"I assure you, upon my honour, I said Solon, and not Solan, Mac," quoth Twig. "There, ask Tozy.—You know I would not say an uncivil thing to you, Rory, for the world."
We were like to expire with laughter at this, but the Celt was pacified at length, through the good offices of the doctor, and we all held on in good fellowship. But as the evening wore away, the musquittoes began to be very troublesome, as we could feel ourselves, and hear, if we had not felt, from their loud buzzing, as well as from our host's sounding slaps on his bare limbs, the kilt not being just the thing for a defence against Monsieur Musquitto. Indeed, after Rory's localities had been fairly explored by these stinging pests, we suffered little, as they left us all (like reasonable animals choosing their food, where it was easiest to be had) in comparative peace, to settle in clouds on the unfortunate Highlander's naked premises.
At length he could stand it no longer.—"Tuncan!"—then a loud slap on his thigh;—"Lachlan!"—another slap;—"Macintosh, pring a prush, pring a prush!"—and a negro appeared forthwith with a bunch of green twigs with the leaves on.—"Noo, Macintosh, kang pelow tae table with your prush, and prush my leeks free from tae awful plakues. Prush, ye prute, prush!"
This scheme had the desired effect; the enemy was driven off, and Rory, in the fulness and satisfaction of his heart, now insisted on setting Tuncan to give us a regular pibroch, as he called it, on the bagpipe, whether we would or not.
I had observed Quacco, who had accompanied us, and that mischief-maker, Squire Flamingo, in close confabulation while dinner was getting ready; I therefore made sure of witnessing some comical issue of their complot before long, in which I was not disappointed—for the black serjeant now ushered in the bagpiper, whom, I could perceive, he had fuddled pretty considerably, besides adding to his rig in a most fantastical manner. He had, it seems, persuaded the poor creature that he was by no means complete without a queue, and powder in his hair; so he now appeared with his woolly poll covered with flour, and the spout of an old tin watering-pan, with a tuft of red hair from the tail of a cow stuck into the end of it, attached to the back of his head by a string. In the midst of this tuft I saw a small red spark, and when he approached there was a very perceptible burning smell, as of the smouldering of a slow match.
"Now, Mr Flamingo," said I to our friend, "I see you are about wickedness—No more percussion powder, I hope?"
He trod on my toe, and winked.—"Hush, you shall see."
When Tuncan first entered, he had, to save himself from falling, sat down on a chair close by the door, with his back to us. This was altogether out of character, for Tuncan plumed himself on his breeding.
"Is tat your mainers, you plack rascal?" cried Rory. "Ket up, sir, or"——
Quacco was at hand, and assisting the sable retainer to rise, got him on his pins; and when he had fairly planted him on his parade ground, which was the end of the piazza farthest from us, he seemed to recover himself, blew up his pipes, and began to walk mechanically backwards and forwards steadily enough. Flamingo kept his eye en him very earnestly, while a small twitch of his cheek, just below his eye, every now and then, and a slight lifting of the corner of his mouth, showed that the madcap was waiting in expectation of some fun. All conversation had been fairly swamped by the infernal pipes—Roderick's peacock hen, had she been alive, could not have made herself heard, so we had nothing else for it but to look at each other, and listen to the black bagpiper. I am sure I wished him any where but where he was, when, just as he had turned his back to us in one of his pendulum movements, a jet of sparks like those from a squib issued from his queue, which, drunk as he was, made him turn round fast enough; the instant he found that the fire proceeded from his own tail, he dashed down his bagpipes, rushed out of the house, and never stopped until he was up to the neck in the muddy duck-pond before the door, still fizzing most furiously. In a vain attempt to rid himself of the annoyance, he dipped his head below the water, and just as he disappeared, a crack—crack—crack showed that the squib had eventuated, as the Yankees say, in the usual manner, viz. in a zigzag, or cracker.