and drink;
I'll follow you."

Each ate a small portion of the ham and drank a glass of the brose to
Mrs. Maclaren; and then after a great number of civilities, Robin took
the pipes and played a little spring in a very ranting manner.

"Ay, ye can, blow" said Alan; and taking the instrument from his rival,
he first played the same spring in a manner identical with Robin's; and
then wandered into variations, which, as he went on, he decorated with
a perfect flight of grace-notes, such as pipers love, and call the
"warblers."

I had been pleased with Robin's playing, Alan's ravished me.

"That's no very bad, Mr. Stewart," said the rival, "but ye show a poor
device in your warblers."

"Me!" cried Alan, the blood starting to his face. "I give ye the lie."

"Do ye own yourself beaten at the pipes, then," said Robin, "that ye
seek to change them for the sword?"

"And that's very well said, Mr. Macgregor," returned Alan; "and in the
meantime" (laying a strong accent on the word) "I take back the lie. I
appeal to Duncan."

"Indeed, ye need appeal to naebody," said Robin. "Ye're a far better
judge than any Maclaren in Balquhidder: for it's a God's truth that
you're a very creditable piper for a Stewart. Hand me the pipes." Alan
did as he asked; and Robin proceeded to imitate and correct some part of
Alan's variations, which it seemed that he remembered perfectly.

"Ay, ye have music," said Alan, gloomily.

"And now be the judge yourself, Mr. Stewart," said Robin; and taking up
the variations from the beginning, he worked them throughout to so new a
purpose, with such ingenuity and sentiment, and with so odd a fancy and
so quick a knack in the grace-notes, that I was amazed to hear him.

As for Alan, his face grew dark and hot, and he sat and gnawed his
fingers, like a man under some deep affront. "Enough!" he cried. "Ye can
blow the pipes--make the most of that." And he made as if to rise.

But Robin only held out his hand as if to ask for silence, and struck
into the slow measure of a pibroch. It was a fine piece of music in
itself, and nobly played; but it seems, besides, it was a piece peculiar
to the Appin Stewarts and a chief favourite with Alan. The first notes
were scarce out, before there came a change in his face; when the time
quickened, he seemed to grow restless in his seat; and long before that
piece was at an end, the last signs of his anger died from him, and he
had no thought but for the music.

"R