“I can’t eat meat, for it won’t rest on my stomach, and there’s nothing I take that goes so well with me as soup. I live principally on bread, for coffee or tea won’t do for me at all. If I could get a bit of meat that I like, such as a small fowl, or the like of that, it would do with me very well; but either bacon or beef, or the like of that, is too strong for me. I’m obliged to be very careful entirely with what I eat, for I’m sick. A lady gave me a bottle of good old foreign port about three months ago, and I thought it did me more good than all the meat in the world.
“When I’m in London I make about 4s. a-day, and when I’m in the country about 15s. a-week. My old lady couldn’t live when I travel if it wasn’t for my boy, who goes out and gets about 1s. a-day. Lord Panmure is very good to him, and gives him something whenever he meets him. I wouldn’t get such good health if I stopped in London. Now there’s Barnet, only eleven miles from St. Giles’s, and yet I can get better health in London than I can there, on account of it’s being on rising ground and fresh air coming into it every minute.
“I never be a bit bad with the cold. It never makes me bad. I’ve been in Canada with the 93d in the winter. In the year ’43 was a very fearful winter indeed, and we were there, and the men didn’t seem to suffer anything from the cold, but were just as well as in any other climate or in England. They wore the kilt and the same dress as in summer. Some of them wore the tartan trowsers when they were not on duty or parade, but the most of them didn’t—not one in a dozen, for they looked upon it as like a woman. There’s nothing so good for the cold as cold water. The men used to bathe their knees and legs in the cold water, and it would make them ache for the time, but a minute or two afterwards they were all right and sweating. I’ve many a time gone into the water up to my neck in the coldest days of the year, and then when I came out and dried myself, and put on my clothes, I’d be sweating afterwards. There can’t be a better thing for keeping away the rheumatism. It’s a fine thing for rheumatism and aches to rub the part with cold frosty water or snow. It makes it leave him and knocks the pains out of his limbs. Now, in London, when my hands are so cold I can’t play on my pipes, I go to a pump and wash them in the frosty water, and then dry them and rub them together, and then they’re as warm as ever. The more a man leans to the fire the worse he is after. It was leaning to a fire that gave me my illness.
“The chanter of the pipes I play on has been in my family very near 450 years. It’s the oldest in Scotland, and is a heir-loom in our family, and they wouldn’t part with it for any money. Many’s a time the Museum in Edinburgh has wanted me to give it to them, but I won’t give it to any one till I find myself near death, and then I’ll obligate them to keep it. Most likely my youngest son will have it, for he’s as steady as a man. You see, the holes for the fingers is worn as big round as sixpences, and they’re quite sharp at the edges. The ivory at the end is the same original piece as when the pipe was made. It’s breaking and splitting with age, and so is the stick. I’ll have my name and the age of the stick engraved on the sole of the ivory, and then, if my boy seems neglectful of the chanter, I’ll give it to the Museum at Edinburgh. I’ll have German silver rings put round the stick, to keep it together, and then, with nice waxed thread bound round it, it will last for centuries yet.
“This chanter was made by old William McDonnall, who’s been dead these many hundred years. He was one of the best pipe-makers that’s in all Scotland. There’s a brother of mine has a set of drones made by him, and he wouldn’t give them for any sit of money. Everybody in Scotland knows William McDonnall. Ask any lad, and he’ll tell you who was the best pipe-maker that ever lived in Scotland—aye, and ever will live. There’s many a farmer in Scotland would give 30l. for a set of pipes by old William McDonnall, sooner than they’d give 30s. for a set of pipes made now. This chanter has been in our family ever since McDonnall made it. It’s been handed down from father to son from that day to this. They always give it to the eldest. William McDonnall lived to be 143 years old, and this is the last chanter he made. A gentleman in London, who makes chanters, once gave me a new one, merely for letting him take a model of my old one, with the size of the bore and the place for the holes. You tell a good chanter by the tone, and some is as sweet as a piano. My old chanter has got rather too sharp by old age, and it’s lost its tone; for when a stick gets too sharp a sound, it’s never no good. This chanter was played by my family in the battles of Wallace and Bruce, and at the battle of Bannockburn, and every place whenever any of the Macgregor clan fought. These are the traditions given from family to family. I heard it from my father, and now I tell my lads, and they know it as well as I do myself. My great grandfather played on this stick when Charley Stuart, the Pretender, came over to Scotland from France, and he played on it before the Prince himself, at Stirling and the Island of Skye, and at Preston Pans and Culloden. It was at Preston Pans that the clans were first formed, and could be told by their tartans—the Macgregors, and the Stuart, and the Macbeths, and the Camerons, and all of them. I had three brothers older than me, but I’ve got this chanter, for I begged it of them. It’s getting too old to play on, and I’ll have a copper box made for it, and just carry it at my side, if God is good to me, and gives me health to live three weeks.
“About my best friends in London are the French people,—they are the best I can meet, they come next to the Highlanders. When I meet a Highlander he will, if he’s only just a labouring man, give me a few coppers. A Highlander will never close his eye upon me. It’s the Lowlander that is the worst to me. They never takes no notice of me when I’m passing: they’ll smile and cast an eye as I pass by. Many a time I’ll say to them when they pass, ‘Well, old chap, you don’t like the half-naked men, I know you don’t!’ and many will say, ‘No, I don’t!’ I never play the pipes when I go through the Lowlands,—I’d as soon play poison to them. They never give anything. It’s the Lowlanders that get the Scotch a bad name for being miserable, and keeping their money, and using small provision. They’re a disgrace to their country.
“The Highlander spends his money as free as a duke. If a man in the 93rd had a shilling in his pocket, it was gone before he could turn it twice. All the Lowlanders would like to be Highlanders if they could, and they learn Gaelic, and then marry Highland lassies, so as to become Highlanders. They have some clever regiments composed out of the Lowlanders, but they have only three regiments and the Highlanders have seven; yet there’s nearly three to one more inhabitants in the Lowlands. It’s a strange thing, they’d sooner take an Irishman into a Highland regiment than a Lowlander. They owe them such a spleen, they don’t like them. Bruce was a Lowlander, and he betrayed Wallace; and the Duke of Buccleuch, who was a Lowlander, betrayed Stuart.
“I never go playing at public-houses, for I don’t like such places. I am not a drinker, for as much whisky as will fill a teaspoon will lay me up for a day. If I take anything, it’s a sup of porter. I went once into a public-house, and there was a woman drinking in it, and she was drunk. It was the landlord told me to come inside. She told me to leave the house, and I said the master told me to come: then she took up one of these pewter pots and hit me in the forehead. It was very sore for three weeks afterwards, and made a hole. I wouldn’t prosecute her.
“My little boy that goes about is fourteen years old, and he’s as straight and well-formed as if he was made of wax-work. He’s the one that shall have the chanter, if anybody does; but I’m rather doubtful about it, for he’s not steady enough, and I think I’ll leave it to a museum.
“If I had a good set of pipes, there’s not many going about the streets could play better; but my pipes are not in good order. I’ve got three tunes for one that the Queen’s piper plays; and I can play in a far superior style, for he plays in the military style. McKay, the former piper to her majesty, he was reckoned as good a player as there is in Scotland. I knew him very well, and many and many a time I’ve played with him. He was took bad in the head and obliged to go back to Scotland. He is in the Isle of Skye now. I belong to Peterhead. If I had a good set of pipes I wouldn’t be much afraid of playing with any of the pipers.