THE smell of wet larch was in the air, and Glenaora was aburst to
the coaxing of Spring. Paruig Dali the piper--son of the son of Iain
Mor--filled his broad chest with two men's wind, and flung the drones
over his shoulder. They dangled a little till the bag swelled out, and
the first blast rang in the ear of the morning. Rough and noisy, the
reeds cried each other down till a master's hand held them in check, and
the long soft singing of the _piobaireachd_ floated out among the tartan
ribbons. The grey peak of Drimfern heard the music; the rock that wards
the mouth of Carnus let it pass through the gap and over the hill and
down to the isles below; Dun Corr-bhile and Dunchuach, proud Kilmune,
the Paps of Salachary, and a hundred other braes around, leaned over to
listen to the vaunting notes that filled the valley. “The Glen, the
Glen is mine!” sang the blithe chanter; and, by Finne's sword, Macruimen
himself could not have fingered it better!
It was before Paruig Dali left for Halt Town; before the wars that
scorched the glens; and Clan Campbell could cock its bonnet in the face
of all Albainn. Paruig was old, and Paruig was blind, as the name of him
tells, but he swung with a king's port up and down on the short grass,
his foot firm to every beat of the tune, his kilt tossing from side to
side like a bard's song, his sporran leaping gaily on his brown
knees. Two score of lilting steps to the bumside, a slow wheel on a
brogue-heel, and then back with the sun-glint on the buckles of his
belt.
The men, tossing the caber and hurling the _clachncart_ against the
sun beyond the peat-bog, paused in their stride at the chanter's boast,
jerked the tartan tight on their loins, and came over to listen; the
women, posting blankets for the coming sheiling, stopped their splashing
in the little linn, and hummed in a dream; and men and women had mind
of the days that were, when the Glen was soft with the blood of men, for
the Stewarts were over the way from Appin.
“God's splendour! but he can play too,” said the piper's son, with his
head areel to the fine tripling.
Then Paruig pushed the bag further into his oxter, and the tune changed.
He laid the ground of “Bodaich nam Briogais,” and such as knew the story
saw the “carles with the breeks” broken and flying before Glenurchy's
thirsty swords, far north of Morven, long days of weary march through
spoiled glens.
“It's fine playing, I'll allow,” said the blind man's son, standing
below a saugh-tree with the bag of his bannered pipes in the crook of
his arm. He wore the dull tartan of the Diarmaids, and he had a sprig
of gall in his bonnet, for he was in Black Duncan's tail. “Son of Paruig
Dali,” said the Chief seven years ago come Martinmas, “if you're to play
like your father, there's but Dunvegan for you, and the schooling of
Patrick Macruimen.” So Tearlach went to Skye--cold isle of knives and
caves--and in the college of Macruimen he learned the _piob-mhor_.
Morning and evening, and all day between, he fingered the _feadan_ or
the full set--gathering and march, massacre and moaning, and the stately
salute. Where the lusty breeze comes in salt from Vatemish across Loch
Vegan, and the purple loom of Uist breaks the sunset's golden bars,
he stood on the braes over against Borearaig and charmed the grumbling
tide. And there came a day that he played “The Lament of the Harp-Tree,”
with the old years of sturdy fight and strong men all in the strain of
it, and Patrick Macruimen said, “No more, lad; go home: Lochow never
heard another like you.” As a cock with its comb uncut, came the
stripling from Skye.
“Father,” he had said, “you play not ill for a blind man, but you miss
the look on the men's faces, and that's half the music. Forbye, you are
old, and your fingers are slow on the grace-notes. Here's your own flesh
and blood can show you fingering there was never the like of anywhere
east the Isles.”
The stepmother heard the brag. “_A pheasain!_” she snapped, with hate in
her peat-smoked face. “Your father's a man, and you are but a boy with
no heart for a long day. A place in Black Duncan's tail, with a gillie
to carry your pipes and knapsack, is not, mind ye, all that's to the
making of a piper.”
Tearlach laughed in her face. “Boy or man,” said he, “look at me! north,
east, south, and west, where is the one to beat me? Macruimen has the
name, but there were pipers before Macruimen, and pipers will come after
him.”
“It's maybe as you say,” said Paruig. “The stuff's in you, and what
is in must out; but give me _cothrom na Feinne_, and old as I am, with
Finne's chance, and that's fair play, I can maybe make you crow less
crouse. Are ye for trying?”
“I am at the training of a new chanter-reed,” said Tearlach; “but let it
be when you will.”
They fixed a day, and went out to play against each other for glory, and
so it befell that on this day Paruig Dali was playing “The Glen is Mine”
and “Bodaich nam Briogais” in a way to make stounding hearts.
Giorsal snapped her fingers in her stepson's face when her husband
closed the _crunluadh_ of his _piobaireachd._
“Can you better it, bastard?” snarled she.
“Here goes for it, whatever!” said Tear-lach, and over his back went the
banner with its boar's head sewn on gold. A pretty lad, by the cross!
clean-cut of limb and light of foot, supple of loin, with the toss of
the shoulder that never a decent piper lacked. The women who had been
at the linn leaned on each other all in the soft larch-scented day, and
looked at him out of deep eyes; the men on the heather arose and stood
nigher.