Young Folks Paper Issue 815

"Robin took the pipes, and proceeded to imitate and correct some part of Alan's variations. Taking them up from the beginning, he worked them throughout to so new a purpose, with such ingenuity and sentiment, and with so odd a fancy and so quick a knack in the grace-notes, that I was amazed to hear him." 

-----Young Folks, no. 815, p. 17

Illustration in Literary Context

The illustration of Boucher's in issue 815 depicts a scene in the story when Alan and Robin are going back and forth playing songs on the bagpipes. This scene in particular is important to the cultural history of Scotland following the Jacobite rebellion because it demonstrates how the rebels use music to keep the Highlander spirit alive during the Disarming Acts. One of the pieces played during this scene is a pibroach by Robin that was "peculiar to the Appin Stewarts and a chief favourite with Alan" (Young Folks, no. 815, p. 19). This specific tune is important because it lifts the spirits of Alan in a time where Alan is labeled as fugitive for a murder that was centered around the reclamation of suppressed Highlander values by unwanted rulers. Overall, this illustration gives the readers an idea of what bagpipes look like. Furthermore, the illustration encapsulates the rebellious spirit of the bagpipes and underscores the amusing nature of the bagpipe duel due to the fact that the expressions on Alan and Robin's faces are very serious for such a small stakes competition. 

Bagpipes

Following the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, the controversial use of bagpipes became synonymous with Scottish culture. Even though there is not a significant amount "of evidence of the proscription of the bagpipe music in the Disarming Act," there has been an extended discussion among scholars as to the banning of bagpipes and subsequent decrease in prevalence of the bagpipes (Jiřincová). Musicologist Francis Collinson wrote that, “the middle of the eighteenth century brought a crisis in the history of the Scottish Highland bagpipe – a crisis, that might well have ended its existence as the national instrument” (Gibson 30). Even though the bagpipes were in danger of extinction in Scottish culture towards the end of the eighteenth century, the Highland regiments preserved the traditional bagpipes, which allowed the bagpipes to endure and become "a symbol of the whole of Scotland" (Jiřincová). Therefore, this illustration by Boucher not only highlights the bagpipes as a symbol of Scottish culture, but it also depicts how the Jacobites kept the rebellious nature of Scottish Highlander culture alive in a time of suppression.