“It would be the tripling,” said the Macnaghton, stroking a reed with a fond hand.
“Maybe. Tripling is ill enough, but what is tripling? There is more in piping than brisk fingers. Am I not right, Paruig?” “Right, oh! right. The Lost Piobaireachd asks for skilly tripling, but Macruimen himself could not get at the core of it for all his art.”
“You have heard it then!” cried Gilian.
The blind man stood up and filled out his breast.
“Heard it!” he said; “I heard it, and I play it—on the feadan, but not on the full set. To play the tune I mention on the full set is what I have not done since I came to Half Town.”
“I have ten round pieces in my sporran, and a bonnet-brooch it would take much to part me from; but they're there for the man who'll play me the Lost Piobaireachd” said Gilian, with the words tripping each other to the tip of his tongue.
“And here's a Macnaghton's fortune on the top of the round pieces,” cried Rory, emptying his purse on the table.
The old man's face got hot and angry. “I am not,” he said, “a tinker's minstrel, to give my tuning for bawbees and a quaich of ale. The king himself could not buy the tune I ken if he had but a whim for it. But when pipers ask it they can have it, and it's yours without a fee. Still if you think to learn the tune by my piping once, poor's the delusion. It is not a port to be picked up like a cockle on the sand, for it takes the schooling of years and blindness forbye.”
“Blindness?”
“Blindness indeed. The thought of it is only for the dark eye.”