This ceremony being requited in kind, the Chieftain made
a signal for the pipes to cease, and said aloud, 'Where is the song
hidden, my friends, that Mac-Murrough cannot find it?'
Mac-Murrough, the family BHAIRDH, an aged man, immediately took the
hint, and began to chant, with low and rapid utterance, a profusion of
Celtic verses, which were received by the audience with all the applause
of enthusiasm. As he advanced in his declamation, his ardour seemed to
increase. He had at first spoken with his eyes fixed on the ground;
he now cast them around as if beseeching, and anon as if commanding,
attention, and his tones rose into wild and impassioned notes,
accompanied with appropriate gestures. He seemed to Edward, who attended
to him with much interest, to recite many proper names, to lament the
dead, to apostrophize the absent, to exhort, and entreat, and animate
those who were present. Waverley thought he even discerned his own name,
and was convinced his conjecture was right, from the eyes of the company
being at that moment turned towards him simultaneously. The ardour of
the poet appeared to communicate itself to the audience. Their wild and
sunburnt countenances assumed a fiercer and more animated expression;
all bent forward towards the reciter, many sprang up and waved their
arms in ecstasy, and some laid their hands on their swords.
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