sails and put out from the stone quay. As for John the Piper, was he
insulted at having been sent on a menial errand? They had scarcely got
away from the shore when the sounds of the pipes was wafted to them
from the hillside above, and it was the "Lament of Mackrimmon" that
followed them out to sea:

Mackrimmon shall no more return,
Oh never, never more return!

That was the wild and ominous air that was skirling up on the
hillside; and Mackenzie's face, as he heard it, grew wroth. "That
teffle of a piper John!" he said with an involuntary stamp of his
foot. "What for will he be playing _Cha till mi tuilich?_"

"It is out of mischief, papa," said Sheila--"that is all."

"It will be more than mischief if I burn his pipes and drive him out
of Borva. Then there will be no more of mischief."

"It is very bad of John to do that," said Sheila to Lavender,
apparently in explanation of her father's anger, "for we have given
him shelter here when there will be no more pipes in all the Lewis.
It wass the Free Church ministers, they put down the pipes, for there
wass too much wildness at the marriages when the pipes would play."

"And what do the people dance to now?" asked the young gentleman, who
seemed to resent this piece of paternal government.

Sheila laughed in an embarrassed way.