While he was thus engaged, however, Duncan, either that his poor stock of patience was now utterly exhausted, or that he fancied a signal given, compressed of a sudden his full-blown waiting bag, and blasted forth such a wild howl of the pibroch, that more than one of the ladies gave a cry and half started from their chairs. The marquis burst out laughing, but gave orders to stop him--a thing not to be effected in a moment, for Duncan was in full tornado, with the avenues of hearing, both corporeal and mental, blocked by his own darling utterance. Understanding at length, he ceased with the air and almost the carriage of a suddenly checked horse, looking half startled, half angry, his cheeks puffed, his nostrils expanded, his head thrown back, the port vent still in his mouth, the blown bag under his arm, and his fingers on the chanter,--on the fret to dash forward again with redoubled energy. But slowly the strained muscles relaxed, he let the tube fall from his lips, and the bag descended to his lap. “A man forbid,” he heard the ladies rise and leave the room, and not until the gentlemen sat down again to their wine, was there any demand for the exercise of his art. Now whether what followed had been pre-arranged, and old Duncan invited for the express purpose of carrying it out, or whether it was conceived and executed on the spur of the moment, which seems less likely, I cannot tell, but the turn things now took would be hard to believe, were they dated in the present generation. Some of my elder readers, however, will, from their own knowledge of similar actions, grant likelihood enough to my record. While the old man was piping, as bravely as his lingering mortification would permit, the marquis interrupted his music to make him drink a large glass of sherry; after which he requested him to play his loudest, that the gentlemen might hear what his pipes could do. At the same time he sent Malcolm with a message to the butler about some particular wine he wanted. Malcolm went more than willingly, but lost a good deal of time from not knowing his way through the house. When he returned he found things frightfully changed. As soon as he was out of the room, and while the poor old man was blowing his hardest, in the fancy of rejoicing his hearers with the glorious music of the highland hills, one of the company--it was never known which, for each merrily accused the other--took a penknife, and going softly behind him, ran the sharp blade into the bag, and made a great slit, so that the wind at once rushed out, and the tune ceased without sob or wail. Not a laugh betrayed the cause of the catastrophe: in silent enjoyment the conspirators sat watching his movements. For one moment Duncan was so astounded that he could not think; the next he laid the instrument across his knees, and began feeling for the cause of the sudden collapse. Tears had gathered in the eyes that were of no use but to weep withal, and were slowly dropping.