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At their approach the mountain had opened a little, and the bagpiper had gone in with them, after which it had closed again. Only the three little ones who told the adventure had remained outside, as if by a miracle.
'They are all there, replied friend Blanchet. 'And how many were they? 'Nine hundred and ninety thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine. 'Well reckoned? 'Well reckoned. 'Then go and join them, old sire, and au revoir. Then the old white rat sprang in his turn into the river, swam to the whirlpool and disappeared. When the bagpiper had thus concluded his business he went to bed at his inn.
"Now, by two-headed Janus, Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time; Some that will ever more peep through their eyes, And laugh like parrots at a bagpiper; And others of such vinegar aspect, That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile, Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable." The next forenoon Nicholas and his son left the inn in good time to keep their appointment.
Fancy the sufferings of a creature so built and strung in a world which creaks so vilely on its hinges as this! Will such a man confront a dun with an imperturbable countenance? Will he throw himself back in his chair and smile blandly when his chamber is lanced through and through by the notes of a street bagpiper?
"And he stooped down and filled it with water, and took a mouthful, and then makin' a face like a frog afore he goes to sing, and swellin' his cheeks out like a Scotch bagpiper, he spit it all out. Sais he, 'That is so warm, it makes me sick; and as I ain't otherwise well, from the celestial exhaustion of a protracted meetin', I believe I will take a little drop, as medicine.
'Madam, I have learned of no wandering harper: your ladyship means mistress Amanda's Welsh song! shall I call her? said Dorothy, disappointed. 'I mean thee, and thy song, thou green linnet! rejoined lady Margaret. 'What song was it of which I said to thee that the singer deserved, for his very song's sake, that whereof he made his moan? Whence thou hadst it, from harper or bagpiper, I care not.
"Nay," said the minstrel, "I am no highland bagpiper or genealogist, to carry respect for my art so far as to quarrel with a man of worship who stops me at the beginning of a pibroch. I am an Englishman, and wish dearly well to my country; and, above all, I must speak the truth. But I will avoid disputable topics.
His chicane, his left-handed wisdom, which stood so firmly by him, to such good purpose, here, like other accomplices in robbery and plunder, will, now the piratical business is blown, in all probability turn king's evidences, and then the devil's bagpiper will touch him off "Bundle and go!"
'Oh, we do so want to see the Swedish prisoners! said the child to Conrad, who happened to be passing on the way to his mother's house. 'One of them has such a dreadful great beard, Dollie continued; 'I am sure he must be General Wrangel's bagpiper. Only think, if he had his pipes here, he could play to us! Just peep in there; sometimes one of them comes to the window and looks up at us.
They do not know what learning may lead to, and what a pity it would be if they could no longer be greedy, or ill-natured, or selfish. What would become of us all in such a case? We made a very long story of the stomach last time, my dear child; and, after all, I see that there was one thing I forgot to tell you viz., what it is like. Have you ever seen a bagpiper, I wonder?
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