The men, tossing the caber and hurling the clachncart against the sun beyond the peat-bog, paused in their stride at the chanter’s boast, jerked the tartan tight on their loins, and came over to listen; the women, posting blankets for the coming sheiling, stopped their splashing in the little linn, and hummed in a dream; and men and women had mind of the days that were, when the Glen was soft with the blood of men, for the Stewarts were over the way from Appin.
“God’s splendour! but he can play too,” said the piper’s son, with his head areel to the fine tripling.
Then Paruig pushed the bag further into his oxter, and the tune changed. He laid the ground of “Bodaich nam Briogais,” and such as knew the story saw the “carles with the breeks” broken and flying before Glenurchy’s thirsty swords, far north of Morven, long days of weary march through spoiled glens.
“It’s fine playing, I’ll allow,” said the blind man’s son, standing below a saugh-tree with the bag of his bannered pipes in the crook of his arm. He wore the dull tartan of the Diarmaids, and he had a sprig of gall in his bonnet, for he was in Black Duncan’s tail. “Son of Paruig Dali,” said the Chief seven years ago come Martinmas, “if you’re to play like your father, there’s but Dunvegan for you, and the schooling of Patrick Macruimen.” So Tearlach went to Skye – cold isle of knives and caves – and in the college of Macruimen he learned the piob-mhor. Morning and evening, and all day between, he fingered the feadan or the full set – gathering and march, massacre and moaning, and the stately salute. Where the lusty breeze comes in salt from Vatemish across Loch Vegan, and the purple loom of Uist breaks the sunset’s golden bars, he stood on the braes over against Borearaig and charmed the grumbling tide. And there came a day that he played “The Lament of the Harp-Tree,” with the old years of sturdy fight and strong men all in the strain of it, and Patrick Macruimen said, “No more, lad; go home: Lochow never heard another like you.” As a cock with its comb uncut, came the stripling from Skye.
“Father,” he had said, “you play not ill for a blind man, but you miss the look on the men’s faces, and that’s half the music. Forbye, you are old, and your fingers are slow on the grace-notes. Here’s your own flesh and blood can show you fingering there was never the like of anywhere east the Isles.”
The stepmother heard the brag. “A pheasain!” she snapped, with hate in her peat-smoked face. “Your father’s a man, and you are but a boy with no heart for a long day. A place in Black Duncan’s tail, with a gillie to carry your pipes and knapsack, is not, mind ye, all that’s to the making of a piper.”
Tearlach laughed in her face. “Boy or man,” said he, “look at me! north, east, south, and west, where is the one to beat me? Macruimen has the name, but there were pipers before Macruimen, and pipers will come after him.”
“It’s maybe as you say,” said Paruig. “The stuff’s in you, and what is in must out; but give me cothrom na Feinne, and old as I am, with Finne’s chance, and that’s fair play, I can maybe make you crow less crouse. Are ye for trying?”
“I am at the training of a new chanter-reed,” said Tearlach; “but let it be when you will.”
They fixed a day, and went out to play against each other for glory, and so it befell that on this day Paruig Dali was playing “The Glen is Mine” and “Bodaich nam Briogais” in a way to make stounding hearts.
Giorsal snapped her fingers in her stepson’s face when her husband closed the crunluadh of his piobaireachd.
“Can you better it, bastard?” snarled she.
“Here goes for it, whatever!” said Tear-lach, and over his back went the banner with its boar’s head sewn on gold. A pretty lad, by the cross! clean-cut of limb and light of foot, supple of loin, with the toss of the shoulder that never a decent piper lacked. The women who had been at the linn leaned on each other all in the soft larch-scented day, and looked at him out of deep eyes; the men on the heather arose and stood nigher.
A little tuning, and then
“Is comadh leam’s comadh leam, cogadh na sithe,
Marbhar ‘sa chogadh na crochar’s an t-sith mi.”
“Peace or war!” cried Giorsal, choking in anger, to her man – “peace or war! the black braggart! it’s an asp ye have for a son, goodman!”
The lad’s fingers danced merry on the chanter, and the shiver of something to come fell on all the folk around. The old hills sported with the prancing tune; Dun Corrbhile tossed it to Drimfem, and Drimfern sent it leaping across the flats of Kilmune to the green corries of Lecknamban. “Love, love, the old tune; come and get flesh!” rasped a crow to his mate far off on misty Ben Bhreac, and the heavy black wings flapped east. The friendly wind forgot to dally with the pine-tuft and the twanging bog-myrtle, the plash of Aora in its brown linn was the tinkle of wine in a goblet. “Peace or war, peace or war; come which will, we care not,” sang the pipe-reeds, and there was the muster and the march, hot-foot rush over the rotting rain-wet moor, the jingle of iron, the dunt of pike and targe, the choked roar of hate and hunger, batter and slash and fall, and behind, the old, old feud with Appin!
Leaning forward, lost in a dream, stood the swank lads of Aora. They felt at their hips, where were only empty belts, and one said to his child, “White love, get me yon long knife with the nicks on it, and the basket-hand, for I am sick of shepherding.” The bairn took a look at his face and went home crying.
And the music still poured on. ‘Twas “I got a Kiss o’ the King’s Hand” and “The Pretty Dirk,” and every air better than another. The fairy pipe of the Wee Folk’s Knowe never made a sweeter fever of sound, yet it hurt the ears of the women, who had reason to know the payment of pipers’ springs.
“Stop, stop, O Tearlach og!” they cried; “enough of war: have ye not a reel in your budget?”
“There was never a reel in Boreraig,” said the lad, and he into “Duniveg’s Warning,” the tune Coll Ciotach heard his piper play in the west on a day when a black bitch from Dunstaffnage lay panting for him, and his barge put nose about in time to save his skin.
“There’s the very word itself in it,” said Paruig, forgetting the taunting of Giorsal and all but a father’s pride.
‘Twas in the middle of the “Warning” Black Duncan, his toe on the stirrup, came up from Castle Inneraora, with a gillie-wet-foot behind, on his way to Lochow.
“It’s down yonder you should be, Sir Piper, and not blasting here for drink,” said he, switching his trews with his whip and scowling under black brows at the people. “My wife is sick of the clarsach and wants the pipes.”
“I’m no woman’s piper, Lochow; your wife can listen to the hum of her spinning-wheel if she’s weary of her harp,” said the lad; and away rode the Chief, and back to the linn went the women, and the men to the cabar and the stone, and Tearlach, with an extra feather in his bonnet, home to Inneraora, leafing a gibe as he went, for his father.
Paruig Dali cursed till the evening at the son he never saw, and his wife poisoned his mind.
“The Glen laughs at you, man, from Carnus to Croit-bhile. It’s a black, burning day of shame for you, Paruig Dall!”
“Lord, it’s a black enough day for me at the best!” said the blind man.
“It’s disgraced by your own ill-got son you are, by a boy with no blood on his biodag, and the pride to crow over you.”
And Paruig cursed anew, by the Cross and the Dogs of Lorn, and the White Glaive of Light the giants wear, and the Seven Witches of Cothmar. He was bad though he was blind, and he went back to the start of time for his language. “But Dhé! the boy can play!” he said at the last.
“Oh, amadain dhoill” cried the woman; “if it was I, a claw was off the cub before the mouth of day.”
“Witless