It had grown to be understood between them that the pulmonary conditions of the old piper should be attributed not to his internal, but his external lungs--namely, the bag of his pipes. Both sets had of late years manifested strong symptoms of decay, and decided measures had had to be again and again resorted to in the case of the latter to put off its evil day, and keep within it the breath of its musical existence. The youth’s question, then, as to the behaviour of the pipes, was in reality an inquiry after the condition of his grandfather’s lungs, which, for their part, grew yearly more and more asthmatic: notwithstanding which Duncan MacPhail would not hear of resigning the dignity of town-piper. “That’s fine, daddy,” returned the youth. “Wull I mak oot the parritch? I’m thinkin ye’ve had eneuch o’ hingin’ ower the fire this het mornin’.” “No, sir,” answered Duncan. “She’ll pe perfectly able to make ta parritch herself, my poy Malcolm. Ta tay will tawn when her poy must make his own parritch, an’ she’ll be wantin’ no more parritch, but haf to trink ta rainwater, and no trop of ta uisgebeatha[2] to put into it, my poy Malcolm.” [2] Gaelic for “water of life” (whisky); pronounced “ish-guh-BAY-huh”. His grandson was quite accustomed to the old man’s heathenish mode of regarding his immediate existence after death as a long confinement in the grave, and generally had a word or two ready wherewith to combat the frightful notion; but, as he spoke, Duncan lifted the pot from the fire, and set it on its three legs on the deal table in the middle of the room, adding: “Tere, my man--tere’s ta parritch! And was it ta putter, or ta traicle, or ta pottle o’ peer, she would be havin’ for kitchie tis fine mornin’?” This point settled, the two sat down to eat their breakfast; and no one would have discovered, from the manner in which the old man helped himself, nor yet from the look of his eyes, that he was stone blind. It came neither of old age nor disease--he had been born blind. His eyes, although large and wide, looked like those of a sleep-walker--open with shut sense; the shine in them was all reflected light--glitter, no glow; and their colour was so pale that they suggested some horrible sight as having driven from them hue and vision together. “Haf you eated enough, my son?” he said, when he heard Malcolm lay down his spoon. “Ay, plenty, thank ye, daddy, and they were richt weel made,” replied the lad, whose mode of speech was entirely different from his grandfather’s: the latter had learned English as a foreign language, but could not speak Scotch, his mother-tongue being Gaelic. As they rose from the table, a small girl, with hair wildly suggestive of insurrection and conflagration, entered, and said, in a loud screetch--“Maister MacPhail, my mither wants a pot o’ bleckin’, an’ ye’re to be sure an’ gie her ’t gweed, she says.”