Most of the old Highland airs were composed on particular occasions, or for the purpose of conveying particular feelings. One, for instance, is designed to express the succession of emotions in the mind of an Ardnamurchan crofter while tilling his soil in an unpropitious season and hesitating whether to emigrate or attempt to pay his landlord the triple rent a rival had offered. Another commemorates the arrival of Prince Charlie at a farmhouse in Skye, where one of his followers was sent forward to see if he was likely to find friends there. To a Highland ear the tune expresses the first hesitating, half-whispered questions of the messenger, then his confidence as he finds the goodwife favourable, and finally his composed feelings on finding that he was among friends. Another was composed on an occasion when the Mac Kenzies attempted to obtain possession of the lands of Mac Donell of Glengarry.[[4]] The chief of the Mac Kenzies had his men and allies assembled at different points, one party being concealed in a church at Beauly, and, tradition says, this church was burned over the heads of a worshipping congregation by friends of the Mac Donells. But the pibroch contradicts this, for when the tune is properly played the listener in fancy hears the flames rustling and blazing through the timbers of the church, mingled with the angry remonstrances and half-smothered shouts of the warriors, but there is no representation of the more feeble plaints of women and children. Had these been among the victims, their cries would surely have formed the burden of the tune.[[5]]
[4]. See Index under Gilliechroist.
[5]. It should be stated that the best authorities now agree that there never was a church burned at the place referred to.
Many other instances of descriptive pipe music are to be found. The pibroch of Daorach Robbi contains the keenest satire ever levelled at the vice of drunkenness. The ludicrous imitation of the coarse and clumsy movements, the maudlin and staring pauses, the helpless imbecility of the drunkard as he is pilloried in the satire with the ever-recurring sneering notes, Seall a nis air (Look at him now) are enough to annihilate any person possessing the least sensibility, who, while hearing them, is conscious of having been in the position described, even for once in his life. Gillidh Callum is a striking contrast to Daorach Robbi. The total abstainer could hardly find a better text than the latter, while the man who advocates temperance only would be strongly supported by the former, which illustrates enlivening virtues of the fruit of the vine without its degrading effects. So with most pipe music. It describes something, and in this respect is second only to the recitative of the bards. It is, of course, necessary that performer and listeners should be Highland themselves. No one who is not versed in the poetry and music of the Highlands can impart to others, or appreciate for himself, the spirit of romance and pathos and love and sorrow and martial sentiment which is in the music, just as no actor can play well unless he enters into the spirit of the play. To the enthusiast for Highland music, the feelings aroused by other instruments are general and undefined, and common to Frenchman, Spaniard, German, or Highlander, but the bagpipe is sacred to Scotland. Gaelic itself has a sentiment that cannot be expressed, and so with its music. It appeals to us, but we cannot express it, and only those who know it understand it.
And now for one or two of these stories where the pipes are alleged to have spoken. The best known is that of A Cholla mo run, or “The Piper’s Warning.”[[6]] The piper and friends were entrapped in Duntroon Castle, while Coll Citto, his master, and his followers were away at Islay, and the enemy laid an ambush to entrap the returning party. The piper one day saw Coll’s boats returning, and he knew that unless something was done they would sail right into the ambush. So he asked leave to go out on to the battlements and play a tune. This was granted, and the piper played extempore music, which to those in the boats meant:—
[6]. See Index under A Cholla mo run.
“Coll, O my dear, dinna come near,
Dinna come near, dinna come near;
Coll, O my dear, dinna come near,
I’m prisoner here, I’m prisoner here.”