“Pity me, what’s this?” cried Mr Macalister, in amaze.
“Did ever any one see the like?” echoed his astonished wife.
The clergyman gazed over the top of his spectacles with eyes bulging with astonishment. Ron clapped his hands, and sent up a great shout of delight, while George Elgood sat on the grass clasping his knees with his hands, and shaking with laughter.
“Good old Geoff! Go it, Geoff! Keep it up. Dance, man, dance! Leave the pipes to us—we’ll pipe for you. Give your mind to your steps!”
Even as he spoke he and Ron seized bottles on their own account, and turned themselves into imaginary pipers, rivalling each other in turns and twists and long-drawn-out notes, till presently the infection spread, and every single member of the family was swelling the orchestra, Mr Macalister beating time with vigorous sawings of the arm and shakings of the head. So they piped, this motley assembly of old and young, while in the centre of the green the Chieftain twirled and leapt, and twirled again, and stamped his feet, and gave vent to loud staccato whoops—as deliciously comic a spectacle as one would meet in the course of a very long day.
Then at last, with purple face and gasping breath, he collapsed on the grass, and rolling over on his side lay panting, the while the onlookers exhausted themselves in applause.
“If they could see him now! If they could see him now!” cried George Elgood rapturously to himself; and Margot caught the words, and questioned curiously—
“Who? Whom do you mean?”
“The people at home. In town! What would they think?”
“Does he behave so differently in town?”