And so on, representing herself as waiting in solitude for her persecuted kindred, and saying that as they had not returned they must either be at Loch Fyne—as when she last heard of them—or far away in the glens of the mist, hunting and fishing, and compelled to pass the night in some poor hut, where she had previously left some things for them. After a prayer for their safety— “May the King of the Universe save you for ever From the flash of the bullet and the store of the quiver, From the keen-pointed knife, with the life-blood oft streaming, From the edge of the sharp claymore, terribly gleaming,” she concluded with expressions of her own sadness on account of their dangers. The enemies stopped outside her cottage and listened to the song, and believing it to be from the singer’s heart—as it was, but not in the way they supposed—they passed on without disturbing her, and her husband and sons were saved. The Gaelic proverb, “The apprentice surpasses his master,” or “THE APPRENTICE SURPASSES THE MAC CRIMMON,” is associated with two tunes. There was to be a piping competition at Dunvegan at which pipers from all parts of the country were to be present. The leading Mac Crimmon of the day, the head of the college— “Professor” he would now be called—and a nephew of his had “entered,”—if that formality was necessary in these days—and Mac Crimmon had taught his nephew all he himself knew, with the exception of one tune, which he hoped would give him the lead in the competition. The two of them, man and boy, on their way to Dunvegan, slept one night at a wayside inn, sharing a bed. When the old man slept he dreamed of the morrow, and in his dreams he seized the boy’s arm and fingered on it the notes of the special tune he had reserved for himself. The youth was smart enough to realise that this meant something, and also smart enough to commit the notes to memory as his uncle fingered them on his arm. When the competition began he stepped out first and immediately played his uncle’s tune, and carried off the principal honours of the day. Then, the story goes, the people began to speak of _An gille ‘toirt bàrr air Mac Crimmon_—the lad that surpasses the Mac Crimmon.