Here are a few good instances of the bravery of pipers in the story of the Peninsular War. At the battle of Assaye, when the Ross-shire Buffs charged, the pipers stood to their posts and kept up their music until they were disabled one after another by the fire of the enemy. At Cuidad Rodrigo, John Mac Lachlan, a piper of the 74th, was among the first to mount the walls. Once there he tuned up and played “The Campbells are coming.” John was a cool as well as a brave man, for when, on the ramparts, a shot penetrated the bag of his pipes, he calmly sat down where he was and repaired the damage, and soon he was up again and playing his comrades on to victory. At Vittoria the 92nd stormed the town, the band playing all the time amid a storm of shot and shell. Napier, in the _History of the Peninsular War_, referring to this, says: “The pipers contributed in no small degree to produce the enthusiasm. They headed the charge, striking up a favourite war tune composed centuries before. Their warlike music inspired their comrades with a fury nothing could resist.... How gloriously did that regiment come forth again to the charge, their colours flying and their pipes playing as if at review.” At Vimiera, George Clark, piper to the 71st, was wounded in the leg by a musket ball as the regiment was advancing. Sitting down, he put his pipes in order, and calling out, “Weel, lads, I am sorry I can gae nae farther wi’ you, but deil hae my saul if ye sall want music,” he struck up a favourite air with the utmost unconcern, and played until victory was secure. This piper afterwards appeared in a competition in the Edinburgh Theatre-Royal (Findlator’s story was but history repeating itself after all), where he was warmly greeted. Whether he was successful history sayeth not, but that he was a good performer is proved by the fact that he was afterwards piper to the Highland Society of London. Charles Mackay made one of his prettiest poems on this piper’s bravery, which, excusing the slip made in speaking of people dancing reels to pibroch music, a slip hardly excusable in Charles Mackay, is worth quoting entire:—