I now proceeded to build and relight the fire, during which the
Scot drew a packet of bread and cheese from his sporran, together
with a flask which, having uncorked, he held out to me with the
one word, "Whuskey!"
"Thank you, Donald, but I rarely drink anything stronger than
ale," said I.
"Aweel!" said he, "if ye winna', ye winna', an' there's but a
wee drappie left, tae be sure." Whereupon, after--two or three
generous gulps, he addressed himself to his bread and cheese, and
I, following his example, took out the edibles Simon had provided.
"An' ye're minded tae bide here, ye tell me?" he inquired after a
while.
"Yes," I nodded, "but that need not interfere with you--two can
live here as easily as one, and, now that I have had a good look
at you, I think we might get along very well together."
"Sir," said he solemnly, "my race is royal--I am a Stuart--here's
a Stuart's hand," and he reached out his hand to me across the
hearth with a gesture that was full of a reposeful dignity.
Indeed, I never remember to have seen Donald anything but
dignified.
"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."