But I was obstinate, having enough occasion for my own.
"Hoots, man, dinna gang—it's early yet."
"But I really feel that I must go. I would sooner hear it some other time." At my own funeral, I meant. "Besides, Mr. M'Phatter, the bagpipes always influence me strangely. They give me such a feeling of the other world as kind of unfits me for my work."
Whereupon Donald let me go. As I fled along the lane I watched him holding the thing still in his hand, and I feared even yet lest it might slip its leash.
But I have been thankful ever since that Donald did not ask me which other world I meant.
XII
"By That SAME TOKEN"
This was the first step towards the return of the M'Phatter family to St. Cuthbert's Church. I waited patiently, stepped carefully, and endured cheerfully every hardship, from the bagpipes down; but all the time I had before my mind that triumphant day when Donald and his household would once more walk down the kirk's spacious aisle, like the ransomed of the Lord who return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads.