Surely it may be, it should be, it must be. Yet ever and ever, Would I were dead, I keep saying, that so I could go and uphold her! No, wherever be Katie, with Philip she is not: behold, for Here he is sitting alone, and these are his words in the mountain. And, at the farm on the lochside of Rannoch, in parlour and kitchen, Hark! there is music—the flowing of music, of milk, and of whisky; Lo, I see piping and dancing! and whom in the midst of the battle Cantering loudly along there, or, look you, with arms uplifted, Whistling, and snapping his fingers, and seizing his gay-smiling Janet, Whom?—whom else but the Piper? the wary precognisant Piper, Who, for the love of gay Janet, and mindful of old invitation, Putting it quite as a duty and urging grave claims to attention, True to his night had crossed over: there goeth he, brimful of music, Like a cork tossed by the eddies that foam under furious lasher, Like to skiff, lifted, uplifted, in lock, by the swift-swelling sluices, So with the music possessing him, swaying him, goeth he, look you, Swinging and flinging, and stamping and tramping, and grasping and clasping Whom but gay Janet?—Him rivalling, Hobbes, briefest-kilted of heroes, Enters, O stoutest, O rashest of creatures, mere fool of a Saxon, Skill-less of philabeg, skill-less of reel too,—the whirl and the twirl o’t: Him see I frisking, and whisking, and ever at swifter gyration Under brief curtain revealing broad acres—not of broad cloth. Him see I there and the Piper—the Piper what vision beholds not? Him and His Honour with Arthur, with Janet our Piper, and is it, Is it, O marvel of marvels! he too in the maze of the mazy, Skipping, and tripping, though stately, though languid, with head on one shoulder, Airlie, with sight of the waistcoat the golden-haired Katie consoling? Katie, who simple and comely, and smiling and blushing as ever, What though she wear on that neck a blue kerchief remembered as Philip’s, Seems in her maidenly freedom to need small consolement of waistcoats!— Wherefore in Badenoch then, far-away, in Lochaber, Lochiel, in Knoydart, Moydart, Morrer, Ardgower, or Ardnamurchan, Wanders o’er mountain and moorland, in shieling or bothie is sleeping, He, who,—and why should he not then? capricious? or is it rejected? Might to the piping of Rannoch be pressing the thrilling fair fingers, Might, as he clasped her, transmit to her bosom the throb of his own—yea,— Might in the joy of the reel be wooing and winning his Katie? What is it Adam reads far off by himself in the cottage? Reads yet again with emotion, again is preparing to answer? What is it Adam is reading? What was it Philip had written? There was it writ, how Philip possessed undoubtedly had been, Deeply, entirely possessed by the charm of the maiden of Rannoch; Deeply as never before! how sweet and bewitching he felt her