"Is his wife as bad as himself then?"
"Wifes is aalways worser."
"But what is it makes you hate him so dreadfully? Is he a bad man?"
"A fery pad man, my tear laty! He is tead more than a hundert
years."
"Then why do you hate him so?"
"Och hone! Ton't you'll never hear why?"
"He can't have done you any harm."
"Not done old Tuncan any harm! Tidn't you'll know what ta tog would pe
toing to her aancestors of Glenco? Och hone! Och hone! Gif her ta
tog's heart of him in her teeth, and she'll pe tearing it--tearing
it--tearing it!" cried the piper in a growl of hate, and with
the look of a maddened tiger, the skin of his face drawn so tight
over the bones that they seemed to show their whiteness through
it.
"You quite terrify me," said Florimel, really shocked. "If you
talk like that, I must go away. Such words are not fit for a lady
to hear."
The old man heard her rise: he fell on his knees, and held out his
arms in entreaty.
"She's pegging your pardons, my laty. Sit town once more, anchel
from hefen, and she'll not say it no more. Put she'll pe telling
you ta story, and then you'll pe knowing tat what 'll not pe fit
for laties to hear, as coot laties had to pear!"
He caught up the Lossie pipes, threw them down again, searched in
a frenzy till he found his own, blew up the bag with short thick
pants, forced from them a low wail, which ended in a scream--then
broke into a kind of chant, the words of which were something like
what follows: he had sense enough to remember that for his listener
they must be English.
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