"Woe is me, Rohallion! and you are again going to follow the drum!" he replied, shaking his queue and queer old wig: "it was invented by Bacchus, who, as Polysenus declares, used it first in the Indian war, but from the sorrow created by its sound, I verily believe its inventor to be the devil—the great author of the bagpipe."
"Hush, dominie," said his lordship, laughing, "for here comes Pate of Maybole."
This was the piper of the barony town, in the burgh livery, who now appeared; and as the coachman whipped up his horses, the sobs of the servants were drowned in the skirl with which Pate blew out his bag to the air of the good Lord Moira's Farewell to Scotland:
"London's bonnie woods and braes,
I maun leave them a', lassie,
For who can thole when Britain's faes,
Wad gie Britons law, lassie?"
And striding as only a Scottish piper strides and swaggers, he played before the carriage down the avenue and out upon the high road; while there was not an eye unmoistened at that time-worn castle gate, as its old lord and his lady went forth upon their way "to the wars in the far-awa land."
It was a silent house that night in Rohallion.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE RETREAT.
"Lords and dukes and noble princes,
On thy fatal banks were slain;
Fatal banks that gave to slaughter
All the pride and flower of Spain.
Furious press the hostile squadrons—
Furious he repels their rage;
Loss of blood at length enfeebles—
Who can war with thousands wage?"
Old Spanish Ballad.
On the llth of December the division of Sir John Hope quitted Alva and marched towards Tordesillas.