“As neat a player as ever took shinty in hand, master! I have the name of a fair player myself, but that much I'll allow your lad. Is he to the West side, or farther off?”
“Farther off, friend. The pipes now—have you heard him as a player on the chanter?”
“As a piper, 'Illeasbuig! His like was not in three shires. I have heard him at reel and march, but these were not his fancy: for him the piobaireachds that scholarly ones play!”
“My gallant boy!” said Baldi Crom, rubbing soft on the shoe with the palm of a hand.
“Once upon a time,” said the drover, “we were on our way to a Lowland Tryst. Down Glen Falloch a Soccach man and I heard him fill the nightfall with the 'Bhoilich' of Morar, with the brag of a whole clan in his warbling. He knew piping, the fellow with me, and the tear came to his cheek, thinking of the old days and the old ploys among the dirks and sgians.”
“There was never the beat of him,” said the shoemaker.
“Throughither a bit—”
“But good, good at heart, man! With a better chance of fortune he might be holding his head to-day as high as the best of them.” The drovers looked at each other with a meaning that was not for the eyes of the old man; but he had small chance of seeing it, for he was throng at his fine pair of shoes.
“He had a name for many arts,” said the man with coarse hose, “but they were not the arts that give a lad settlement and put money in his purse.”
“The hot young head, man! He would have cured,” said the old man, sewing hard. “Think of it,” said he: “was ever a more humoursome fellow to walk a glen with? His songs, his stories, his fast jump at one's meaning, and his trick of leaving all about him in a good key with themselves and him. Did ever one ask a Saxon shilling from his purse that it was not a cheery gift if the purse held it?”