Malcolm, erect behind their visitors, gazed with admiring eyes at every motion of his grandfather. To one who had from earliest infancy looked up to him with reverence, there was nothing ridiculous in the display, in the strut, in all that to other eyes too evidently revealed the vanity of the piper: Malcolm regarded it all only as making up the orthodox mode of playing the pipes. It was indeed well that he could not see the expression upon the faces of those behind whose chairs he stood, while for moments that must have seemed minutes, they succumbed to the wild uproar which issued from those splendid pipes. On an opposite hill-side, with a valley between, it would have sounded poetic; in a charging regiment, none could have wished for more inspiriting battle-strains; even in a great hall, inspiring and guiding the merry reel, it might have been in place and welcome; but in a room of ten feet by twelve, with a wooden ceiling, acting like a drum-head, at the height of seven feet and a half!--It was little below torture to the marquis and Lady Florimel. Simultaneously they rose to make their escape. “My lord an’ my leddy maun be gauin’, daddy,” cried Malcolm. Absorbed in the sound which his lungs created and his fingers modulated, the piper had forgotten all about his visitors; but the moment his grandson’s voice reached him, the tumult ceased; he took the port vent from his lips, and with sightless eyes turned full on Lord Lossie, said in a low earnest voice,-- “My lort, she’ll pe ta craandest staand o’ pipes she efer blew, and proud and thankful she’ll pe to her lort marquis, and to ta Lort of lorts, for ta kift. Ta pipes shall co town from cheneration to cheneration to ta ent of time; yes, my lort, until ta loud cry of tem pe trownt in ta roar of ta trump of ta creat archanchel, when he’ll pe setting one foot on ta laand and ta other foot upon ta sea, and Clenlyon shall pe cast into ta lake of fire.” He ended with a low bow. They shook hands with him, thanked him for his music, wished him good-night, and, with a kind nod to Malcolm, left the cottage. Duncan resumed his playing the moment they were out of the house, and Malcolm, satisfied of his well-being for a couple of hours at least--he had been music-starved so long, went also out, in quest of a little solitude. CHAPTER XXII. WHENCE AND WHITHER? He wandered along the shore on the land side of the mound, with a favourite old book of Scottish ballads in his hand, every now and then stooping to gather a sea-anemone--a white flower something like a wild geranium, with a faint-sweet smell, or a small, short-stalked harebell, or a red daisy, as large as a small primrose; for along the coast there, on cliff or in sand, on rock or in field, the daisies are remarkable for size, and often not merely tipped, but dyed throughout with a deep red.