eatest pleasure. Surely that sin has
been atoned for; I have suffered for it as no tongue can tell. The world
needeth a new Dante, to write a new _Inferno_, with the bagpipes thrown
in. Then will that sombre picture of future suffering be complete. I
make no reckless charge against those aforesaid instruments of music,
facetiously so called. The bagpipes are a good thing in their place, but
their place is with Dante and his _Inferno_.

They have survived only as bulldogs survive, from perverted sentiment,
and mal-educated taste. For the Scotsman is the most sentimental among
men, stubbornly and maliciously and relentlessly sentimental. The
bagpipes are a legacy from the grim testament of war, and the savage
breath of other days belches through them yet. Ah me! with what secret
pride I hear again far other music wafted from my native Emerald Isle!
Nor can I well conceal my joy that the emblem of Ireland, despised and
rejected though she be, is the sweetest-tongued of all music-making
things in this vale of tears. For her, no lion, tempest-crowned, for her
no prowling bear, for her no screaming eagle--but the harp, mellifluous
and tender. And although its liquid strain hath for centuries been
touched by sorrow, yet there hath been music in its voice for all the
happier listening world, and the day draweth near, please God, when its
unfleeting joy shall descend and rest on her own fields and meadows,
making glad the hearts within her humble cottages, whose only wealth is
love.

But Donald's fervent passion for this warlike weapon of his fathers was
unrestrained by thoughts of other lands. Had any man suggested that
Irish music was superior, he would doubtless have bidden him begone and
dwell with other lyres. Such suggestion I did not dare to make. On the
contrary, I smiled as he fondled his windy octopus, which he did with
mysterious tenderness. Then he adjusted the creature to his lips, while
I calmly braced myself for the gathering storm.

I had not long to wait. He paced dramatically back and forward for a
minute in a preliminary sort of way, like one who pushes his shallop
from the shore, gently pressing the huge belly of the thing with his
elbow as if to prompt it for the ensuing fray. The thing emitted one or
two sample sounds, not odious particularly, but infantile and grimly
prophetic, like the initial squeaks of some windful babe awaking from
its sleep. Then the thing seemed to feel its strength, to recognize i