"Ye are a hundred years too late, my man," he said, regarding the rusty sword with a critical eye.
"It is all I have," said Rob.
"And all ye are good for," retorted his aunt.
The stranger meanwhile sat with his chin resting on one hand, a frown upon his face. Of a sudden he stirred fretfully.
"What sort of talk is this?" he cried. "To-morrow or the next day will see us scattered like muir fowl; but we've had a run for our money, whereas, you, poor lad, will have a sair run for your life. Bide a wee—there will be other risings," at which he stopped, and won a smile from Miss Macpherson for his brave advice.
"Thank ye, sir," she said, cordially; "and listen to the gentleman, Rob, for he speaks true words."
Rob was about to break in when the stranger motioned him to silence.
"Tak' your time," said he, "and choose your ain gait, for there's a kind of empty satisfaction in that at a time—and I will play a bit tune, if I may." At which he bowed to Miss Macpherson, and she bowed back, and that none so stiffly.
Then drawing the selfsame reed from his greatcoat pocket that Rob had heard two years before, he began to play, and the manner of his playing was like the singing of a mavis at twilight. He played tunes both Scottish and foreign, strange, melancholy snatches of music very haunting to hear, and then, quite suddenly, he broke into a Jacobite melody, and Rob sat with eyes glued upon him, while a great stillness crept over the place.
The fire had died down, and the room fallen into darkness when he ceased, and it was only to lay the pipe upon the table. For out of the silence came the most wonderful voice; and the strange gentleman, rising to his feet, was singing an old Highland lament as though his heart would break. Rob stole a look at his aunt, and saw her lip—that iron, resolute lip—was trembling. Even the stranger's voice broke through the utter sadness of it all, at which he coughed and smiled, and then before Rob could raise his eyes (it seemed to him to have no beginning at all, so quickly was it done) the stranger was upon his feet, and even while Miss Macpherson was secretively concealing a tear he had snatched up his whistle and was in the very middle of a Highland reel. With his fingers rippling up and down the holes of the thing, and the rakish tilt of his head, and the manner in which he kept time with his feet, and his shoulders and his whole body—with all of this and the dancing firelight and the wind shut out upon the street—the thing was like the work of a bogie. Had he been a little man with silver buttons and silver-buckle shoes and a velvet jacket, then there is no saying but that he might have played himself up the chimney and over the heather, with Rob and Miss Macpherson at his coat-tails.