"We want no music," said the Master, abruptly.
"Your honour disna ken what ye're refusing, then," said the fiddler,
with the impertinent freedom of his profession. "I can play, 'Wilt thou
do't again,' and 'The Auld Man's Mear's Dead,' sax times better than
ever Patie Birnie. I'll get my fiddle in the turning of a coffin-screw."
"Take yourself away, sir," said the Marquis.
"And if your honour be a north-country gentleman," said the persevering
minstrel, "whilk I wad judge from your tongue, I can play 'Liggeram
Cosh,' and 'Mullin Dhu,' and 'The Cummers of Athole.'"
"Take yourself away, friend; you interrupt our conversation."
"Or if, under your honour's favour, ye should happen to be a
thought honest, I can play (this in a low and confidential tone)
'Killiecrankie,' and 'The King shall hae his ain,' and 'The Auld Stuarts
back again'; and the wife at the change-house is a decent, discreet
body, neither kens nor cares what toasts are drucken, and what tunes
are played, in her house: she's deaf to a'thing but the clink o' the
siller."
The Marquis, who was sometimes suspected of Jacobitism, could not help
laughing as he threw the fellow a dollar, and bid him go play to the
servants if he had a mind, and leave them at peace.
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