Ye're a far better
judge than any Maclaren in Balwhidder: 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 music 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.

"Robin Oig," he said, when it was done, "ye are a great piper. I am not
fit to blow in the same kingdom with ye. Body of me! ye have more music
in your sporran than I have in my head! And, though it still sticks in
my mind that I could show ye another of it with the cold steel, I warn
ye beforehand--it'll no be fair! It would go against my heart to haggle
a man that can blow the pipes as you can!"

Thereupon the quarrel was made up. All night long the pipes were
changing hands, and the day had come pretty bright before Robin as much
as thought upon the road.

Robert Louis Stevenson: "Kidnapped."

BEGA

From the clouded belfry calling
Hear my soft ascending swells,
Hear my notes like swallows falling:
I am Bega, least of bells.
When great Turkeful rolls and rings
All the storm-touched turret swings,
Echoing battle, loud and long.
When great Tatwin wakening roars
To the far-off shining shores,
All the seamen know his song.
I am Bega, least of bells;
In my throat my message swells.
I, with all the winds athrill,