mell the sweet
fragrance of the new warm milk she was straining into the pans. The
air was heavy with the scent of clover, the world was very peaceful,
but very sad.

And then, out of the soft murmurs of the summer night, there grew a
strange new sound. At first it seemed merely a movement of the air, a
peculiar thrilling vibration. But gradually it grew into a note, a
high, weird musical note, alluring, electrifying. Scotty raised his
head from the grass. "What's that, Grandaddy?" he asked sharply. Big
Malcolm did not answer; he was sitting bolt upright, alert, tense,
listening as if for his life. For a moment the sound faded away, there
was a wondering silence. And then, suddenly, a little pine-scented
breeze came sweeping up from Lake Oro; and on it, high, clear,
entrancing, commanding, came again that wild penetrating call--the
bagpipes! playing up gloriously the MacDonalds' pibroch!

Big Malcolm leaped to his feet. It was the first time he had heard
that sound since it came ringing to him over the heather moors of his
native land. The pipes! The pipes on the hills of Oro! There was
neither prophecy nor precept, no, nor iron bands that could have held
him at that moment. With a wild outpouring of Gaelic, he sprang
forward, overturning the bench and the water-bucket by the doorstep;
and, coatless and hatless, went tearing across the fields and down the
road in obedience to that imperative call.

"Granny, Granny!" cried Scotty, running indoors in alarm, "what's gone
wrong with Grandaddy, will he be gone daft?"

Granny raised her hands in amazement and stood listening.

"Eh, eh!" she cried, "it will be the pipes! Och, och, lad, things will
be going wrong with Grandaddy now!"

The great day, the 12th of July, dawned radiant in sunshine like any
other Canadian summer day. Mr. Nash had made tremendous preparations
for his guests. He had his family up long before dawn and by dint of
much fluency of language, for which he was famous, managed by eleven
o'clock to have the banquet in readiness. Tables were set in the
dining-room and barroom, which two chambers constituted the ground
floor of the hotel proper. The lean-to kitchen at the back was
steaming with all the good things Mrs. Nash and her daughters and the
assisting neighbours had prepared; and by half-past eleven the host, in
a clean shirt and his Sunday trousers, stood on the front step ready to
receive with due ceremony the expected company.