Fair day in the town, and cattle roved about the street, bellowing, the red and shaggy fellows of the moors, mourning in Gaelic accent and with mild large eyes pondering on the mysteries of change. Behind them went the children, beating them lightly on the flanks with hazel wands, imagining themselves travellers over the markets of the world, and others, the older ones, the bolder ones, went from shop to shop for farings, eating, as they went, the parley-man and carvey-cake of the Fair day. Farmers and shepherds gossiped and bargained on the footpaths or on the grass before the New Inns; the Abercrombie clattered with convivial glass and sometimes rose the chorus to a noisy ditty of Lorn. Old Brooks, with his academy shut for holiday, stood at the Church corner with a pocket full of halfpence for his bairns, and a little silver in his vest for the naughty ones he had thrashed with the ferule and grieved for. “To be good and clever is to be lucky enough,” he said; “I must be kind to my poor dunces.” Some of them, he saw, went with his gift straight to Marget Maclean’s. “Ah,” he said, smiling to himself, “they’re after the novelles! I wish Virgil was so much the favourite, or even the Grammarian.” All in the pleasant sunshine the people walked abroad on the plain-stones; a piper of the company of Boboon the wanderer, with but two drones to his instrument, played the old rant of the clan as Duke George went past on a thoroughbred horse. “Do you hear yon?” asked the Paymaster, opening the parlour window to let in that mountain strain his brother loved so truly. The Cornal cocked an ear, drew down shaggy brows on his attention, and studied, musingly, the tune that hummed from the reeds below. “‘Baile Inneraora’!” said he. “I wish it was ‘Bundle and Go.’ That’s the tune now for Colin Campbell, for old Colin Campbell, for poor Colin Campbell who once was young and wealthy. I’ve seen the day that rant would set something stirring here “--and he struck a bony hand upon his breast “Now there’s not a move”--and he searched still with fingers above his heart. “Not a move! There’s only a clod inside where once there was a bird.” He stood with his head a little to the side, listening to the piper till the tune died, half accomplished, at a tavern door. Then the children and the bellowing kine had the world to themselves again. The sound of carriage wheels came from the Cross, and of the children calling loud for bridal bowl-money. “What’s that?” asked the Cornal, waking from his reverie; and his brother put his head out at the window. He drew back at once with his face exceeding crimson. “What is’t?” said the Cornal, seeing his hesitation. “A honeymoon pair,” said the brother, and fumbled noisily with the newspaper he had in his hand. “Poor creatures! And who is it? Though I never get over the door you’ll tell me nothing.” The Paymaster answered shortly. “It’s the pair from Maam,” said he, and back to his paper again.