Heard the victim's shrieks and the brutal oaths and curses of the
murderer, followed by the prayer for mercy, and the last dying gurgle of
the corpse.
So they let him practise in the day-time, in the back-kitchen with all
the doors shut; but his more successful passages could generally be heard
in the sitting-room, in spite of these precautions, and would affect his
mother almost to tears.
She said it put her in mind of her poor father (he had been swallowed by
a shark, poor man, while bathing off the coast of New Guinea - where the
connection came in, she could not explain).
Then they knocked up a little place for him at the bottom of the garden,
about quarter of a mile from the house, and made him take the machine
down there when he wanted to work it; and sometimes a visitor would come
to the house who knew nothing of the matter, and they would forget to
tell him all about it, and caution him, and he would go out for a stroll
round the garden and suddenly get within earshot of those bagpipes,
without being prepared for it, or knowing what it was. If he were a man
of strong mind, it only gave him fits; but a person of mere average
intellect it usually sent mad.
There is, it must be confessed, something very sad about the early
efforts of an amateur in bagpipes. I have felt that myself when
listening to my young friend. They appear to be a trying instrument to
perform upon. You have to get enough breath for the whole tune before
you start - at least, so I gathered from watching Jefferson.
He would begin magnificently with a wild, full, come-to-the-battle sort
of a note, that quite roused you. But he would get more and more piano
as he went on, and the last verse generally collapsed in the middle with
a splutter and a hiss.
You want to be in good health to play the bagpipes.
Young Jefferson only learnt to play one tune on those bagpipes; but I
never heard any complaints about the insufficiency of his repertoire -
none whatever. This tune was "The Campbells are Coming, Hooray -
Hooray!" so he said, though his father always held that it was "The Blue
Bells of Scotland." Nobody seemed quite sure what it was exactly, but
they all agreed that it sounded Scotch.
Strangers were allowed three guesses, and most of them guessed a
different tune each time.
Harris was disagreeable after supper, - I think it must have been the
stew that had upset him: he is not used to high living, - so George and I
left him in the boat, and settled to go for a mouch round Henley.
