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Here he paused, for there was a distinct movement of surprise among his audience, which till now, had remained to a man so still that the buzz of a fly on the window-pane sounded almost as loud as the drone of a bag-pipe, then with a faint smile on his lips he resumed, "I hope you all heard my words distinctly! I said, the false position I have attained among you.
These fellows come in pairs, one only, properly speaking, being the zampognaro, for it is he who carries the zampogna or classical bag-pipe of Southern Italy, whilst his companion is the cennamellaro, so called from his ear-splitting instrument, the cennamella, a species of primitive flute.
Suddenly there was a sound of hurrying footsteps with an accompanying one of broad Scotch oaths in no low key. A lackey carrying a bag-pipe rushed into the room and out again without noticing its occupant.
The picture would here be complete if it were set off with here and there a meagre and dried up highlander, without shoes, stockings or breeches, with a ragged plaid, a little blue flat bonnet, sitting on a bleak rock playing a bag-pipe, and singing the glories of a country that never was conquered!
The first day the riveter was employed, the whole camp made excuses to come and listen to it. They stood round it in groups, deafened and thrilled and a little homesick. What the bag-pipe is to the Scotchman, the steel-riveter is to the American the instrument which best expresses his soul to a world which is different.
The word in time slunk into the dictionaries of musical terms as descriptive of a drone bass. Many of Gluck's ballet airs bear the title, Musette. Perhaps the bass was even performed on a bag-pipe.... "Mal frequenté" in Parisian argot has a variety of significations; in this particular instance it suggested apaches to me.
Then the tune changed into the skirling bag-pipe lilt all Highlanders love and which we who know not the Gaelic profanely call "Weel may the keel row" and Tonald got down to his finest work.
The leader had a voice like the pleasant droning of a bag-pipe, and the faculty of emitting a continuous note like that instrument, without stopping to breathe. It went on and on like a Bach fugue, winding and whining its way, turning the corners of the lines of the catch without a break.
Tom had placed it affectionately under his arm like a bag-pipe and failed, with even a most energetic squeeze, to extract a drop; there was no nothing for it but to go to rest, and indeed it seemed the most prudent thing for the party.
The men sang alone and the women followed, in an alternating chant that at times rose into a wail and again had the nasal sound of a bag-pipe. The Catholic chants sung thus in Marquesan took on a wild, barbaric rhythm that thrilled the blood and made the hair tingle on the scalp. Bishop David le Cadre appeared in elegant vestments, his eyes grave above a foot-long beard, and the mass began.
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