O, tat she hat worts to tolt all here lofe an’ telight She has in ta pagpipes, twoult teuk long, long years to write, Put she’ll shust teuk a trap pefore her task sh’ll pegan, So here’s ta pagpipe, ta kran Hielan’ pagpipe, ta prite o’ ta lan’.” [Illustration: “WHILE BREATHING CHANTERS PROUDLY SWELL.”—_Scott._ _Mr. McSkirliguy_ (_beguiling the time with some cheerful pibrochs on his national instrument_). _Mr. Southdown_ (_travelling north with his Family by the Night Mail_). “Dear, dear, dear! What a Shame they don’t Grease the Wheels of these Carriages! I can’t get a Wink of Sleep! (_Mrs. S. groans in sympathy._) I declare I’ll Complain to the Directors.” BY CHARLES KEENE, Jan. 21, 1871. (Reproduced from _Punch_, by special permission of the Proprietors.) ] CHAPTER XIV. THE HUMOUR OF THE PIPES. “Wha wadna be in love Wi’ bonnie Maggie Lauder? A piper met her gaun to Fife And spiered what was’t they ca’d her; Richt scornfully she answered him, ‘Begone, you hallan shaker: Jog on your gate, you bladder skate, My name is Maggie Lauder.’” —_Old Scots Song._ _Punch’s_ joke—King Charles’s heads—An amusing competition—A Highlander’s Irishism—Wedding experiences—A piper’s fall—A resourceful piper—A Cameron piper and his officer—“Lochaber no more”—An elephant’s objection—Embarked in a tub—Glasgow street scene—Bad player’s strategy—What the wind did—A new kind of tripe—A Pasha and a piper—A Gordon nervous—A jealous piper—Dougal Mac Dougal’s downfall. Apart from the wilfully sarcastic humour exemplified in the previous chapter, there clings round the pipes a host of innocently laughable stories. _Punch_, the recognised pioneer of comic journalism, and always the ablest of that class of papers, has in its day had a number of jokes about the pipes, and, to do the writers and artists justice, they have always been enjoyable, even to the perfervid Scot, and not of the kind which does more to show the ignorance of the inventors than create a laugh. _Punch’s_ humour is broad, but hardly ever offensive, and the picture by Charles Keene, reproduced on another page, may be taken as a fair sample. The drawing, which appeared on January 21st, 1871, shows the best art of the caricaturist wedded to the broadest and yet the most enjoyable humour. Charles Keene, by the way, was himself a performer on the pipes, which he studied thoroughly. On one occasion he was some distance from home seeing a sick friend, and, writing afterwards to London, he said: “My only solace was skirling away for an hour on the lonely beach, and I generally chose the most melancholy pibroch I could think of.” So he can hardly be accused of endeavouring to joke at the expense of the instrument.