Was the sinister prophecy of John the Piper to be fulfilled? Mackenzie
was so much engaged in expounding politics to Ingram, and Sheila was
so proud to show her companion all the wonders of Uig, that when they
returned to Mevaig in the evening the wind had altogether gone down
and the sea was as a sea of glass. But if John the Piper had been
ready to foretell for Mackenzie the fate of Mackrimmon, he had taken
means to defeat destiny by bringing over from Borvabost a large
and heavy boat pulled by six rowers. These were not strapping young
fellows, clad in the best blue cloth to be got in Stornoway, but
elderly men, gray, wrinkled, weather-beaten and hard of face, who sat
stolidly in the boat and listened with a sort of bovine gaze to the
old hunchback's wicked stories and jokes. John was in a mischievous
mood, but Lavender, in a confidential whisper, informed Sheila that
her father would speedily be avenged on the inconsiderate piper.

"Come, men, sing us a song, quick!" said Mackenzie as the party took
their seats in the stern and the great oars splashed into the sea of
gold. "Look sharp, John, and no teffle of a drowning song!"

In a shrill, high, querulous voice the piper, who was himself pulling
one of the two stroke oars, began to sing, and then the men behind
him, gathering courage, joined in an octave lower, their voices being
even more uncertain and lugubrious than his own. These poor fishermen
had not had the musical education of Clan-Alpine's warriors. The
performance was not enlivening, and as the monotonous and melancholy
sing-song that kept time to the oars told its story in Gaelic, all
that the English strangers could make out was an occasional reference
to Jura or Scarba or Isla. It was, indeed, the song of an exile shut
up in "sea-worn Mull," who was complaining of the wearisome look of
the neighboring islands.