“I’ll sune set the bag richt, daddy. Or, gien I canna du that, we’ll get a new ane. Mony a pibroch ’ll come skirlin’ oot o’ that chanter yet er’ a’ be dune.”
They were interrupted by the unceremonious entrance of the same footman who had brought the invitation. He carried a magnificent set of ebony pipes, with silver mountings.
“A present from my lord, the marquis,” he said bumptiously, almost rudely, and laid them on the table.
“Dinna lay them there; tak them frae that, or I’ll fling them at yer poothered wig,” said Malcolm. “—It’s a stan’ o’ pipes,” he added, “an’ that a gran’ ane, daddy.”
“Take tem away!” cried the old man, in a voice too feeble to support the load of indignation it bore. “She’ll pe taking no presents from marquis or tuke tat would pe teceifing old Tuncan, and making him trink with ta cursed Clenlyon. Tell ta marquis he’ll pe sending her cray hairs with sorrow to ta crafe; for she’ll pe tishonoured for efer and henceforth.”
Probably pleased to be the bearer of a message fraught with so much amusement, the man departed in silence with the pipes.
The marquis, although the joke had threatened, and indeed so far taken a serious turn, had yet been thoroughly satisfied with its success. The rage of the old man had been to his eyes ludicrous in the extreme, and the anger of the young one so manly as to be even picturesque. He had even made a resolve, half-dreamy and of altogether improbable execution, to do something for the fisher-fellow.
The pipes which he had sent as a solatium to Duncan, were a set that belonged to the house—ancient, and in the eyes of either connoisseur or antiquarian, exceedingly valuable; but the marquis was neither the one nor the other, and did not in the least mind parting with them. As little did he doubt a propitiation through their means, was utterly unprepared for a refusal of his gift, and was nearly as much perplexed as annoyed thereat.
For one thing, he could not understand such offence taken by one in Duncan’s lowly position; for although he had plenty of highland blood in his own veins, he had never lived in the Highlands, and understood nothing of the habits or feelings of the Gael. What was noble in him, however, did feel somewhat rebuked, and he was even a little sorry at having raised a barrier between himself and the manly young fisherman, to whom he had taken a sort of liking from the first.
Of the ladies in the drawing-room, to whom he had recounted the vastly amusing joke with all the graphic delineation for which he had been admired at court, none, although they all laughed, had appeared to enjoy the bad recital thoroughly, except the bold-faced countess. Lady Florimel regarded the affair as undignified at the best, was sorry for the old man, who must be mad, she thought, and was pleased only with the praises of her squire of low degree. The wound in his hand the marquis either thought too trifling to mention, or serious enough to have clouded the clear sky of frolic under which he desired the whole transaction to be viewed.