Piper

“ Maurice Connor, the blind piper, could play an air which could set every thing, alive or dead, capering. In what way he learned it is not known. At the very first note of that tune the brogues began shaking upon the feet of all who heard it, old or young; then the feet began going, going from under them, and a last up and away with them, dancing like mad, whisking here, there, and every where, like a straw in a storm: there was no halting while the music lasted. ”

“ Enter ANSELM the priest, with a little acolyte,—the two bearing a large illuminated Gospel-book. ANSELM, eyeing the PIPER gravely, opens the book, which the boy supports on his head and shoulders.
PIPER
Ho, 't is too heavy! Come, you cherub-head,
Here's too much laid upon one guardian angel!
[Beckons another small boy, and sets the book on their two backs.
Well?—well? What now?
[He looks in frank bewilderment at the eager crowd.
CROWD
Read, read!
KURT
He cannot read.
PIPER
[to ANSELM]
Turn—turn—there's nothing there.
[ANSELM turns pages. PIPER looks on blankly]
. . . ”

“ Out come the children: little ones in night gowns; bigger ones, with playthings, toy animals, dolls. He pipes, gayer and louder. They pour in, right and left. Motion and music fill the air. The PIPER lifts JAN to his shoulder (dropping the little crutch) and marches off, up the street at the rear, piping, in the midst of them all. ”

“ Hearken.—You, Michael, on to Rudersheim—
MICHAEL
And leave her here? No, no!
PIPER
Then take the girl.
BARBARA
To Rudersheim? No, never, never!
PIPER
Well . . .
Hearken.—There is the hermit, over the hill.
[Apart, wildly]
But how—suppose she will not marry him?
I will not take her where the children are.
And yet—
[An idea strikes him. To her]
Hark, now;—hark, now, and tell me truly;
Can you spin cloth?
BARBARA [amazed] I? Spin?
PIPER [eagerly] Can you make shoes? ”

“ Listen
XV.
So, Willy, let me and you be wipers
Of scores out with all men—especially pipers!
And, whether they pipe us free from rats or from mice,
If we've promised them aught, let us keep our promise! ”

“ There were tinkers with their carts of shining tins, as ugly and quarrelsome fellows as ever beat each other to death in a ditch, and there were the powerful men, 216 with the tight mouths, and the eyes that could judge a beast, and the dark, handsome women from the mountains. To crown all, a piper came into the town by the other end, and his music was enough to put the blood like a mill-race through your heart. The music of the piper, I think, would have made the beasts walk out of the fair on their hind legs, if the music of the fiddler didn’t charm them to be still. ”

“ The Strollers huddle together, with looks of renewed anxiety and wretchedness.—Their laughter at the Children breaks out forlornly now and then.—The PIPER shepherds the Children, but with watchful eyes and ears toward the entrance always. —His action grows more and more tense. ”

“ And the whisky was never made that could hurt a piper.” This, too, passed into a proverb—“As fou as a piper”—but however true it may have been in one generation it has nowadays no more than a figurative meaning. Pipers now are as much in the public eye as ever they were, but they are matter-of-fact people, who have their livings to make and their characters to uphold. They are therefore neither over proud, over jealous, nor over jolly. They have fitted themselves into nineteenth century circumstances, and do not care how much the public eye is upon them. ”

“ But how, then, did the piper come to be buried in Duntroon?
“THE CAMPBELLS ARE COMING” dates so far back in the centuries that we fail to trace its origin. It has been the march of the clan for hundreds of years. There is an old Gaelic song sung to the air, which tradition says was the composition of a piper. This piper, in the course of his vocation, was at a wedding in Inveraray, where he was inhospitably treated. ”

“ The root of the myth is this: the piper is no other than the wind, and ancients held that in the wind were the souls of the dead. All over England the peasants believe still that the spirits of unbaptized children wander in it, and that the wail at their doors and windows are the cries of the little souls condemned to journey till the last day. The ancient German goddess Hulda was ever accompanied by a crowd of children’s souls, and Odin in his wild hunt rushed over the tree-tops, accompanied by the scudding train of brave men’s spirits. ”

“ The piper is, first and last, a fighting man; and when a regiment is mobilised it at once loses most of its pipers. Whatever the strength of the band may have been in peace time, only the "sergeant piper"—a hideous official term for the pipe major—and five "full" pipers are normally retained as such. ”

“ But I fancy myself they have been listening to the magic music of the old Pied Piper, and perhaps with those bright eyes of theirs have even seen his odd, fantastic figure gliding unnoticed through the whirl and throng.
Even we grown-up children hear his piping now and then. But the yearning notes are very far away, and the noisy, blustering world is always bellowing so loud it drowns the dreamlike melody. One day the sweet, sad strains will sound out full and clear, and then we too shall, like the little children, throw our playthings all aside and follow. ”

“ Well, my lad, keep the music that is so sweet and dear in your secret heart, but don't try to make yourself a piper by profession; for if you do, one of two things will happen. Either you will never make your bagpipes say what the wind and the brook whisper in your ear, or you will become such a fine and delicate musician that all the petty pipers in the countryside will pick a quarrel with you and prevent you from getting custom. ”

“ PIPER
[to himself]
'T is Hans the Butcher.
[To the Children]
Well, what did he say?
HANSEL 'Come home, come home, come home!' But I didn't go. I don't know where. . . Oh, what a funny dream!
ILSE
Mine was a bad dream!—Mine was a lovely lady
And she was by the river, staring in.
PIPER
You were the little gold-fish, none could catch.
Oh, what a funny dream! . . .
[Apart, anxiously]
No Michael yet.
[Aloud]
Come, bread and broth! Here—not all, three at a time;
'T is simpler. Here, you kittens. Eat awhile;
Then—
[RUDI wakes.] ”

“ On Christmas night the pipers came into the mess. They had piped the regiment across many a hot place in France and escorted bombing parties down many a German trench. In one action four out of the eight were hit and two killed. They touch a chord deep down somewhere which no doubt has its proper scientific name. The eye of the piper which conceals his gladness, denying all rapture, is a key to the undemonstrative temper of the men who would rather die than throw up their bonnets and shout. ”

“ There is not one
Old huddler-by-the-fire would shift his seat
To a cold corner, if it might bring back
All of the Children in one shower of light!
VERONIKA
The old, ah, yes! But not—
PIPER
The younger men?
Aha! Their pride to keep the name alive;
The name, the name, the little Hamelin name,
Tied to the trade;—carved plain upon his gravestone!
Wonderful! If your name must chain you, live,
To your gaol of a house, your trade you love not,—why,
Best go without a name, like me!—How now?
Woman,—you suffer? ”

“ I once knew a side-show man who bent iron bars between his teeth and who summoned stout men from his audience to swing upon the bar, but I cannot believe that he has discharged the bawling rascal at his door. I rather choose to think that the piper was one of those self-same artists who, on lesser days, squeeze comic rubber faces in their fingers, or make the monkey climb its predestined stick.
Be this as it may, presently the piper hit on a persuasive tune and I abandoned all thought of the Noah's ark—my errand of the morning for my nephew—and joined the crowd that followed him. ”

“ I get thinking sometimes if the Pied Piper is really dead, or if he may not still be roaming up and down our streets and lanes, but playing now so softly that only the children hear him. Why do the little faces look so grave and solemn when they pause awhile from romping, and stand, deep wrapt, with straining eyes? They only shake their curly heads and dart back laughing to their playmates when we question them. ”

“ But it is because the song harks back to the time when one good piper was a man to be revered, and a hundred in one place a gathering to be dreaded—if they were all there of one accord—that it continues to hold its own. It expresses something of the grandeur that was attached to the national music, when the clan piper was second only to the chief in importance, and the pibroch as much a part of the clan life as the fiery cross, so it is accepted as the one outstanding bit of song that helps to keep alive the traditional glory of the Great Highland Bagpipe. ”

“ On and on he played and played until the tide went down, and each master rat sank deeper and deeper in the slimy ooze of the harbour, until every mother's son of them was dead and smothered.
The tide rose again, and the Piper stepped on shore, but never a rat followed. You may fancy the townfolk had been throwing up their caps and hurrahing and stopping up rat-holes and setting the church bells a-ringing. But when the Piper stepped ashore and not so much as a single squeak was to be heard, the Mayor and the Council, and the town-folk generally, began to hum and to ha and to shake their heads. ”

“ Then the poem tells the history of the competitions, the piper deducing his origin from Colin of Gallowshiels, who bore the identical bagpipe at the battle of Harlaw with which he himself was resolved to maintain the glory of the piper race. The second book commences with the following exquisite description of the instrument:—
“Now in his artful hand the bagpipe held,
Elate the piper wide surveys the field;
O’er all he throws his quick, discerning eyes,
And views their hopes and fears alternate rise. ”

“ He ever dies within the year
Some dire untimely death."
So it is with him who meets "Piper Jock."
"By Jove," interrupted the golfing "Johnny," "has anyone seen him lately?"
"I only know of one man," I said, who told me that one awful night in a heavy thunderstorm he had heard wild pipe music, and seen the figure of a curiously dressed piper walking along the cliff edge, where no mortal could walk, at a furious speed." ”

“ Like fire-flies! Will-o'-the-wisps!
And make believe we're hiding, all the way,
Till we come out into a sunny land,—
All vines and sunlight, yes, and men that sing!
Far, far away—forever.
[Gives ILSE a bowl to feed the other children]
[JAN pipes a measure of the Kinder-spell, brokenly. The PIPER turns.
So! Thou'lt be
My master, some day. Thou shalt pipe for me.
JAN [piping] Oh, wasn't that one beautiful?—Now you! ”

“ The piper as a man of peace has been and still is closely concerned with every side of the social life of the Highland people, but his name is not writ nearly so large on history’s page as is that of the piper as a man of war. In Whistlebinkie we have verses by Alex. A. Ritchie, which illustrate the attachment of the Irish piper to his pipes, and which, for lack of a better opening, may be inserted here. They are too good to leave out altogether ”

“ A Culloden incident—Ancient Celts in battle—The harper and bard superseded—First mention of pipes in battle—First regimental pipers—In the navy—Prince Charlie’s pipers—An “instrument of war”—A Mac Crimmon incident—Power of pipes in battle—A Magersfontein incident—Byron’s tribute—Position in actual battle.
Professor Aytoun in these cynically humorous lines, from the “Bon Gaultier Ballads,” would have us believe that the piper was more important in times of war than the actual fighting man. ”

“ It reminds us of the dancing bear, or the organ and the monkey of our own day. Whatever the piper might think of himself, people seemed disposed to think the worst of him, and innumerable petty offences were laid to his charge. In 1570 three St. Andrews pipers were admonished to keep the Sabbath day holy, to attend sermon, and to abstain from playing on the streets after supper or during the night. ”

“ They were trained from childhood to the use of the pipes, and grew up as retainers of the family, whose services no chief would dare to dispense with. They were often sent by their employers to the great masters of Highland music for instruction, and when they were old they 147acted as mediums through which all that was best in Celtic lore and music was passed down to future generations. The piper was, in the days of his splendour, a living exhibition of his clan’s glory and greatness. Every chief had a piper. ”

“ The tears from his eyes at the sound of your piping!
Though many may term you infestive,
Discordant, or dull, as they please,
Or say that your skirls are suggestive
Of pigs being bitten by bees;
There's nought so exciting, for marching or fighting,
As sounds that your chanter produces;
No strains so entrancing, for dining, or dancing,
Or similar uses!
In peace or in war, for civilian or 'sniper,'
There's nothing on earth like the pipes of the Piper! ”

“ Three days of rest, your worships, you have had.
I see no signs of famine hereabout.
The rats are gone, even to the nethermost tail:
And I've fulfilled my bargain. Is it granted?
[Murmurs, then cheers of "Ay, Ay, PIPER!" from the crowd.
Thank 'ee.—My thousand guilders, an you please.
JACOBUS
One thou—Come, come! This was no sober bargain.—
No man in reason could—
PIPER
One thousand guilders.
KURT
One thousand rogueries!
JACOBUS [to PIPER] You jest too far.
AXEL
Lucky, if he get aught!—Two hundred traps,
And nine, and thirty! By Saint Willibald,
When was I paid? ”