Meantime the town drummer fell sick and died, and Miss Horn made
a party in favour of Duncan. But for the baby, I doubt if he would
have had a chance, for he was a stranger and interloper; the women,
however, with the baby in their forefront, carried the day. Then
his opponents retreated behind the instrument, and strove hard to
get the drum recognised as an essential of the office. When Duncan
recoiled from the drum with indignation, but without losing the
support of his party, the opposition had the effrontery to propose
a bell: that he rejected with a vehemence of scorn that had nearly
ruined his cause; and, assuming straightway the position of chief
party in the proposed contract, declared that no noise of his making
should be other than the noise of bagpipes; that he would rather
starve than beat drum or ring bell; if he served in the case, it must
be after his own fashion--and so on. Hence it was no wonder, some
of the bailies being not only small men and therefore conceited, but
powerful whigs, who despised everything highland, and the bagpipes
especially, if the affair did for awhile seem hopeless. But the
more noble minded of the authorities approved of the piper none the
less for his independence, a generosity partly rooted, it must be
confessed, in the amusement which the annoyance of their weaker
brethren afforded them--whom at last they were happily successful
in outvoting, so that the bagpipes superseded the drum for a season.
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