Walter of Chapelhope had ten acres of as good corn as ever grew in a moor-land district. Davie knew that when he went to his bed the evening before, that corn was all growing in the field, dead ripe, and ready for the sickle; and he had been lamenting that very night that such a crop should be lost for want of reapers, in a season when there was so much need for it. But now Davie saw that one half of that crop at least was shorn during the night, all standing in tight shocks, rowed and hooded, with their ends turned to the south-west.—Well might Davie exclaim, “My sooth, but the Brownie of Bodsbeck has had a busy night!”
Davie thought no more of his five scores of ewes, nor of his prayer, nor the miracle that was to take place in consequence of that, but turned and ran back to Riskinhope as fast as his feet would carry him, to arouse the rest of the people, and apprise them of this wonderful event that had occurred beneath their noses, as he called it. He did so, and all of them rose with wonder and astonishment, and agreed to go across the lake and look at the Brownie’s workmanship. Away they went in a body to the edge of the stubble, but durst not set foot thereon for fear of being affected by enchantment in some way or another; but they saw that the corn had been shorn exactly like other corn, except that it was rather more neat and clean than ordinary. The sheaves were bound in the same way as other bandsters bind them; and in the shocking, the corn-knots were all set outermost. “Weel, is not he a most unaccountable fellow that Brownie of Bodsbeck?” said Davie Tait.
While they were thus standing in a row at the side of the shorn field, wondering at the prowess and agility of Brownie, and trying to make some random calculations of the thousands of cuts that he had made with his hook that night, Katharine went by at a little distance, driving her father’s cows afield and at the same time directing her father’s dog far up the hill to turn the ewes from the Quave Brae. She was dressed in her usual neat morning habit, with a white short-gown, green petticoat, and her dark locks bound up with a scarlet snood; she was scolding and cajoling the dog in a blithsome and good-humoured way, and scarcely bestowing a look on the workmanship of her redoubted Brownie, or seeming to regard it.
“Ay, ye may speel the brae, Keatie Laidlaw,” said Davie Tait, apostrophising her, but shaking his head all the while, and speaking in a low voice, that his fellow-servants only might hear—“Ay, ye may speel the brae, Keatie Laidlaw, an’ drive your ewes an’ your kye where ye like; but wae’s me for ye! Ye hae a weel-faurd face o’ your ain, an’ a mak that’s liker to an angel than a thing o’ flesh an’ blude; but och! what a foul heart ye boud to hae within!—And how are ye to stand the aftercome? There will be a black reckoning with you some day. I wadna that my fit war i’ your shoe the night for a’ the ewes on the Lang Bank.”
Old Nanny went over, as usual, and assisted her to milk the cows, and make the butter and cheese, but spoke no word that day to her young mistress, good or bad. She regarded her with a kind of awe, and often took a long stolen look of her, as one does of a dog that he is afraid may be going mad.
As the people of Riskinhope went home, Dan chanced to say jocularly, “He’s a clever fellow the Brownie—I wish he would come and shear our croft too.”
“Foul fa’ the tongue that said it,” quoth Davie, “an’ the heart that thought the ill! Ye thinkna how easily he’s forespoken. It was but last night I said he hadna wrought to the gudeman for half his meat, an’ ye see what he has done already. I spake o’ him again, and he came in bodily. Ye should take care what ye say here, for ye little ken wha’s hearing. Ye’re i’ the very same predicament, billy Dan, as the tod was in the orchard,—‘Afore I war at this speed,’ quo’ he, ‘I wad rather hae my tail cuttit off,’—he hadna the word weel said before he stepped into a trap, which struck, and snapt off his tail—‘It’s a queer place this,’ quo’ he; ‘ane canna speak a word but it is taen in nettle-earnest.’ I’ the same way is Brownie likely to guide you; an’ therefore, to prevent him taking you at your word, we’ll e’en gang an’ begin the shearing oursels.”
Davie went in to seek out the hooks; he knew there were half-a-dozen lying above the bed in the room where the spirit had been the night before. They were gone! not a sickle was there!—Davie returned, scratching his head, biting his lip, and looking steadily down to the ground. “It hasna been Kirky’s ghost after a’,” said he; “it has been Brownie, or some o’ his gang, borrowing our hooks.”
Davie lost all hope of working any great change in the country by dint of prayer. His faith, which never was great, gave way; but yet he always said, that when he was hasting up to the rash-bush in the little green gair that morning, to pray for the return of his master’s ewes, it was at least equal to a grain of mustard-seed.
About eight days after that, when the moon was in the wane, the rest of Walter’s corn was all cut down in one night, and a part of the first safely stowed in the barnyard. About the same time, too, the shepherds began to smear their flocks at a small sheep-house and fold, built for the purpose up nigh to the forkings of the Chapelhope-burn. It is a custom with them to mix as much tar with grease before they begin as they deem sufficient to smear all the sheep on the farm, or at least one hirsell of them. This the herds of Chapelhope did; but, on the very second morning after they began, they perceived that a good deal of their tar was wanting; and judging that it had been stolen, they raised a terrible affray about it with their neighbours of Riskinhope and Corse-cleuch. Finding no marks of it, old John Hay said, “We must just give it up, callants, for lost; there is nae doubt but some of the fishers about Dryhope has stown it for fish-lights. There are a set of the terriblest poachers live there that’s in all the Forest.”