“A great player? Yes and no. He has the fingers and the notes, but he iss not the beeg man. It iss the soul that breathes through the chanter. The soul!” Here he gripped Cameron by the arm. “Man! it iss like praying. A beeg man will neffer show himself in small things, but when he will be in communion with his Maker or when he will be pouring out his soul in a pibroch then the beegness of the man will be manifest. Aye,” continued the piper, warming to his theme and encouraged by the eager sympathy of his listener, “and not only the beegness but the quality of the soul. A mean man can play the pipes, but he can neffer be a piper. It iss only a beeg man and a fine man and, I will venture to say, a good man, and there are not many men can be pipers.”
“Aye, Mr. Sutherland,” broke in the Reverend Alexander Munro, “what you say is true, but it is true not only of piping. It is true surely of anything great enough to express the deepest emotions of the soul. A man is never at his best in anything till he is expressing his noblest self.”
“For instance in preaching, eh!” said Dr. Kane.
“Aye, in preaching or in political oratory,” replied the minister.
At this, however, the old piper shook his head doubtfully.
“You do not agree with Mr. Munro in that?” said the M.P.P.
“No,” replied Sutherland, “speaking iss one thing, piping iss another.”
“And that is no lie, and a mighty good thing too it is,” said Dr. Kane flippantly.
“It iss no lie,” replied the old piper with dignity. “And if you knew much about either of them you would say it deeferently.”
“Why, what is the difference, Mr. Sutherland?” said Dr. Kane, anxious to appease the old man. “They both are means of expressing the emotions of the soul, you say.”