A jacket of deerskin, fastened by wooden buttons and loops of thong; a pouch or sporan composed of a polecat's skin, with its face for a flap; and a skene dhu (or black knife) stuck in a waist-belt, completed the attire of Colin.
His pretty companion, who sat with her little bare feet paddling in a pool of water that gurgled from a rock, was enveloped in a short plaid of red tartan, fastened under her chin by a little silver brooch, and her thick brown hair, which she had wreathed with blue bells and golden broom, fell in masses on her shoulders.
But the faces of this boy and girl were thoughtful, keen, and anxious in expression; for they were children of a long-oppressed, outlawed, and broken tribe, the MacGregors, or Clan Alpine. Still, as they tended the cattle, they sang merrily; for when reaping in the fields, or rowing on the lochs, casting the shuttle at the loom, or marching in the ranks to battle, in those days the Scottish Highlander always sang.
Ever and anon the boy and girl would pause and utter a joyous shout, when a large brown salmon leaped amid a shower of diamonds from the rough stream that tore through the glen; or when a sharp-nosed fox, a shaggy otter, or a red polecat came stealthily out of the gorse and whins to drink of it; for as yet they had no other visitors, and saw not those who were secretly approaching.
Colin, who had started up to cast a stone at a wild swan, and pursue it a little way, returned breathless; but nevertheless, producing a chanter of hard black wood, mounted with ivory rings, from his girdle, in which it had been stuck, he said,—"Come, Oina—Mianna Bhaird a thuair aois—sing, and I shall play."
"It is a song of many verses, and is too long," replied the girl.
"Long! There are only two-and-thirty verses, and mother says that old Paul Crubach can remember as many more."
Colin commenced the air at once upon his chanter, and without further hesitation the girl began one of the old songs which are half sung and half recited, in a manner peculiar to the Highlands.
I have no intention of afflicting my readers with all the said song in Gaelic; but it ran somewhat in this fashion (a friend has translated it for me), and the girl, as she sang sweetly, splashed the sparkling water with her tiny feet:—
Lay us gently by the stream
That wanders through our grassy meads;
And thou, O sun! with kindly beam,
Light up the bower that o'er us spreads.