It was a orrid, nasty, dirty, mean trick
that.'
"'Betty,' said I, 'I won't ear a word hagin him: he is the best friend
I ever had, but I won't tell him, if you wish it.'
"'Well,' said Betty, and she bust out crying for joy, for she can cry
at nothing, amost. 'Look, Tom, here's twenty Napoleons, I found them
quilted in that officer's elmet.' So after all, I got out of that
scrape pretty well, didn't I, Sir?"
"Indeed she did," said Peter, "but if she had seen as much of wolves
as Peter McDonald has she wouldn't have been much frightened by them.
This is the way to scare a whole pack of them;" and stooping down and
opening a sack, he took out the bagpipes, and struck up a favourite
Highland air. If it was calculated to alarm the animals of the forest,
it at all events served now to recall the party, who soon made their
appearance from the moose-yard. "Tat," said Peter, "will make 'em
scamper like the tevil. It has saved her life several times."
"So I should think," said I. (For of all the awful instruments that
ever was heard that is the worst. Pigs in a bag ain't the smallest
part of a circumstance to it, for the way it squeals is a caution to
cats.) When the devil was a carpenter, he cut his foot so bad with an
adze, he threw it down, and gave up the trade in disgust. And now that
Highlanders have given up the trade of barbarism, and become the
noblest fellows in Europe, they should follow the devil's example, and
throw away the bagpipes for ever.
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