The next evening was the date of the concert, and excitement ran high. When Trooper and Marmaduke had visited the Piper they had made elaborate arrangements for his entry into Orchard Glen. He was to stay with old Peter McNabb, a relative who lived about half-a-mile above the village, until the hour for the concert had almost arrived, then he was to come sweeping down the hill, when the crowds were gathering, and march playing into the hall where he would open the proceedings. And if he did not sweep all the folks around the Methodist church back into the hall with him, then Trooper had missed his guess. Piper Lauchie was a true Highlander, with a love of the dramatic, and he fell in with the arrangements with all his heart. The Dunn farm was just next to Old Peter's house, so early in the afternoon Trooper went over and ascertained to his satisfaction that Lauchie was there, with his pipes in fine tune. The two old men were smoking and telling tales of pioneer days on the shores of Lake Simcoe, with as much zest as if they were relating them for the first time instead of the forty-first. So, with everything so well arranged, there was seemingly no cause for anxiety, and not the most pessimistic Methodist could have prophesied disaster. The evening of October first was bright and warm, and at an early hour the rival crowds began to gather; the worshippers and the revellers, Mr. Wylie designated them in a remark made afterwards to Mr. Sinclair, a remark the Presbyterian minister did not forget in a few weeks. The Methodist church, which was up on the slope of the hill, began to fill slowly and the Temperance hall, down near the store corner, rapidly. A group of young men lingered at the door of the hall with their usual inability to enter a meeting until a few minutes after the hour of starting. There was also a small group at the door of the Methodist church farther up the hill. They were not the customary loungers, but a small self-appointed committee of the Methodist fathers on the outlook for any of the flock who might stumble into the pitfall of the Temperance hall on their way to church. The visiting minister drove into the village, passed the hall in a whirl of dust, and hurried into the church. Dusk was falling, the lamps were lit in both gathering places and the light shone from the windows. It was now on the eve of eight o'clock, in another moment the meeting on the hill would open, and the Piper had not yet appeared. Marmaduke and Trooper, consulting in the middle of the street where there was a view of the hill up as far as the Lindsay gate, were growing anxious. It would be quite too bad if, after all their plans, the Piper should fail them. Trooper was for going after the missing musician, but Duke counselled patience. He fancied he saw a figure on the hill now and any moment they might hear the pipes.