'I'm telling ye, ye're wrang,' said the piper hotly; 'and it iss nonsense ye're talking apoot, Tonald MacTavish!—Though, sir,' again appealing to the stranger's intelligence, 'it iss not muckle that a game-keeper can ken apoot the rearing o' young bulls; they can tell a grouse from a partridge in a stubble-field on a dark nicht, I'll alloo that,' in a tone implying that he conceded the utmost; 'but the rearing o' young bulls iss oot o' their line; and for a man that has nefer peen oot o' his ain county from the tay he wass born till the tay o' his death, to teach anither man wha has peen roond the whole world moreofer wi' his Grace the Teuk—to tell him apoot savages'——
'I alloo,' interrupted Donald with a friendly wave of the hand, having filled and emptied a glass while John was speaking—'I alloo that there iss no petter piper in the county—no, nor in the whole Hielants moreofer, than yoursel', John Cameron; and it iss the Teuk himself I hef heard say as muckle many's the time that; and prood I hef peen to hear it; and I hope it iss to this shentleman and me that ye will pe giving a tune afore we pairt the nicht; but I canna alloo that ye are petter acquaint wi' the subject on hand. And ye can ask Sandy the Deuk's grieve yoursel' apoot it, and he wass in the byre when the bull was calfed, and he will'——
'Teffle a tune ye'll get from me this nicht; and it iss a obstinate mule ye are, Tonald MacTavish, and always wass; and as for Sandy MacIntyre, the Teuk's grieve, it iss all the parish that kens him for a foolish ignorant liar!'
The two men pushed their respective chairs a foot or so farther apart, and looked at each other in no amiable mood. John the piper was a tall thin Celt with fiery eyes, that flamed out from a mass of tangled hair as brown as heather, covering a low square brow; he was of a much more inflammable temperament than his friend, whose high cheek-bones, wide surly mouth, and cheeks that seemed to have gathered black forests of hair at the expense of his crown, which was of the shiny bald order, indicated a vein of Saxon blood in some progenitor, although his accent and fluency in Gaelic proved that he was a native of the west. Under the chair of the piper, Fingal the piper's collie, almost as excitable as his master, lay asleep; and in a corner by the game-keeper's gun, Jet, Donald's placid pointer, lay stretched at full length. Betty laid down her knitting in some trepidation when the argument reached this point, and came in to see if she could not pour oil on the troubled waters. She found the piper on his feet with his bagpipes under his arm, evidently much offended, looking about in the dark for his bonnet.
'It iss anither gless o' whusky ye'll pe taking now, Mr Cameron, pefore ye tak' the road this cauld nicht?'
'And it iss verra pad whusky ye hef peen giving us the nicht, Mrs MacTonald, eneuch to tak' the temper away from any man,' said the piper in his severest tones.
'And ye are quite richt there, Mr Cameron,' said Betty timidly, willing to appease her guest at the expense of her own reputation; 'and it iss myself that iss glad ye mentioned it, for I had to offer ye some o' the Cawm'lton-still the nicht, cass the gentry when they wass on the moor yesterday shooting took every drop o' the rale heather-watter away in their flasks, and left no a drop wi' me. But I'm sure, Mr Cameron, ye'll no pe so angry wi' me as that comes to as to go away angry like that.'
'The whusky iss cood eneuch, if taken wi' a thankful spirit, Mrs MacTonald,' said Mr MacTavish. 'But when a man iss prood and stuck-up cass he has travellet at the heels o' his betters—but the Teuk's dog has done as muckle—while his own neibors have bided at home, he thinks maype that naepody kens the tifference atween a reel and a hornpipe but himself! Gif me another gless, Mrs MacTonald.—Cood-nicht, John; I drink to your petter manners.'
John was at the door, having found his bonnet, but came back to say, shaking his fist in Donald's face: 'It iss an ignorant prute ye are, Tonald MacTavish, and I scorn to pit my fingers upon ye; but nae doot ye'll want me to bring my pipes to the clachan anither nicht; and nae doot your son Angus will pe wanting me to learn him to play the pipes too; and nae doot, when he comes for that purpose, he will look to have his crack wi' Maggie! Ye will live, Tonald, my man, to ken it wass an ill nicht when ye thocht fit to drink to my petter manners!'
With which flourish, wound up by an emphatic and defiant snap of the piper's fore-finger and thumb in close proximity to the nose of the calmer game-keeper, the piper marched with what dignity he could muster, seeing that he carried half a pint of fierce whisky beneath his belt, from the clachan to the pathway across the moor, homewards; and so absorbed was he in cherishing his anger, that he would not indulge himself on his solitary way with one of his favourite Jacobite lilts, lest the sound of the pipes might charm away his wrath. And his collie Fingal followed sadly at his heels.