Some two or three hundred years ago, when the great Clan Campbell was at the height of its power, the estate of Barbreck was owned by a Campbell, who was brother or cousin or something of another Campbell, the neighbouring laird of Craignish. Craignish kept a piper, but Barbreck did not. Barbreck could afford to keep one, but he grudged the expense, and his stinginess in this respect is commemorated in an Argyllshire saying—“What I cannot afford I must do without, as Barbreck did without a piper.” Barbreck one day was on a visit to Craignish, and as he was leaving he met the piper, and said to him—“The New Year is approaching. On New- Year’s Day morning, when you have played the proper salute to my cousin, your master, I wish you would come over to Barbreck and play a New- Year’s salute to me, for, as you know, I have no piper of my own to do it. Come and spend the day with us.” This the piper promised to do, and on New Year’s Day morning, after first playing his master into good humour, he went to Barbreck. He played and played until the laird was in raptures, but the piper became hungry and thirsty, and hinted as much to Barbreck. He got some food, but it was not satisfactory, either in quantity or quality. The drinkables were no better, and long before the sun set the piper was anxious to go home. “Give us one more tune before you go,” said Barbreck. “That I will,” said the piper, and there and then he struck up impromptu _Tigh Bhroinein_—the House of the Miserly One. The following are some of the lines attached to the tune from the very first, whether by the piper himself or by another is not known:— “I was in the house of the miserly one to-day, In the house of the miserly one was I; I went by invitation thither, But I got no sufficiency (of meat or drink). I got a drink of meal gruel there, And got bad barley scones; I got the leg of a hen there, And, by my troth, she was a poor and tough one. This is an invitation that has annoyed me, I will leave this to-night Without (I may say) food or drink I will leave thee, Barbreck; Nor will I return any more To play thee a piobaireachd salute.” The translation is too literal to be poetry, but one can imagine how Barbreck must have felt. He had better have done without that last tune. “OH, THAT I HAD THREE HANDS!”