"What better are we for that? It would be all the same if he did forget us!" growled a young fellow shambling along without shoes.
"Shame! Shame!" cried several voices. "Has not God left us the
Macruadh? Does he not share everything with us?"
"The best coat in the clan is on his own back!" muttered the lad, careless whether he were heard or not.
"You scoundrel!" cried another; "yours is a warmer one!"
The chief heard all, and held his peace. It was true he had the best coat!
"I tell you what," said Donal shoemaker, "if the chief give you the stick, not one of us will say it was more than you deserved! If he will put it into my hands, not to defile his own, I will take and give it with all my heart. Everybody knows you for the idlest vagabond in the village! Why, the chief with his own hands works ten times as much!"
"That's how he takes the bread out of my mouth—doing his work himself!" rejoined the youth, who had been to Glasgow, and thought he had learned a thing or two.
The chief recovered from his impulse to pull off his coat and give it him.
"I will make you an offer, my lad," he said instead: "come to the farm and take my place. For every fair day's work you shall have a fair day's wages, and, for every bit of idleness, a fair thrashing. Do you agree?"
The youth pretended to laugh the thing off, but slunk away, and was seen no more till eating time arrived, and "Lady Macruadh's" well-filled baskets were opened.