
instrument with a proud gesture of gratification, felt it all over,
screwed at this and that for a moment, then filled the great bag
gloriously full. The next instant a scream invaded the astonished
air fit to rival the skirl produced by the towzie tyke of Kirk
Alloway; another instant, and the piper was on his legs, as full
of pleasure and pride as his bag of wind, strutting up and down
the narrow chamber like a turkey cock before his hens, and turning
ever, after precisely so many strides, with a grand gesture and
mighty sweep, as if he too had a glorious tail to mind, and was
bound to keep it ceaselessly quivering to the tremor of the reed
in the throat of his chanter.
Malcolm, erect behind their visitors, gazed with admiring eyes
at every motion of his grandfather. To one who had from earliest
infancy looked up to him with reverence, there was nothing
ridiculous in the display, in the strut, in all that to other eyes
too evidently revealed the vanity of the piper: Malcolm regarded
it all only as making up the orthodox mode of playing the pipes.
It was indeed well that he could not see the expression upon the
faces of those behind whose chairs he stood, while for moments that
must have seemed minutes, they succumbed to the wild uproar which
issued from those splendid pipes. On an opposite hillside, with a
valley between, it would have sounded poetic; in a charging regiment,
none could have wished for more inspiriting battle strains; even in
a great hall, inspiring and guiding the merry reel, it might have
been in place and welcome; but in a room of ten feet by twelve,
with a wooden ceiling, acting like a drumhead, at the height of
seven feet and a half!--It was little below torture to the marquis
and Lady Florimel.
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