[THE OLDEST AIR IN THE WORLD]
By Neil Munro
Col Maclean, on two sticks, and with tartan trousers on, came down between the whins to the poles where the nets were drying, and joined the Trosdale folk in the nets' shade. 'Twas the Saturday afternoon; they were frankly idling, the township people—except that the women knitted, which is a way of being indolent in the Islands—and had been listening for an hour to an heroic tale of the old sea-robber days from Patrick Macneill, the most gifted liar in the parish. A little fire of green wood burned to keep the midges off, and it was hissing like a gander.
"Take your share of the smoke and let down your weariness, darling," said one of the elder women, pushing towards the piper a herring firken. Nobody looked at his sticks nor his dragging limb—not even the children; had he not been a Gael himself Maclean might have fancied his lameness was unperceived. He bitterly knew better, but pushed his sticks behind the nets as he seated himself, and seated, with his crutches absent, he was a fellow to charm the eye of maid or sergeant-major.
"Your pipes might be a widow, she's so seldom seen or heard since you came home," said one of the fishermen.
"And that's the true word," answered Col Maclean. "A widow indeed, without her man! Never in all my life played I piob mhor but on my feet and they jaunty! I'll never put a breath again in sheep-skin. If they had only blinded me!"
There was in the company, Margaret, daughter of the bailie; she had been a toddling white-haired child when Col went to France, and had to be lifted to his knees; now she got up on them herself at a jump, and put her arms round his neck, tickling him with her fingers till he laughed.
"Oh bold one! Let Col be!" her mother commanded; "thou wilt spoil his beautiful tartan trews."
"It is Col must tell a story now," said the little one, thinking of the many he used to tell her before he became a soldier.
"It is not the time for wee folks stories," said the mother; "but maybe he will tell us something not too bloody for Sunday's eve about the Wars."