companions. At last he
said, "Why the teffle does not John the Piper come? Here, you men--you
sing a song, quick! None of your funeral songs, but a good brisk one of
trinking and fighting."

But were not nearly all their songs--like those of all dwellers on a
rocky and dangerous coast--of a sad and sombre hue, telling of maidens
whose lovers were drowned, and of wives bidding farewell to husbands
they were never to see again? Slow and mournful are the songs that the
northern fishermen sing as they set out in the evening, with the
creaking of their long oars keeping time to the music, until they get
out beyond the shore to hoist the red mainsail and catch the breeze
blowing over from the regions of the sunset. Not one of these Habost
fishermen could sing a brisk song, but the nearest approach to it was a
ballad in praise of a dark-haired girl, which they, owning the _Nighean
dubh_, were bound to know. And so one young fellow began to sing, "Mo
Nighean dubh d'fhas boidheach dubh, mo Nighean dubh na treig mi,"[G] in
a slow and doleful fashion, and the others joined in the chorus with a
like solemnity. In order to keep time, four of the men followed the
common custom of taking a pocket handkerchief (in this case an immense
piece of brilliant red silk, which was evidently the pride of its owner)
and holding it by the four corners, letting it slowly rise and fall as
they sang. The other three men laid hold of a bit of rope, which they
used for the same purpose. "Mo Nighean dubh," unlike most of the Gaelic
songs, has but a few verses; and as soon as they were finished the young
fellow, who seemed pleased with his performances, started another
ballad. Perhaps he had forgotten his host's injunction, perhaps he knew
no merrier song, but at any rate he began to sing the "Lament of
Monaltrie." It was one of Sheila's songs. She had sung it the night
before in this very room, and her father had listened to her describing
the fate of young Monaltrie as if she had been foretelling her own, and
scarcely dared to ask himself if ever again he should hear the voice
that he loved so well. He could not listen to the song. He abruptly left
the room, and went out once more into the cool night-air and the
darkness. But even here he was not allowed to forget the sorrow he had
been vainly endeavoring to banish, for in the far distance the pipes
still played the melancholy wail of Lochaber.

Lochaber no more! Lochaber no more!

--that was t