I will not try to describe the devilish look, mingled of contempt and hate, that possessed the countenance of the midwife as, with head erect and eyes looking straight before her, she obeyed the command. Caley, white as death, trembled and tottered, nor dared once look up as she followed her companion to their appointed hell. Whether they made it pleasant for each other my reader may debate with himself. Before many months had gone by, stared at and shunned by all, even by Miss Horn's Jean, driven back upon her own memories, and the pictures that rose out of them, and deprived of every chance of indulging her dominant passion for mischievous influence, the midwife's face told such a different tale that the schoolmaster began to cherish a feeble hope that within a few years Mrs. Catanach might get so far as to begin to suspect that she was a sinner--that she had actually done things she ought not to have done. One of those things that same night Malcolm heard from the lips of Duncan--a tale of horror and dismay. Not until then did he know, after all he knew concerning her, what the woman was capable of. At his own entreaty, Duncan was formally recognized as piper to the marquis of Lossie. His ambition reached no higher. Malcolm himself saw to his perfect equipment, heedful specially that his kilt and plaid should be of Duncan's own tartan of red and blue and green. His dirk and broadsword he had new sheathed, with silver mountings. A great silver brooch with a big cairngorm in the centre took the place of the brass one, which henceforth was laid up among the precious things in the little armory, and the badge of his clan in gold, with rubies and amethysts for the bells of the heather, glowed on his bonnet. And Malcolm's guests, as long as Duncan continued able to fill the bag, had to endure as best they might, between each course at every dinner without fail, two or three minutes of uproar and outcry from the treble throat of the powerful Lossie pipes. By his own desire, the piper had a chair and small table set for him behind and to the right of his chief, as he called him: there he ate with the family and guests, waited upon by Davy, part of whose business it was to hand him the pipes at the proper moment, whereupon he rose to his feet--for even he with all his experience and habitude was unable in a sitting posture to keep that stand of pipes full of wind--and raised such a storm of sound as made the windows tremble. A lady guest would now and then venture to hint that the custom was rather a trying one for English ears, but Clementina would never listen to a breath against Duncan's music. Her respect and affection for the old man were unbounded.