against the
windows, all in the attitude of waiting, inspired the musician to
greater effort. He shifted his chanter a bit, put more wind into it,
and burst into a gayer and faster tune, and when he reached the bit of
sidewalk opposite the door of the Methodist church, he whirled about,
with a flirt of his kilt and a flip of his plaid, swept up the steps,
through the open door and went screaming up the church aisle right to
the pulpit steps, fairly raising the roof to the tune of "Hey! Johnnie
Cope, are ye waukin' yet?"

And all the while this terrible mishap was occurring, the Choir in the
hall farther down the street, just at the moment when all was going as
ill as human affairs could go, was singing in false security, "All's
Well!"

When Trooper and Duke, waiting admiringly in the middle of the road,
saw their charge suddenly disappear into the pitfall of the Methodist
church, they stood paralysed for one dreadful moment, like men who had
seen the earth open and swallow everything upon which they had set
their hearts. Then Trooper gave a terrific yell, the war whoop he had
learned on the prairie, and turned and looked at his companion in
disaster. Duke was beyond uttering even a yell. He collapsed silently
upon the grass by the roadside, and rolled back and forth in a kind of
convulsion, while Trooper staggered to the fence and hung limply over
it like a wet sack. And all the while inside the hall higher and
stronger and more confident, swelled the words of the chorus in
dreadful irony, "All's Well, All's Well!"

Nobody could ever quite explain how the Piper got ejected from the
church and transferred to the hall where he belonged. There were so
many conflicting reports.

Some said that Mr. Wylie gave him a solemn talking to upon the error of
his position, and the visiting minister upon the error of his ways,
being under the impression that he and old Peter had been drinking,
which, strange to say, was really not the case. Others declared that
the Piper did not stop playing long enough for any one to speak, but
went roaring up one aisle to come screeching down the other. No one
seemed quite clear on the subject, for the Methodists were too angry to
speak of the affair coherently and for a long time it was not safe to
ask them about it.

But upon one part of the history all eye-witnesses, except the Piper
himself, were agreed, and that was that Mrs. Johnnie Dunn left her seat
and chased the Piper down